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Psalm 102:5

By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones stick to my skin.

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.
7I watch, and have become like a sparrow that is alone on the housetop.
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← Psalm 102:4Psalm 102:6 →
Notice

Bones sticking to skin make the groaning hard to keep at a distance: the speaker’s distress has become visible in his body.

Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.

What do the words “my bones stick to my skin” make you notice about this speaker’s suffering?

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When has your own distress been felt in your body, as well as heard in your words?

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Connect

Where else Scripture says this

9 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
Romans 8:26In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we don’t know how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with …Both passages speak of groaning amid weakness, though the psalm describes the sufferer’s voice and Romans describes the Spirit’s intercession.
Job 19:20My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh. I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.Job and the psalm’s speaker both describe bones sticking to skin, making bodily wasting part of their testimony of suffering.
Proverbs 17:22A cheerful heart makes good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.Both texts connect inward distress with the condition of the bones, showing suffering that reaches into the body.
Psalm 38:9Lord, all my desire is before you. My groaning is not hidden from you.Groaning appears in both psalms; Psalm 38 adds the assurance that this sound of distress is not hidden from God.
Lamentations 4:8Their appearance is blacker than a coal. They are not known in the streets. Their skin clings to their bones. It is withered. It has become like wood.Both passages describe skin clinging to bones, confronting the reader with the visible wasting of people in distress.
Psalm 32:3–4When I kept silence, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.Both speakers connect groaning with wasting bones, while Psalm 32 also mentions keeping silence.
Psalm 6:8Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity, for the LORD has heard the voice of my weeping.Both psalms describe sorrow with a voice: groaning in Psalm 102 and weeping heard by the Lord in Psalm 6.
Psalm 38:8–10I am faint and severely bruised. I have groaned by reason of the anguish of my heart.Both speakers groan in bodily weakness, and Psalm 38 names anguish of heart alongside that physical suffering.
2 Chronicles 2:12Huram continued, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who made heaven and earth, who has given to David the king a wise son, endowed with discretion and …These excerpts share no clear verbal or thematic thread: one describes bodily suffering, while the other blesses God for a wise king.
Where this verse fits

Grief. illness or diagnosis. chronic pain.

What the Bible says about grief →
One step

Something small to carry out of this verse

Tell God how distress has affected your body

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Encouragement

There is no recovery announced in this line. Your prayer need not rush toward one either. Scripture makes room for the sufferer’s groaning and the body’s frailty.

Now put it in your words.

Start an entry on Psalm 102:5. Write what it stirs. Psalmlog sets your words beside Scripture and gives you one next step. Your first entry is free, no account needed.

Keep goingPsalm 102 · the whole chapter with its connection mapPsalms · every chapterBuild a reading plan through Psalms

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).