For I have eaten ashes like bread and mixed my drink with tears
Parallel translations
- WEB For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mixed my drink with tears,
- KJV For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping,
- NKJV For I have eaten ashes like bread, And mingled my drink with weeping,
- NASB For I have eaten ashes like bread, And mixed my drink with weeping
- NLT I eat ashes for food. My tears run down into my drink
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
He eats ashes like bread and mingles his drink with tears. Sorrow has become his daily diet.
Overview
Ashes signify mourning and humiliation, and tears in his drink show ceaseless grief. The psalmist's very sustenance is marked by sorrow. Such language gives faithful expression to deep lament, holding nothing back from God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Ps 42:3My tears have been my food both day and night, while men ask me all day long, “Where is your God?”
- Ps 80:5You fed them with the bread of tears and made them drink the full measure of their tears.
- Job 3:24I sigh when food is put before me, and my groans pour out like water.
- Isa 44:20He feeds on ashes. His deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?”
- Mic 7:17They will lick the dust like a snake, like reptiles slithering on the ground. They will crawl from their holes in the presence of the LORD our God; they will tremble in fear of You.
- Mic 1:10Do not tell it in Gath; do not weep at all. Roll in the dust in Beth-leaphrah.
- Ps 69:21They poisoned my food with gall and gave me vinegar to quench my thirst.
- Lam 3:48–49Streams of tears flow from my eyes over the destruction of the daughter of my people.
- Lam 3:15–16He has filled me with bitterness; He has intoxicated me with wormwood.
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 102:9 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.