Psalms 102:4

4 My heart ¹has been smitten like grass and has ²withered away, Indeed, I ³forget to eat my bread.

Psalms 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.

Psalms 102:4 In-Context

2 Do not hide Your face from me in the day of my distress; Incline Your ear to me; In the day when I call answer me quickly.

3 For my days have been consumed in smoke, And my bones have been scorched like a hearth.

4 My heart has been smitten like grass and has withered away, Indeed, I forget to eat my bread.

5 Because of the loudness of my groaning My bones cling to my flesh.

6 I resemble a pelican of the wilderness; I have become like an owl of the waste places.

Cross References

• 1. Psalms 90:5, 6
• 2. Psalms 37:2; Isaiah 40:7
• 3. 1 Samuel 1:7; 2 Samuel 12:17; Ezra 10:6; Job 33:20

Footnotes

• [a]. Lit "herbage"