a day (as the warm hours) · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix
consumed
כָל֣וּkha.Lu
H3615
to end · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
smoke
בְעָשָׁ֣ןve.'a.Shan
H6227
smoke · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
bones
וְ֝עַצְמוֹתַ֗יve.'atz.mo.Tai
H6106
a bone (as strong) · conjunction + noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix
burned
נִחָֽרוּni.Cha.ru
H2787
to glow · verb, niphal perfect, 3rd person common plural
hearth
קֵ֥דked
H4168
a fire or fuel · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
James 4:14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vani…
Psalms 31:10 For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed.
Lamentations 1:13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hat…
Job 30:30 My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.
Psalms 37:20 But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the LORD shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume awa…
Psalms 22:14-15 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.
Psalms 119:83 For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; yet do I not forget thy statutes.
Lamentations 3:4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 102:1-11
The title of this psalm is very observable; it is a prayer of the afflicted. It was composed by one that was himself afflicted, afflicted with the church and for it; and on those that are of a public spirit afflictions of that kind lie heavier than any other. It is calculated for an afflicted state, and is intended for the use of others that may be in the like distress; for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written designedly for our use. The whole word of God is of use to direct us in prayer; but here, as often elsewhere, the Holy Ghost has drawn up our petition for us, has put words into our mouths. Hos 14:2, Take with you words. Here is a prayer put into the hands of the affli…
For my days are consumed like smoke,.... Which suddenly rises up, is easily dissipated, and quickly disappears; so sudden, short, and transient, are the days of man's life; see James 4:14 or "in smoke" (c), as the Syriac version; his days were spent in great obscurity, in the darkness of affliction, temptation, and desertion; and in so much vexation, trouble, and uneasiness, as if he had lived in smoke all his time: and
my bones are burnt as an hearth; on which fire is continually made for the preparation of food, and other uses: or as a "trivet", or "gridiron": so the Targum: or as a frying pan; so the Arabic version: the meaning is, that, through trouble and grief, his bones, the stronges…
Psalm 102:3-7
3. For my days are consumed like smoke [135] and my bones are burnt up as a hearth. [136] 4. My heart is smitten, and withered like grass, because I have forgotten to eat my bread. 5. By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my flesh. [137] 6. I have become like a pelican [138] of the wilderness; I have become like an owl [139] of the deserts. 7. I have watched, and have been like a sparrow which is alone upon the house-top. [140]
3 For my days are consumed like smoke These expressions are hyperbolical, but still they show how deeply the desolation of the Church ought to wound the hearts of the people of God. Let every man, therefore, carefully examine himsel…
The Church Fathers
For my days have failed away like smoke. For example, I was a little child, and while I know it not, I came into the age of youth, and again into full age, and while I know it not, I have grown old: and my days have failed away like smoke. But some people think themselves to be everlasting, and they persevere in their sin. And my bones are withered like a dry twig for kindling. By 'bones' he means strength itself. If therefore what is strong in me has withered and been made weak: how much more the flesh, which is weak by nature?
"For my days are consumed away like smoke" (ver. 3). O days! if days: for where day is heard of, light is understood. "My days," my times; wherefore, "like smoke," unless from the puffing up of pride? ...See smoke, like pride, ascending, swelling, vanishing: deservedly therefore failing, and not stedfast. "And my bones are scorched up as it were in an oven." Both my bones, and my strength, not without tribulation, not without burning. The bones of the body of Christ, the strength of His body, is it anywhere greater than in the Holy Apostles? And yet see that the bones are scorched. "Who is offended, and I burn not?" They are brave, faithful, able interpreters and preachers of the word, living as they speak, speaking as they hear; they are clearly brave, yet all who suffer offences, are an oven to them. For there is love there, and more so in the bones. The bones are within all the flesh, and support all the flesh. But if any man suffer any offence, and endanger his soul; the bone is scorched in proportion as it loveth. ...
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Hearth — Heb. ah (Jer. 36:22, 23; R.V., “brazier”), meaning a large pot like a brazier, a portable furnace in which fire was kept in the king’s winter apartment. Heb. kiyor (Zech. 12:6; R.V., “pan”), a…
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
From this point onward the Psalm becomes original. Concerning the Beth in בעשׁן, vid., on Psa 37:20. The reading כּמו קד (in the Karaite Ben-Jerucham) enriches the lexicon in the same sense with a word which has scarcely had any existence. מוקד (Arabic mauḳid) signifies here, as in other instances, a hearth. נחרוּ is, as in Psa 69:4, Niphal: my bones are heated through with a fever-heat, as a hearth with the smouldering fire that is on it. הוּכּה (cf. יגודּוּ, Psa 94:21) is used exactly as in Hos 9:16, cf. Psa 121:5. The heart is said to dry up when the life's blood, of which it is the reservoir, fails. The verb שׁכח is followed by מן of dislike. On the cleaving of the bones to the flesh fr…
Smoke is an image of transitory life (37:20; 68:2). • The psalmist’s bones represent his whole being (see 6:2; 34:19-22).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 102:3
For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth.
For my days are consumed like smoke. My grief has made life unsubstantial to me, I seem to be but a puff of vapour which has nothing in it, and is soon dissipated. The metaphor is very admirably chosen, for, to the unhappy, life seems not merely to be frail, but to be surrounded by so much that is darkening, defiling, blinding, and depressing, that, sitting down in despair, they compare themselves to men wandering in a dense fog, and themselves so dried up thereby that they are little better than pillars of smoke. When our days have neither light of joy nor fire of energy in them, but become as a smoking flax which d…
