broken vessel

broken vessel

Someone who is or feels completely destroyed, hollow, forsaken, or inadequate. Taken from the biblical symbolism of a person being a vessel into which God fills divine wisdom and grace. I have no one who cares about me, and I have no job or prospects. I'm feeling like a broken vessel these days.
See also: broken, vessel
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • vessel
  • a Job's comforter
  • comforter
  • gesture
  • hollow gesture
  • (as) poor as a Job's turkey
  • on a biblical scale
  • in the hollow of (one's) hand
  • in the hollow of your hand
  • forbidden
References in periodicals archive
The antiquities include five iron bases for carrying earthenware jars, 120 antique pieces of different sizes classified as fragments, two small earthenware jars; one broken and one without a nozzle, a piece of stone with the number 12211 etched on it, and a broken vessel. The defendant admitted stealing the antiquities from a store belonging to the Maadi Antiquities Inspection Area.
Then, as time wore on, I became the aftermath of a plague, archeological dust--unwanted and sifted out, a broken vessel.
Borzoni and Gerlach floated to shore in the broken vessel at 9pm.
We've put more people inside a very expensive and broken vessel. I'm certain healthcare reform will require many mid-course corrections in the years ahead.
In "If Everything I Said," I am trying to write beyond friendship's broken vessel, collapsing the categories of philos, eros, agape.
From a broken vessel, Benny said he has taken upon himself the mission to tell people around the world how life is precious in the sight of God.
"The Healing of a Broken Vessel" is the story of Denise Joyce Williams.
I am the scorn of all my adversaries, a horror to my neighbors, an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me, I have passed out of mind like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel, for I hear the whispering of many--terror all around!--as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life" (Psalm 31:9-13).
Inside the church and around the alcove next door, visitors will find a plethora of made-in-Mississippi items including Broken Vessel Pottery, Jennifer Stevens's Brushfire Designs' crosses, and wooden crosses by Christy Henderson.
Rescuers found the broken vessel on the rocks after three hours' searching, but all the crew members were missing.
"Part of the broken vessel must have been cleared out and dumped into the fort ditch with other rubbish while our most recent piece remained inside the building.
All who jumped in the Lifeboat & into the Sea were unfortunately lost, & the five who remained in the Vessel & abandoned themselves to the mercy of God were spared, as they clung to pieces of wood from the broken Vessel & were swept into the mouth of a small River.
In the Christian and Islamic traditions, a divorcee is damaged goods, a broken vessel. Although many Western countries liberalized divorce laws after World War II, often with the express purpose of making it easier for women to get out of abusive relationships, divorcees are still likely to end up financial losers with a much slighter chance of getting remarried than their former spouses.
The words of the psalmist could be Jesus" own: "I have passed out of mind like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel. For I hear the whispering of many ...