Bible Strands
Psalms 109:24
My knees are weak from fasting, and my body grows lean and gaunt.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist speaks from a state of acute physical and social distress, positioned between descriptions of fading like a shadow and facing public scorn from accusers.
The words — בִּרְכַּי (bir.kai) means "my knees," and כָּחַשׁ (ka.chash) translates as "it has become lean," directly linking bodily wasting to the act of fasting.
The thread — The physical depletion of fasting and affliction reappears in Psalms 22:14, Psalms 32:3, and Matthew 4:2.
Why it lands — The text records bodily exhaustion as a factual condition of the speaker, requiring a reader to acknowledge physical strain before assigning theological meaning to the suffering.
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
My knees are weak through fasting; and my flesh faileth of fatness.
Cross-references
- Psalms 22:14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are disjointed. My heart is like wax; it melts away within me.
- Psalms 32:3 When I kept silent, my bones became brittle from my groaning all day long.
- Matthew 4:2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry.
- Hebrews 12:12 Therefore strengthen your limp hands and weak knees.
- Job 19:20 My skin and flesh cling to my bones; I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
- Psalms 35:13 Yet when they were ill, I put on sackcloth; I humbled myself with fasting, but my prayers returned unanswered.
- Psalms 38:5 My wounds are foul and festering because of my sinful folly.
- Psalms 69:10 I wept and fasted, but it brought me reproach.
- Psalms 102:4 My heart is afflicted, and withered like grass; I even forget to eat my bread.
- 2 Corinthians 11:27 in labor and toil and often without sleep, in hunger and thirst and often without food, in cold and exposure.