I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s children.
Parallel translations
- WEB I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s children.
- BSB I have become a stranger to my brothers and a foreigner to my mother’s sons,
- NKJV I have become a stranger to my brothers, And an alien to my mother’s children;
- NASB I have become estranged from my brothers, And a stranger to my mother’s sons.
- NLT Even my own brothers pretend they don’t know me; they treat me like a stranger.
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 has become an estranged stranger even to his own family. It laments the isolation that faithfulness can bring.
Overview
David's devotion has alienated him even from his brothers and his mother's children. Such rejection by one's own is deeply painful. This too was fulfilled in Christ, whose own brothers did not believe in him during his ministry (John 7:5), so that the faithful sufferer of the psalm prefigures the rejected Messiah.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Ps 31:11I was a reproach among all mine enemies, but especially among my neighbours, and a fear to mine acquaintance: they that did see me without fled from me.
- John 1:11He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
- John 7:5For neither did his brethren believe in him.
- Matt 10:35–36For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
- Ps 38:11My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore; and my kinsmen stand afar off.
- Mic 7:5–6Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom.
- Matt 26:70–74But he denied before them all, saying, I know not what thou sayest.
- 1 Sam 17:28And Eliab his eldest brother heard when he spake unto the men; and Eliab’s anger was kindled against David, and he said, Why camest thou down hither? and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart; for thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle.
- Isa 53:3He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
- Job 19:13–19He hath put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me.
- Matt 10:21–22And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death.
- Matt 26:56But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled.
- Matt 26:48–50Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast.
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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 69:8 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.