Psalms 102:4
in Psalms 102My heart is afflicted, and withered like grass; I even forget to eat my bread.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
My heart is smitten like grass, and withered; For I forget to eat my bread.
KJV
My heart is smitten, and withered like grass; so that I forget to eat my bread.
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This verse in Psalms 102
Commentary
11 notes on this verseI am smitten like grass, and my heart is withered. Just as it is also written elsewhere: 'Man, his days are like grass.' For such is the life of men: it is green, and quickly it withers. Because I have forgotten to eat my bread. He did not say, I had no desire to eat, or I despised eating. To such a degree did the memory of my sins come upon me, and such penance did I do, that I even forget to eat, having my longing set on God, and considering him alone.
This site's exposition
my days vanish like smoke
on Psalms 102:3-7
The body is described first, days going off like smoke and bones burning like coals until he forgets to eat. Then come three birds, a desert owl, an owl among ruins, and a lone bird awake on a roof. Each one is alone, and each place named is empty.
This site's exposition
My heart is afflicted
Afflicted translates a Hebrew verb for being struck. The heart is pictured as grass struck by the sun until it has withered, and the same grass returns in verse 11. Isaiah 40:7 says the grass withers when the breath of the LORD blows on it.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers2 voices
"For I forgot to eat my bread. At the sound of my groaning, my bones stuck to my flesh." I lost appetite for any food, and was completely bereft of my former good condition, my body being consumed by the wasting of discouragement; I am …
Look back to Adam, whence the human race sprung. For how but from him was misery propagated? whence but from him is this hereditary poverty? Let him then, who in his own body was at one time in despair, now that he is set in Christ's body, say with hope, "My heart is smitten down, and withered like grass" (ver. 4). Deservedly, since all flesh is grass. But how did this happen unto thee? "Since I have forgotten to eat my bread." For God had given His commandment for bread. For what is the bread of the soul? The serpent suggesting, and the woman transgressing, he touched the forbidden fruit, he forgot the commandment: his heart was smitten as it deserved, and withered like grass, since he forgot to eat his bread. Having forgotten to eat bread, he drinketh poison: his heart is smitten, and withered like grass. ...Now eat that bread which thou hadst forgotten. But this very Bread hath come, in whose body thou mayest remember the voice of thy forgetfulness, and cry out in thy poverty, so that thou mayest receive riches. Now eat: for thou art in His body, who saith, "I am the living bread which came down from heaven." Thou hadst forgotten to eat thy bread; but after His crucifixion, "all the ends of the earth shall be reminded, and be converted unto the Lord." After forgetfulness, let remembrance come, let bread be eaten from heaven, that we may live; not manna, as they did eat, and died; that bread, of which it is said, "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness."
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
); he had no appetite to his necessary food nor could he relish it. When God hides his face from a soul the delights of sense will be sapless things. He was always sighing and groaning, as one pressed above measure (
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation
My heart is smitten, and withered like grass,....
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
My heart is smitten, like a plant parched by the fierce heat of a tropical sun, and withered like grass, which dries up when once the scythe has laid it low. The psalmist's heart was as a wilted, withered flower, a burned up mass of what once was verdure. His energy, beauty, freshness, and joy, were utterly gone, through the wasting influence of his anguish. So that I forget to eat my bread, or "because I forget to eat my bread."
3 more voices on this verse
The Nineteenth Century3 voices
My heart is smitten, like a plant parched by the fierce heat of a tropical sun, and withered like grass, which dries up when once the scythe has laid it low. The psalmist's heart was as a wilted, withered flower, a burned up mass of what once was verdure. His energy, beauty, freshness, and joy, were utterly gone, through the wasting influence of his anguish. So that I forget to eat my bread, or "because I forget to eat my bread." Grief often destroys the appetite, and the neglect of food tends further to injure the constitution and create a yet deeper sinking of spirit. As the smitten flower no longer drinks in the dew, or draws up nutriment from the soil, so a heart parched with intense grief often refuses consolation for itself and nourishment for the bodily frame, and descends at a doubly rapid rate into weakness, despondency, and dismay. The case here described is by no means rare, we have frequently met with individuals so disordered by sorrow that their memory has failed them even upon such pressing matters as their meals, and we must confess that we have passed through the same condition ourselves. One sharp pang has filled the soul, monopolized the mind, and driven everything else into the background, so that such common matters as eating and drinking have been utterly despised, and the appointed hours of refreshment have gone by unheeded, leaving no manifest faintness of body, but an increased weariness of heart.
My heart is smitten, and withered like grass - The metaphor here is taken from grass cut down in the meadow. It is first smitten with the scythe, and then withered by the sun. Thus the Jews were smitten with the judgments of God; and they are now withered under the fire of the Chaldeans.
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
My heart is smitten - Broken; crushed with grief. We now speak of “a broken heart.” Even death is often caused by such excessive sorrow as to crush and break the heart. And withered like grass - It is dried up as grass is by drought, or as when it is cut down. It loses its support; and having no strength of its own, it dies. So that I forget to eat my bread - I am so absorbed in my trials; they so entirely engross my attention, that I think of nothing else, not even of those things which are necessary to the support of life. Grief has the effect of taking away the appetite, but this does not seem to be the idea here. It is that of such a complete absorption in trouble that everything else is forgotten.
The words behind it
8 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| הוּכָּֽה־ | hukah- | it has been struck | H5221 → | 499 times |
| כָ֭עֵשֶׂב | khaesev | like <the> vegetation | H6212 → | 33 times |
| וַיִּבַ֣שׁ | vaiyivash | and it has withered | H3001 → | 59 times |
| לִבִּ֑י | libi | heart my | H3820 → | 595 times |
| כִּֽי־ | ki- | for | H3588 → | 4482 times |
| שָׁ֝כַ֗חְתִּי | shakhachti | I have forgotten | H7911 → | 102 times |
| מֵאֲכֹ֥ל | meakhol | from eating | H398 → | 810 times |
| לַחְמִֽי׃ | lachmi | food my | H3899 → | 298 times |
הוּכָּֽה־it has been struck
hukah-H5221 →499 times
כָ֭עֵשֶׂבlike <the> vegetation
khaesevH6212 →33 times
וַיִּבַ֣שׁand it has withered
vaiyivashH3001 →59 times
לִבִּ֑יheart my
libiH3820 →595 times
כִּֽי־for
ki-H3588 →4482 times
שָׁ֝כַ֗חְתִּיI have forgotten
shakhachtiH7911 →102 times
מֵאֲכֹ֥לfrom eating
meakholH398 →810 times
לַחְמִֽי׃food my
lachmiH3899 →298 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Psalms 37:2For they wither quickly like grass and wilt like tender plants.
it leads to
- Psalms 92:7
that though the wicked sprout like grass, and all evildoers flourish, they will be forever destroyed.
- Psalms 90:5–6
You whisk them away in their sleep; they are like the new grass of the morning—
- James 1:10–11
But the one who is rich should exult in his low position, because he will pass away like a flower of the field.
- Psalms 37:35–36
I have seen a wicked, ruthless man flourishing like a well-rooted native tree,
- Job 14:2
Like a flower, he comes forth, then withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.
- Psalms 92:7
Through
Ezra 10:6Then Ezra withdrew from before the house of God and walked to the chamber of Jehohanan son of Eliashib. And while he stayed there, he ate no food and drank no water, because he…
it leads to
- Deuteronomy 9:18
Then I fell down before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, as I had done the first time. I did not eat bread or drink water because of all the sin you…
- Deuteronomy 9:18
Through
Acts 9:9For three days he was without sight, and he did not eat or drink anything.
it leads to
- Jonah 3:6–8
When word reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
- 2 Chronicles 33:18–19
As for the rest of the acts of Manasseh, along with his prayer to his God and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of the LORD, the God…
- Jonah 3:6–8
Where this verse is studied
On this page
Studies1
About Psalms
This page draws on 10 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Psalms; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 102; Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David; Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Vol. 4; Jerome, Homily 28, on Psalm 101; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Theodoret of Cyrus, COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS 102:3.