What Does Psalm 102:6 Mean in the King James?

I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert.

Psalm 102:6 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

THE KEY

The Hebrew pictures not just an empty wilderness but ruins, the speaker is a living creature among what has been emptied.

THE MEANING

When loneliness meets you now, this verse gives it the shape of a living creature among ruins: alive, but surrounded by what has been emptied. Its two birds make desolation visible without disguising how solitary it feels.

THE ROOT

חֳרָבוֹת

ḥŏrāḇōṯ

GROWS FROM

חָרַב

To be dry, become waste, or lie desolate.

The KJV’s “desert” can sound like untouched wilderness, but ⁨חֳרָבוֹת⁩ points to ruins or desolated places. The bird is pictured amid the aftermath of loss, so the verse makes inward loneliness a landscape of what has been emptied.

ALSO GROWS

ḥorbah: Ruin or desolation.

חָרְבָּה

This branch makes the verse’s setting more than empty land: it is a place marked by what has been laid waste.

ḥārēv: Dry or desolate.

חָרֵב

The dry, emptied condition of the place gives the speaker’s loneliness a tangible landscape.

THE PATTERN

Lament makes desolation visible by placing the speaker among solitary creatures or naming them as inhabitants of emptied places.

I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.

Psalm 102:7 · KJVThe lone sparrow gives the speaker’s isolation another creature’s shape.

I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.

Job 30:29 · KJVThe speaker names desolate creatures as his companions, making his isolation visible.

And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

Revelation 18:2 · KJVAn emptied place is recognized by the creatures that dwell in its ruins.

THE THREAD

But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness.

Isaiah 34:11 · KJV

The bird called a pelican here is the same Hebrew word, ⁨קָאַת⁩ (qāʾat; a waterbird, often rendered pelican or cormorant), translated “cormorant” in Isaiah. There it joins other birds inhabiting a ruined land, extending this verse’s solitary bird into a landscape where desolation has become home.

Read the SDV Bible.

Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.

Get Selah Verse

The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us