My eyes fail, looking for Your promise; I ask, “When will You comfort me?”
Parallel translations
- WEB My eyes fail for your word. I say, “When will you comfort me?”
- KJV Mine eyes fail for thy word, saying, When wilt thou comfort me?
- NKJV My eyes fail from searching Your word, Saying, “When will You comfort me?”
- NASB My eyes fail with longing for Your word, While I say, “When will You comfort me?”
- NLT My eyes are straining to see your promises come true. When will you comfort me?
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
His eyes grow weary watching for the fulfillment of God's promise, as he cries, 'When will you comfort me?' Faith here voices honest impatience while still waiting on God.
Overview
The psalmist's longing is so intense that his very eyesight fails from straining for God's promised help. His question 'when?' is not unbelief but the cry of a faith stretched to its limit yet refusing to look elsewhere. Scripture honors such waiting, assuring that the Lord's timing is sure and His comfort certain for those who hope in His word (Hab. 2:3; 2 Cor. 1:3-4).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Ps 69:3I am weary from my crying; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God.
- Ps 119:123My eyes fail, looking for Your salvation, and for Your righteous promise.
- Prov 13:12Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
- Ps 86:17Show me a sign of Your goodness, that my enemies may see and be ashamed; for You, O LORD, have helped me and comforted me.
- Ps 90:13–15Return, O LORD! How long will it be? Have compassion on Your servants.
- Deut 28:32Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, while your eyes grow weary looking for them day after day, with no power in your hand.
- Isa 38:11I said, “I will never again see the LORD, even the LORD, in the land of the living; I will no longer look on mankind with those who dwell in this world.
- Lam 2:11My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.
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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 119:82 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.