Psalms 102:8-9

102:8 All day long my enemies taunt me;

those who mock me use my name in their curses. ¹ 

102:9 For I eat ashes as if they were bread, ² 

and mix my drink with my tears, ³ 

Psalms 109:24-25

109:24 I am so starved my knees shake; ⁴ 

I have turned into skin and bones. ⁵ 

109:25 I am disdained by them. ⁶ 

When they see me, they shake their heads. ⁷ 

Luke 7:33-34

7:33 For John the Baptist has come ⁸  eating no bread and drinking no wine, ⁹  and you say, ‘He has a demon!’ ¹⁰  7:34 The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him, ¹¹  a glutton and a drunk, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ ¹² 

[102:8]  ¹ tn Heb “by me they swear.” When the psalmist’s enemies call judgment down on others, they hold the psalmist up as a prime example of what they desire their enemies to become.

[102:9]  ² sn Mourners would sometimes put ashes on their head or roll in ashes as a sign of mourning (see 2 Sam 13:19; Job 2:8; Isa 58:5).

[102:9]  ³ tn Heb “weeping.”

[109:24]  ⁴ tn Heb “my knees stagger from fasting.”

[109:24]  ⁵ tn Heb “and my flesh is lean away from fatness [i.e., “lean so as not to be fat”].”

[109:25]  ⁶ tn Heb “as for me, I am a reproach to them.”

[109:25]  ⁷ sn They shake their heads. Apparently shaking the head was a taunting gesture. See also Job 16:4; Ps 22:7; Lam 2:15.

[7:33]  ⁸ tn The perfect tenses in both this verse and the next do more than mere aorists would. They not only summarize, but suggest the characteristics of each ministry were still in existence at the time of speaking.

[7:33]  ⁹ tn Grk “neither eating bread nor drinking wine,” but this is somewhat awkward in contemporary English.

[7:33]  ¹⁰ sn John the Baptist was too separatist and ascetic for some, and so he was accused of not being directed by God, but by a demon.

[7:34]  ¹¹ tn Grk “Behold a man.”

[7:34]  ¹² sn Neither were they happy with Jesus (the Son of Man), even though he was the opposite of John and associated freely with people like tax collectors and sinners. Either way, God’s messengers were subject to complaint.