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Psalm 31:12
I am forgotten from their hearts like a dead man. I am like broken pottery.
10For my life is spent with sorrow, my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity. My bones are wasted away.
11Because of all my adversaries I have become utterly contemptible to my neighbors, a horror to my acquaintances. Those who saw me on the street fled from me.
12I am forgotten from their hearts like a dead man. I am like broken pottery.
13For I have heard the slander of many, terror on every side, while they conspire together against me, they plot to take away my life.
14But I trust in you, LORD. I said, “You are my God.”
Notice
Broken pottery and a dead man describe the pain of being alive yet feeling that you have no place left in other people’s hearts.
Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.
When have you felt forgotten by people whose care you once counted on?
Write on thisWhat does the image of broken pottery express that being forgotten alone does not?
Write on thisConnect
Where else Scripture says this
10 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
Jeremiah 22:28Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? Is he a vessel in which no one delights? Why are they cast out, he and his offspring, and cast into a land which …Both passages compare a person to broken pottery, expressing the pain or disgrace of being regarded as unwanted.
Psalm 88:4–5I am counted among those who go down into the pit. I am like a man who has no help,Both speakers describe themselves through images of death while still alive, expressing how far they feel removed from help and human care.
Genesis 40:23Yet the chief cup bearer didn’t remember Joseph, but forgot him.Joseph is forgotten by the chief cup bearer, while the psalm’s speaker laments being forgotten in other people’s hearts.
Psalm 119:83For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke. I don’t forget your statutes.Both speakers compare themselves to household vessels under distress: broken pottery here and a wineskin exposed to smoke there.
Isaiah 30:14He will break it as a potter’s vessel is broken, breaking it in pieces without sparing, so that there won’t be found among the broken pieces a piece good …Both use broken pottery as an image of ruin; Isaiah describes destruction, while the psalm describes the speaker’s own condition.
Psalm 2:9You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”Both mention shattered pottery, though Psalm 2 describes force used against others and Psalm 31 expresses personal distress.
Romans 9:21–22Or hasn’t the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor?The shared image is a pottery vessel; Romans concerns the potter’s authority, while the psalm concerns feeling broken and forgotten.
Revelation 2:27He will rule them with a rod of iron, shattering them like clay pots, as I also have received of my Father;Both use broken clay vessels, though Revelation describes forceful rule and the psalm uses the image for the speaker’s suffering.
Isaiah 38:11–12I said, “I won’t see the LORD, the LORD in the land of the living. I will see man no more with the inhabitants of the world.Both speakers describe separation from human company through the prospect or image of death.
Ecclesiastes 8:10So I saw the wicked buried. Indeed they came also from holiness. They went and were forgotten in the city where they did this. This also is vanity.Both texts link death with being forgotten, though the psalm’s living speaker uses death as a comparison.
Where this verse fits
Loneliness. broken friendship. grief.
One step
Something small to carry out of this verse
Encouragement
Feeling discarded has a place in prayer. The speaker describes abandonment without softening it, and still addresses YHWH as his God in the verses that follow.
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).