My strength is dried up like a potsherd. All strength dies out under the action of the many acute pains which rack the whole frame, and as little remains as there remains of moisture in a potsherd. And my tongue cleaveth to my jaws.
An extreme and agonizing thirst sets in—the secretions generally fail—and the saliva especially is suppressed, so that the mouth feels parched and dry. Hence the cry of suffering which was at last wrung from our Lord, when, just before the end, he exclaimed, "I thirst" (John 19:28).
And thou hast brought me into the dust of death. "The dust of death" is a periphrasis for death itself, which is so closely associated in our thoughts with the dust of the tomb (see below, Psalms 22:29; and comp.
Psalms 30:10; Psalms 104:29; and Job 10:9; Job 34:35; Ecclesiastes 3:20; Ecclesiastes 12:7, etc.).