Psalm 102:4

4 I am blighted like grass, and my heart is dried up; for I have forgotten to eat my bread.

Psalm 102:4 Meaning and Commentary

Psalms 102:4

My heart is smitten, and withered like grass
Like grass in the summer solstice ^F4, which being smitten with the heat of the sun, or by some blast of thunder and lightning, is dried up, and withers away; so his heart was smitten with a sense of sin, and of God's wrath and displeasure at him, and with the heat of affliction and trouble, that it failed him, and he could not look up with joy and comfort:

so that I forget to eat my bread;
sometimes, through grief and trouble, persons refuse to eat bread, as Jonathan and Ahab, which is a voluntary act, and purposely done; but here, in the psalmist, there was such a loss of appetite, through sorrow, that he forgot his stated meals, having no manner of inclination to food: some understand this of spiritual food, the bread of life, refusing to be comforted with it; so the Targum,

``for I forgot the law of my doctrine.''

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FOOTNOTES:

F4 "Quasi solstitialis herba paulisper fui", Plauti Pseudolus, Act. 1. Sc. 1. v. 36.

Psalm 102:4 In-Context

2 Turn not away thy face from me: in the day when I am afflicted, incline thine ear to me: in the day when I shall call upon thee, speedily hear me.

3 For my days have vanished like smoke, and my bones have been parched like a stick.

4 I am blighted like grass, and my heart is dried up; for I have forgotten to eat my bread.

5 By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bone has cleaved to my flesh.

6 I have become like a pelican of the wilderness;