Psalms 102:4

Psa 102:4 My heart is smitten, and withered like grass; so that I forget to eat my bread.

Ver. 4. My heart is smitten] Blasted with thine indignation, that ventus urens et exsiccans.

So that I forget to eat my bread] I am stomachless, through want of that heat that my heart should supply.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psa 102:4-7. My heart is withered like grass — Which is smitten and withered by the heat of the sun, either while it stands, or after it is cut down. So that I forget to eat my bread — Because my mind is wholly swallowed up with the contemplation of my own miseries. My bones cleave to my skin — My flesh being quite consumed with excessive sorrow. I am like a pelican in the wilderness — “There are two species of pelicans, one of which lives in the water on fish, the other in the wilderness, upon serpents and reptiles.” The word קאת, kaath, here used, is rendered cormorant, (which is a corruption of corvorant,) Isa 34:11; Zep 2:14. “By the owl of the desert many understand the bittern, and by the bird that sits solitary on the house-top, the owl.” Dr. Waterland and Houbigant, instead of sparrow alone, read the solitary bird; and the latter, for pelican, reads onocrotalus.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

5. (Psa 102:4) Smitten like grass and withered is my heart, for I have forgotten to eat my bread. The first verb is used to describe the effect of the sun on plants, Psa 121:6, Isa 49:10. (Compare Jon 4:7.) The heart is mentioned as the seat of life. The common version of the last clause (so that I forget) is ungrammatical. The failure of the strength is rather described as immediately occasioned by the want of food (1Sa 28:20), and this by loss of appetite from extreme distress. See below, on Psa 107:18, and compare 1Sa 1:7; 1Sa 20:34, 1Ki 21:4. Forgotten to eat, literally forgotten from eating, so as not to eat, a common idiomatic use of the preposition from in Hebrew.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

102:4 Like dried grass, the psalmist senses his life ebbing away.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

My sorrows were so great, that I passed not for mine ordinary food.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 4. 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.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

4 My heart is smitten, and dried up like grass Here he employs a third similitude, declaring that his heart is withered, and wholly dried up like mown grass. But he intends to express something more than that his heart was withered, and his bones reduced to a state of dryness. His language implies, that as the grass, when it is cut down, can no longer receive juice from the earth, nor retain the life and rigor which it derived from the root, so his heart being, as it were, torn and cut off from its root, was deprived of its natural nourishment. The meaning of the last clause, I have forgotten to eat my bread, is, My sorrow has been so great, that I have neglected my ordinary food. The Jews, it is true, during their captivity in Babylon, did eat their food; and it would have been an evidence of their having fallen into sinful despair, had they starved themselves to death. But what he means to say is, that he was so afflicted with sorrow as to refuse all delights, and to deprive himself even of food and drink. True believers may cease for a time to partake of their ordinary food, when, by voluntary fasting, they humbly beseech God to turn away his wrath, but the prophet does not here speak of that kind of abstinence from bodily sustenance. He speaks of such as is the effect of extreme mental distress, which is accompanied with a loathing of food, and a weariness of all things. In the close of the verse, he adds, that his body was, as it were, consuming or wasting away, so that his bones clave to his skin.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(4) Smitten.—As by the sun. Exactly as in Hos_9:16.

So that I forget.—Better, for I have forgotten, &c. For this mark of deep sorrow comp. 1Sa_1:7; 1Sa_20:34, &c. (Comp. Homer, Iliad, xxiv. 129.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

4. My heart is smitten like grass, and withered;

Yea, I forget to eat my bread.

His heart, the centre of vital force and vigour, is dried up like a plant struck by the fierce heat of the sun and withered (Psa_121:6; Hos_9:16). Sorrow and sickness have deprived him of all appetite for food. Cp. 1Sa_1:7-8; Job_33:20.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

By reason of the voice of my groaning,.... Under the burden of sin, and pressure of afflictions:

my bones cleave to my skin; was quite emaciated, reduced to a skeleton, became nothing but skin and bone (e); which sometimes is occasioned, as by outward afflictions, so by soul troubles: or "to my flesh" (f); flesh is put for skin; see Job 19:20.

(e) "Ossa atque pellis sum", Plauti Capteivei, Act. 1. Sc. 2. v. 26. Asinaria 3. 6. v. 28. (f) "carni meae", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, &c.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

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.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Like grass; which is smitten and withered by the heat of the sun, either whilst it stands, or after it is cut down.

I forget to eat my bread, because my mind is wholly swallowed up with the contemplation of my own miseries.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ver. 4. 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.

Ver. 4. 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. Adam Clarke.

Ver. 4. I forget to eat my bread. I have heard of some that have forgotten their own names, but I never heard of any that forget to eat his meat; for there is a certain prompter called hunger that will make a man to remember his meat in spite of his teeth. And yet it is true, when the heart is blasted and withered like grass, such a forgetfulness of necessity will follow. Is it that the withering of the heart is the prime cause of sorrow; at least cause of the prime sorrow; and immoderate sorrow is the mother of stupidity, stupifying and benumbing the animal faculties, that neither the understanding nor the memory can execute their functions? Or is it, that sorrow is so intentire to that it sorrows for, that it cannot intent to think anything else? Or is it, that nature makes account, that to feed in sorrow were to feed sorrow, and therefore thinks best to forbear all eating? Or is it, that as sorrow draws moisture from the brain and fills the eyes with water; so it draws a like juice from other parts, which fills the stomach instead of meat? However it be, it shews a wonderful operation that is in sorrow; to make not only the stomach to refuse its meat, but to make the brain forget the stomach, between whom there is so natural a sympathy and so near a correspondence. But as the vigour of the heart breeds plenty of spirits, which convey to all the parts, gives everyone a natural appetite; so when the heart is blasted and withered like grass, and that there is no more any rigour in it, the spirits are presently at a stand, and then no marvel if the stomach lose its appetite, and forget to eat bread. Sir R. Baker.

Ver. 4. I forget to eat my bread. When grief hath thus dejected the spirits, the man has no appetite for that food which is to recruit and elevate them. Ahab, smitten with one kind of grief, David with another, and Daniel with a third, all forgot, or refused, to eat their bread. 1Ki 21:4; 2Sa 12:16; Da 10:3. Such natural companions are mourning and fasting. Samuel Burder.

Ver. 4. Unbelieving sorrow makes us forget to use proper means for our support.

1. We forget the promises.

2. Forget the past and its expcriences.

3. Forget the Lord Jesus, our life.

4. Forget the everlasting love of God. This leads to weakness, faintness, etc., and is to be avoided.

Psalms 102:5*

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

4. My heart is smitten, and withered like grass—The word here translated “smitten,” in Psa_121:6, denotes a sunstroke. “Withered like grass,” is an allusion to the effect of the sirocco, or, perhaps, to the June sun, which, in that climate, withers the grass upon the hills to a brown and desolate appearance. On the sirocco, see note on Psa_103:16, and on the heat of the sun in May and June, see Mat_13:6.

Forget to eat my bread—The loss of appetite is a natural effect of great sorrow. Psa_107:18; Job_33:20

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

My heart is smitten. As with a stroke from the sun. (see Psa_121:6 Hos_9:16) And withered like grass. As grass upon the house tops, (Psa_129:6) or, indeed, in any exposed place under an Eastern sun. So that I forget to eat my bread; literally, for I forget, etc. The fact is adduced as a proof of the heart"s condition. (comp. Job_33:20 1Sa_1:7 1Sa_20:34, etc.)

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

are dried up Heb. נחרו. The “nun” serves as a prefix, as: נַעֲשׂוּ, they were made, נִקְנוּ, they were acquired; and it is an expression of dryness, as (Job 30:30): “and my bones dried out (חרה) from the heat”; (Jer. 6:29), “the bellows is heated (נחר).”

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.