I am forgotten from their hearts like a dead man. I am like broken pottery.
Parallel translations
- KJV I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.
- BSB I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind. I am like a broken vessel.
- NKJV I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind; I am like a broken vessel.
- NASB I am forgotten like a dead person, out of mind; I am like a broken vessel.
- NLT I am ignored as if I were dead, as if I were a broken pot.
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
David feels forgotten like a dead man, useless like broken pottery. It captures the depth of his sense of abandonment.
Overview
Cast out of others' memory, David likens himself to a shattered, discarded vessel. The imagery conveys utter worthlessness in the eyes of those around him. Yet this lament is brought to God, who never forgets His own, and who in Christ restores the broken.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Ps 88:4–5I am counted among those who go down into the pit. I am like a man who has no help,
- Ps 2:9You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
- Isa 30:14He will break it as a potter’s vessel is broken, breaking it in pieces without sparing, so that there won’t be found among the broken piece a piece good enough to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.”
- Rom 9:21–22Or hasn’t the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor?
- Ps 119:83For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke. I don’t forget your statutes.
- Rev 2:27He will rule them with a rod of iron, shattering them like clay pots; as I also have received of my Father:
- Isa 38:11–12I said, “I won’t see Yah, Yah in the land of the living. I will see man no more with the inhabitants of the world.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 31:12 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.