Psalms 22:14

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.

Psalms 51:8

51:8 Grant me the ultimate joy of being forgiven! ³ 

May the bones ⁴  you crushed rejoice! ⁵ 

Isaiah 38:13

38:13 I cry out ⁶  until morning;

like a lion he shatters all my bones;

you turn day into night and end my life. ⁷ 

Jeremiah 50:17

50:17 “The people of Israel are like scattered sheep

which lions have chased away.

First the king of Assyria devoured them. ⁸ 

Now last of all King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has gnawed their bones. ⁹ 

[22:14]  ¹ tn Heb “like water I am poured out.”

[22:14]  ² sn The heart is viewed here as the seat of the psalmist’s strength and courage.

[51:8]  ³ tn Heb “cause me to hear happiness and joy.” The language is metonymic: the effect of forgiveness (joy) has been substituted for its cause. The psalmist probably alludes here to an assuring word from God announcing that his sins are forgiven (a so-called oracle of forgiveness). The imperfect verbal form is used here to express the psalmist’s wish or request. The synonyms “happiness” and “joy” are joined together as a hendiadys to emphasize the degree of joy he anticipates.

[51:8]  ⁴ sn May the bones you crushed rejoice. The psalmist compares his sinful condition to that of a person who has been physically battered and crushed. Within this metaphorical framework, his “bones” are the seat of his emotional strength.

[51:8]  ⁵ tn In this context of petitionary prayer, the prefixed verbal form is understood as a jussive, expressing the psalmist’s wish or request.

[38:13]  ⁶ tn The verb form in the Hebrew text is a Piel from שָׁוַה (shavah). There are two homonyms שָׁוַה, one meaning in the Piel “level, smooth out,” the other “set, place.” Neither fits in v. 13. It is likely that the original reading was שִׁוַּעְתִּי (shivva’ti, “I cry out”) from the verbal root שָׁוַע (shava’), which occurs exclusively in the Piel.

[38:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “from day to night you bring me to an end.”

[50:17]  ⁸ sn The king of Assyria devoured them. This refers to the devastation wrought on northern Israel by the kings of Assyria beginning in 738 b.c. when Tiglath Pileser took Galilee and the Transjordanian territories and ending with the destruction and exile of the people of Samaria by Sargon in 722 b.c.

[50:17]  ⁹ tn The verb used here only occurs this one time in the Hebrew Bible. It is a denominative from the Hebrew word for “bones” (עֶצֶם, ’etsem). BDB 1126 s.v. עֶָצַם, denom Pi, define it as “break his bones.” HALOT 822 s.v. II עָצַם Pi defines it as “gnaw on his bones.”