102:4 My heart is parched 1 and withered like grass,
for I am unable 2 to eat food. 3
102:5 Because of the anxiety that makes me groan,
my bones protrude from my skin. 4
1 tn Heb “struck, attacked.”
2 tn Heb “I forget.”
3 sn I am unable to eat food. During his time of mourning, the psalmist refrained from eating. In the following verse he describes metaphorically the physical effects of fasting.
4 tn Heb “from the sound of my groaning my bone[s] stick to my flesh.” The preposition at the beginning of the verse is causal; the phrase “sound of my groaning” is metonymic for the anxiety that causes the groaning. The point seems to be this: Anxiety (which causes the psalmist to groan) keeps him from eating (v. 4). This physical deprivation in turn makes him emaciated – he is turned to “skin and bones,” so to speak.