Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 102:9
For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping,
9. They may well do so; for what can be more wretched than his plight? Mourning and tears are as it were his food and drink. Cp. Psa 42:3; Psa 80:5. For ashes as the symbol of mourning, cp. Job 2:8; Lam 3:16; Eze 27:30.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For I have eaten ashes like bread – I have seated myself in ashes in my grief (compare Job 2:8; Job 42:6; Isa 58:5; Isa 61:3; Jon 3:6; Dan 9:3; Mat 11:21); and ashes have become, as it were, my food. The ashes in which he sat had been mingled with his food.
And mingled my drink with weeping – Tears have fallen into the cup from which I drank, and have become a part of my drink. The idea is, that he had shed copious tears; and that even when he took his food, there was no respite to his grief.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 9. I have eaten ashes like bread] Fearful of what they might do, we all humbled ourselves before thee, and sought thy protection; well knowing that, unless we were supernaturally assisted, we must all have perished; our enemies having sworn our destruction.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
For; so this verse gives a reason either of his great sadness, expressed Psa 102:6,7, or why they swore by him in the sense last given. Or, surely, as this particle is oft used. Or, therefore, because of those bitter reproaches last mentioned. I have eaten ashes like bread: the sense is, Dust and ashes are as constant and familiar to me as the eating of my bread; I cover my head with them; I sit, yea, lie down and roll myself in them, as mourners oft did, 2Sa 13:19; Job 2:8,12; 16:15; Isa 47:1; Mic 1:10; by which means the ashes might easily be mingled with their meat, as tears were with their drink in the next clause. Mingled my drink with weeping; he alludes to the custom of mingling their wine with water.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
9. ashesa figure of grief, mybread; weeping or tears, my drink (Ps80:5).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For I have eaten ashes like bread,…. He sitting in ashes, as Job did, and rolling himself in them in the manner of mourners; and, having no other table than the ground to eat his food upon, he might eat ashes along with it; and by an hypallage of the words, the sense may be, that he ate bread like ashes, no more savoured and relished it, or was nourished by it, than if he had eaten ashes; the meaning is, that he was fed with the bread of adversity, and water of affliction:
and mingled my drink with weeping; that is, with tears; as he drank, the tears ran down his cheeks, and mixed with the liquor in his cup; he was fed with the bread of tears, and had them to drink in great measure; these were his meat and his drink, day and night, while enemies reproached him, swore at him, against him, and by him; see
Ps 80:5.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Ashes are his bread (cf. Lam 3:16), inasmuch as he, a mourner, sits in ashes, and has thrown ashes all over himself, Job 2:8; Eze 27:30. The infected has = for its principal form, instead of which it is in Hos 2:7. “That Thou hast lifted me up and cast me down” is to be understood according to Job 30:22. First of all God has taken away the firm ground from under his feet, then from aloft He has cast him to the ground – an emblem of the lot of Israel, which is removed from its fatherland and cast into exile, i.e., into a strange land. In that passage the days of his life are , like a lengthened shadow, which grows longer and longer until it is entirely lost in darkness, Psa 109:23. Another figure follows: he there becomes like an (uprooted) plant which dries up.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
9 For I have eaten ashes like bread Some think that the order is here inverted, and that the letter כ, caph, the sign of similitude, which is put before לחם, lechem, the word for bread, ought to be placed before אפר, epher, the word for ashes; as if it had been said, I find no more relish for my bread than I do for ashes; and the reason is, because sorrow of heart produces loathing of food. But the simpler meaning is, that lying prostrate on the ground, they licked, as it were, the earth, and so did eat ashes instead of bread. It was customary for those who mourned to stretch themselves at full length with their faces on the ground. The prophet, however, intended to express a different idea — to intimate, that when he partook of his meals, there was no table set before him, but his bread was thrown upon the ground to him in a foul and disgusting manner. Speaking, therefore, in the person of the faithful, he asserts that he was so fixed to the ground that he did not even rise from it to take his food. The same sentiment is expressed in the last part of the verse, I have mingled my drink with weeping; for while mourners usually restrain their sorrow during the short time in which they refresh themselves with food, he declares that his mourning was without intermission. Some, instead of reading in the first clause, as bread, read, in bread; (144) and as the two letters, כ, caph, and ב, beth, nearly resemble each other, I prefer reading in bread, which agrees better with the second clause.
(144) Supposing the reading to be בלחם, balechem, instead of כלחם, calechem; and from the similarity in form between the letters ב and כ, transcribers might readily have mistaken the latter for the former.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(9) Ashes like bread.Lam. 3:16. A figurative expression, like dust shall be the serpents meat (Isa. 65:25; comp. Gen. 3:14). With the last clause comp. Psa. 42:3, tears have been my meat day and night. So too, as an emblem of disappointment, a modern poet:
But even while I drank the brook, and ate
The goodly apples, all these things at once
Fell into dust, and I was left alone.
TENNYSON: Holy Grail.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
9. Eaten ashes like bread As a mourner, he sits in, and covers himself with, ashes. (Lam 3:16,) and they mingled with his scanty food. Or, by a strong figure, it may mean “ashes instead of bread.” So, also, “My tears have been my food” “bread of tears.” Psa 42:3; Psa 80:5
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 102:9. For I have eaten ashes The serpent in Genesis is condemned to go on his belly, and to eat dust, to which his prone posture inevitably subjects him. Casting ashes upon themselves, or rolling themselves in ashes, was a ceremony to express deep distress and sorrow among the Orientals; and if we may suppose that the Psalmist lay prostrate upon the ground in his sorrow, he might be said literally to eat ashes, as well as the serpent is said to eat dust; and his affliction must be highly aggravated in our ideas by such an image as this. See Boch. Hieroz. Psa 50:4 : Psa 100:2.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Psa 102:9 For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping,
Ver. 9. For I have eaten ashes like bread ] Being cast on the ground as a mourner, I know not whether I eat bread or dust; this relisheth to me as well as that, my mouth is so out of taste.
And mingled my drink with weeping
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
I Have: Psa 69:21, Isa 44:20, Lam 3:15, Lam 3:16, Mic 1:10, Mic 7:17
mingled: Psa 42:3, Psa 80:5, Job 3:24, Lam 3:48, Lam 3:49
Reciprocal: Deu 16:3 – the bread 1Ki 22:27 – bread of affliction 2Ki 20:3 – wept sore 2Ch 18:26 – bread of affliction Job 6:7 – as my sorrowful meat Job 16:16 – face Psa 55:2 – I mourn Psa 69:10 – General Psa 88:9 – Mine Psa 102:4 – so that Psa 110:7 – He shall Psa 137:1 – we wept Ecc 4:1 – the tears Ecc 5:17 – he eateth Isa 30:20 – the bread Isa 38:3 – wept
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 102:9-10. I have eaten ashes like bread That is, instead of eating my bread, I have laid down in dust and ashes. Or, dust and ashes are as constant and familiar to me as the eating of my bread; I cover my head with them; I sit, yea, lie down among them, as mourners often did, by which means the ashes might easily be mingled with their meat as tears were with their drink, as mentioned in the next clause. And mingled my drink, &c. He alludes to the custom of mingling their wine with water. Because of thy indignation, &c. Because I not only conflict with men, but with the Almighty God, and with his anger. For thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down As a man lifts up a person or thing as high as he can, that he may cast it down to the ground with greater force. Or, he aggravates his present reproach and misery by the consideration of that great honour and happiness to which God had formerly advanced him, as Job did, chap. 29., 30., and the church, Lam 1:7.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
102:9 For I have {g} eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping,
(g) I have not risen out of my mourning to take my refreshment.