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Psalm 22:14
I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within me.
12Many bulls have surrounded me. Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.
13They open their mouths wide against me, lions tearing prey and roaring.
14I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within me.
15My strength is dried up like a potsherd. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You have brought me into the dust of death.
16For dogs have surrounded me. A company of evildoers have enclosed me. They have pierced my hands and feet.
Notice
Water poured out and wax melted within the heart describe a collapse of strength that reaches beyond what a person can hold together.
Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.
Which feels closer to your experience today, water poured out or wax melting, and why?
Write on thisWhat would you want to tell God through the words, “My heart is like wax”?
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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
Psalm 119:28My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word.Both speakers describe depleted strength; Psalm 119 names sorrow and asks for strength according to God's word.
Job 30:16“Now my soul is poured out within me. Days of affliction have taken hold of me.Both speakers describe themselves as poured out, using the same image for suffering that consumes their strength.
Psalm 22:17I can count all of my bones. They look and stare at me.Both verses name the sufferer's bones, extending the same psalm's account of bodily distress.
Psalm 31:10For my life is spent with sorrow, my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity. My bones are wasted away.Both describe failing bodily strength through their bones, though Psalm 31 names iniquity where Psalm 22:14 does not.
Daniel 5:6Then the king’s face was changed in him, and his thoughts troubled him; and the joints of his thighs were loosened, and his knees struck one against another.Loosened joints connect the king's troubled response with the psalm's description of bones out of joint.
2 Samuel 14:14For we must die, and are like water spilled on the ground, which can’t be gathered up again; neither does God take away life, but devises means, that he who is …Both compare human frailty to poured or spilled water; Samuel's passage uses the image to speak of death.
Job 23:16For God has made my heart faint. The Almighty has terrified me.Both describe a heart losing strength, with Job naming terror and the psalm using melting wax.
Joshua 7:5The men of Ai struck about thirty-six men of them. They chased them from before the gate even to Shebarim, and struck them at the descent. The hearts of the …Melting hearts and water appear in both passages, describing the collapse of courage or strength.
John 12:27“Now my soul is troubled. What shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this time’? But I came to this time for this cause.Both speak of inward distress: the psalm describes a melting heart, and Jesus says his soul is troubled.
Nahum 2:10She is empty, void, and waste. The heart melts, the knees knock together, their bodies and faces have grown pale.Both describe a melting heart alongside bodily collapse, making distress visible through physical images.
Mark 14:33–34He took with him Peter, James, and John, and began to be greatly troubled and distressed.Both portray severe distress, though Mark names Jesus' troubled state without using the psalm's bodily images.
Luke 22:44Being in agony, he prayed more earnestly. His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.Both portray suffering in bodily terms, with the psalm describing melted wax and Luke describing Jesus' sweat during prayer.
Where this verse fits
Grief. illness or diagnosis. anxiety or panic.
One step
Something small to carry out of this verse
Encouragement
You do not have to make distress sound composed when you pray. Scripture includes this account of strength draining away, with no relief yet in sight.
Now put it in your words.
Start an entry on Psalm 22:14. Write what it stirs. Psalmlog sets your words beside Scripture and gives you one next step. Your first entry is free, no account needed.
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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).