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Psalm 102:4
My heart is blighted like grass, and withered, for I forget to eat my bread.
2Don’t hide your face from me in the day of my distress. Turn your ear to me. Answer me quickly in the day when I call.
3For my days consume away like smoke. My bones are burned as a torch.
4My heart is blighted like grass, and withered, for I forget to eat my bread.
5By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones stick to my skin.
6I am like a pelican of the wilderness. I have become as an owl of the waste places.
Notice
Forgotten bread makes the withered heart concrete, showing distress so consuming that even the body's need for food slips out of mind.
Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.
What does the comparison to blighted grass express about distress that plain description might miss?
Write on thisWhat happens to your meals when distress takes up most of your attention?
Write on thisConnect
Where else Scripture says this
12 passages readers most often link with this verse, and the thread each one shares with it.
This verse's connections, by chapterThe Bible's strongest chapter linksHover or tap a book to trace it
1 Peter 1:24For, “All flesh is like grass, and all of man’s glory like the flower in the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls;Both use withering grass to describe human frailty, with Peter speaking of all flesh and the psalm describing one person's heart.
Isaiah 40:7The grass withers, the flower fades, because the LORD’s breath blows on it. Surely the people are like grass.Both compare human life to grass that withers, though Isaiah names the LORD's breath and the psalm describes personal distress.
Psalm 37:2For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither like the green herb.Both use grass to picture withering, though Psalm 37 describes what will happen to others and Psalm 102 describes the speaker's heart.
Psalm 109:22for I am poor and needy. My heart is wounded within me.Both speakers describe suffering through the heart: one heart is blighted and withered, and the other is wounded.
Psalm 142:3When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, you knew my route. On the path in which I walk, they have hidden a snare for me.Both describe inward distress, using a withered heart in Psalm 102 and an overwhelmed spirit in Psalm 142.
Ezra 10:6Then Ezra rose up from before God’s house, and went into the room of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib. When he came there, he didn’t eat bread or drink water, for …Both connect sorrow with going without bread, though Ezra mourns the exiles' trespass and the psalmist forgets to eat.
2 Samuel 12:17The elders of his house arose beside him, to raise him up from the earth; but he would not, and he didn’t eat bread with them.Both mention uneaten bread, though the psalm describes forgetting to eat and the narrative describes someone declining food with others.
Psalm 77:3I remember God, and I groan. I complain, and my spirit is overwhelmed. Selah.Both describe inward suffering without reporting relief: a heart withers in Psalm 102, and a spirit is overwhelmed in Psalm 77.
Acts 9:9He was without sight for three days, and neither ate nor drank.Both mention going without food, but Acts describes three days without eating or drinking rather than forgotten bread.
Matthew 26:37–38He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and severely troubled.Both speak of severe inward distress: a withered heart in the psalm and sorrow in Jesus.
1 Samuel 1:7–8So year by year, when she went up to the LORD’s house, her rival provoked her. Therefore she wept, and didn’t eat.Both connect distress with not eating, though Hannah weeps under her rival's provocation and the psalmist describes a withered heart.
Job 10:1“My soul is weary of my life. I will give free course to my complaint. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.Both voice inward suffering without softening it, describing a withered heart and a soul weary of life.
Where this verse fits
Grief. illness or diagnosis. burnout.
One step
Something small to carry out of this verse
Encouragement
Even forgotten bread has a place in prayer to God. The psalm brings bodily need into its cry for help, without hiding how withered the heart feels.
Now put it in your words.
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Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).