Bible Strands
Psalms 35:14
I paced about as for my friend or brother; I was bowed down with grief, like one mourning for his mother.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses God and the community while enduring betrayal, describing his conduct during a period when his intercessory fasting for his enemies went unanswered.
The words — `hit.ha.La.khe.ti` (I went about) and `ko.Der` (mourning) frame the psalmist’s physical posture of grief, emphasizing deliberate movement and bowed sorrow rather than passive despair.
The thread — This pattern of embodied intercessory grief appears in Genesis 24:67, Luke 19:41, and 2 Samuel 1:11, where figures physically express sorrow for others’ impending or actual loss.
Why it lands — The text demands a reader to practice deliberate, physical compassion for others’ suffering, maintaining that posture even when the grief yields no reciprocity or immediate relief.
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
I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother: I bowed down heavily, as one that mourneth for his mother.
Cross-references
- Luke 19:41 As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it
- Genesis 24:67 And Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah and took Rebekah as his wife. And Isaac loved her and was comforted after his mother’s death.
- 2 Samuel 1:11 Then David took hold of his own clothes and tore them, and all the men who were with him did the same.
- 2 Samuel 1:17 Then David took up this lament for Saul and his son Jonathan,
- Psalms 38:6 I am bent and brought low; all day long I go about mourning.