Psalms 32:3-4

32:3 When I refused to confess my sin, ¹ 

my whole body wasted away, ² 

while I groaned in pain all day long.

32:4 For day and night you tormented me; ³ 

you tried to destroy me ⁴  in the intense heat ⁵  of summer. ⁶  (Selah)

Psalms 102:3-5

102:3 For my days go up in smoke, ⁷ 

and my bones are charred like a fireplace. ⁸ 

102:4 My heart is parched ⁹  and withered like grass,

for I am unable ¹⁰  to eat food. ¹¹ 

102:5 Because of the anxiety that makes me groan,

my bones protrude from my skin. ¹² 

[32:3]  ¹ tn Heb “when I was silent.”

[32:3]  ² tn Heb “my bones became brittle.” The psalmist pictures himself as aging and growing physically weak. Trying to cover up his sin brought severe physical consequences.

[32:4]  ³ tn Heb “your hand was heavy upon me.”

[32:4]  ⁴ tc Heb “my [?] was turned.” The meaning of the Hebrew term לְשַׁד (lÿshad) is uncertain. A noun לָשָׁד (lashad, “cake”) is attested in Num 11:8, but it would make no sense to understand that word in this context. It is better to emend the form to לְשֻׁדִּי (lÿshuddiy, “to my destruction”) and understand “your hand” as the subject of the verb “was turned.” In this case the text reads, “[your hand] was turned to my destruction.” In Lam 3:3 the author laments that God’s “hand” was “turned” (הָפַךְ, hafakh) against him in a hostile sense.

[32:4]  ⁵ tn The translation assumes that the plural form indicates degree. If one understands the form as a true plural, then one might translate, “in the times of drought.”

[32:4]  ⁶ sn Summer. Perhaps the psalmist suffered during the hot season and perceived the very weather as being an instrument of divine judgment. Another option is that he compares his time of suffering to the uncomfortable and oppressive heat of summer.

[102:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “for my days come to an end in smoke.”

[102:3]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew noun מוֹ־קֵד (mo-qed, “fireplace”) occurs only here, in Isa 33:14 (where it refers to the fire itself), and perhaps in Lev 6:2.

[102:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “struck, attacked.”

[102:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “I forget.”

[102:4]  ¹¹ 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.

[102:5]  ¹² 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.