I eat ashes for food. My tears run down into my drink
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,
- BSB For I have eaten ashes like bread and mixed my drink with tears
- 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
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 day and night, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?”
- Ps 80:5You have fed them with the bread of tears, and given them tears to drink in large measure.
- Job 3:24For my sighing comes before I eat. My groanings are poured out like water.
- Isa 44:20He feeds on ashes. A deceived heart has turned him aside; and he can’t deliver his soul, nor say, “Isn’t there a lie in my right hand?”
- Mic 7:17They will lick the dust like a serpent. Like crawling things of the earth they shall come trembling out of their dens. They will come with fear to Yahweh our God, and will be afraid because of you.
- Mic 1:10Don’t tell it in Gath. Don’t weep at all. At Beth Ophrah I have rolled myself in the dust.
- Ps 69:21They also gave me gall for my food. In my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink.
- Lam 3:48–49My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
- Lam 3:15–16He has filled me with bitterness. He has sated 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.