22:14 My strength drains away like water; 1
all my bones are dislocated;
my heart 2 is like wax;
it melts away inside me.
35:13 When they were sick, I wore sackcloth, 3
and refrained from eating food. 4
(If I am lying, may my prayers go unanswered!) 5
35:14 I mourned for them as I would for a friend or my brother. 6
I bowed down 7 in sorrow as if I were mourning for my mother. 8
69:10 I weep and refrain from eating food, 9
which causes others to insult me. 10
1 tn Heb “like water I am poured out.”
2 sn The heart is viewed here as the seat of the psalmist’s strength and courage.
3 tn Heb “as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth.” Sackcloth was worn by mourners. When the psalmist’s enemies were sick, he was sorry for their misfortune and mourned for them.
4 sn Fasting was also a practice of mourners. By refraining from normal activities, such as eating food, the mourner demonstrated the sincerity of his sorrow.
5 tn Heb “and my prayer upon my chest will return.” One could translate, “but my prayer was returning upon my chest,” but the use of the imperfect verbal form sets this line apart from the preceding and following lines (vv. 13a, 14), which use the perfect to describe the psalmist’s past actions.
6 tn Heb “like a friend, like a brother to me I walked about.”
7 sn I bowed down. Bowing down was a posture for mourning. See Ps 38:6.
8 tn Heb “like mourning for a mother [in] sorrow I bowed down.”
9 sn Fasting was a practice of mourners. By refraining from normal activities such as eating food, the mourner demonstrated the sincerity of his sorrow.
10 tn Heb “and it becomes insults to me.”
11 tn Grk “and having fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward he was hungry.”
12 tn Grk “and having fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward he was hungry.”
13 tn The genitive noun τῆς δόξης (ths doxhs) is an attributive genitive and has therefore been translated as “glorious riches.”
14 tn Or “straighten.”
15 sn A quotation from Isa 35:3. Strengthen your listless hands and your weak knees refers to the readers’ need for renewed resolve and fresh strength in their struggles (cf. Heb 10:36-39; 12:1-3).