Psalms 50:13

50:13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls?

Do I drink the blood of goats? ¹ 

Psalms 102:5

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

my bones protrude from my skin. ² 

Psalms 109:24

109:24 I am so starved my knees shake; ³ 

I have turned into skin and bones. ⁴ 

Psalms 119:120

119:120 My body ⁵  trembles ⁶  because I fear you; ⁷ 

I am afraid of your judgments.

[50:13]  ¹ tn The rhetorical questions assume an emphatic negative response, “Of course not!”

[102:5]  ² 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.

[109:24]  ³ tn Heb “my knees stagger from fasting.”

[109:24]  ⁴ tn Heb “and my flesh is lean away from fatness [i.e., “lean so as not to be fat”].”

[119:120]  ⁴ tn Heb “my flesh.”

[119:120]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew verb סָמַר (samar, “to tremble”) occurs only here and in Job 4:15.

[119:120]  ⁶ tn Heb “from fear of you.” The pronominal suffix on the noun is an objective genitive.