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Psalm 102:6

I am like a pelican of the wilderness. I have become as an owl of the waste places.

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.
8My enemies reproach me all day. Those who are mad at me use my name as a curse.
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Notice

The pelican in the wilderness and the owl among waste places make loneliness feel like a place someone has come to inhabit.

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

What part of your life feels most like the wilderness or waste places described here?

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What does the phrase “I have become” suggest about how the speaker’s loneliness has changed?

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Connect

Where else Scripture says this

7 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
Job 30:29I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to ostriches.Both speakers describe their distress through kinship or likeness to wild creatures, finding an image of themselves outside human company.
Isaiah 38:14I chattered like a swallow or a crane. I moaned like a dove. My eyes weaken looking upward. Lord, I am oppressed. Be my security.”Both speakers compare themselves to birds in distress; Isaiah emphasizes their sounds, while the psalm emphasizes their desolate surroundings.
Zephaniah 2:14Herds will lie down in the middle of her, all kinds of animals. Both the pelican and the porcupine will lodge in its capitals. Their calls will echo through …The pelican appears in both texts, linking the speaker’s sense of desolation with Zephaniah’s picture of buildings inhabited by animals.
Revelation 18:2He cried with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, and she has become a habitation of demons, a prison of every unclean spirit, and a …Both passages associate birds with desolate places, though the psalm describes personal suffering and Revelation announces Babylon’s fall.
Isaiah 34:11–15But the pelican and the porcupine will possess it. The owl and the raven will dwell in it. He will stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plumb line of …Pelicans and owls inhabit desolate places in both texts, with Isaiah describing the emptiness that the psalm uses as a personal comparison.
Leviticus 11:16the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk,The shared detail is the owl; Leviticus lists birds, while the psalm uses an owl to portray personal desolation.
Micah 1:8For this I will lament and wail. I will go stripped and naked. I will howl like the jackals and mourn like the ostriches.Both speakers express suffering through comparisons with wild creatures, though Micah emphasizes mourning sounds and the psalm emphasizes desolate places.
Where this verse fits

Loneliness. grief.

What the Bible says about loneliness →What the Bible says about grief →
One step

Something small to carry out of this verse

Tell a trusted friend where you feel cut off

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Encouragement

The prayer leaves the pelican in the wilderness and the owl among waste places. Your prayer can name desolation without forcing a brighter ending.

Now put it in your words.

Start an entry on Psalm 102:6. 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).