Bible Strands
Psalms 109:22
For I am poor and needy; my heart is wounded within me.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses YHWH directly, placing this declaration between a request for deliverance (109:21) and a description of fading physical vitality (109:23). The speaker identifies himself as destitute and internally wounded at the precise moment of desperate appeal.
The words — The verse depends on עָנִי ('a.Ni) meaning poor and חָלַל (cha.Lal) meaning pierced to define the speaker’s state. These terms anchor the claim of material lack and internal injury in specific Hebrew lexical data.
The thread — The pairing of poverty and a wounded or afflicted heart appears in Psalms 86:1, Psalms 40:17, and Psalms 102:4. These references consistently link external destitution with deep internal distress as the basis for pleading with God.
Why it lands — It presents a raw confession of material lack and internal injury as the factual ground for requesting divine intervention. The text requires the reader to accept human vulnerability and distress as the explicit condition for seeking deliverance.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
Cross-references
- Psalms 86:1 A prayer of David. Incline Your ear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.
- Psalms 40:17 But I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me. You are my helper and deliverer; O my God, do not delay.
- Psalms 102:4 My heart is afflicted, and withered like grass; I even forget to eat my bread.
- 2 Kings 4:27 When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she clung to his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for her soul is in deep distress, and the LORD has hidden it from me and has not told me.”
- Psalms 22:6 But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people.
- John 12:27 Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? No, it is for this purpose that I have come to this hour.
- 2 Corinthians 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.
- Job 6:4 For the arrows of the Almighty have pierced me; my spirit drinks in their poison; the terrors of God are arrayed against me.
- Psalms 88:15 From my youth I was afflicted and near death. I have borne Your terrors; I am in despair.
- Psalms 102:17 He will turn toward the prayer of the destitute; He will not despise their prayer.