Psalm 22:15 says that the sufferer's strength is dried up and his tongue clings to his jaws, a vivid description of extreme thirst and physical exhaustion as he approaches death. Within the psalm this belongs to the broader portrayal of the righteous sufferer's bodily anguish.

John 19:28 records Jesus, knowing that His work was nearing completion, saying, "I thirst." John explicitly says this occurred in relation to the fulfillment of Scripture, though the immediate scriptural background may include Psalm 69:21 as well as Psalm 22:15. The correspondence with Psalm 22 is nevertheless natural: the intense thirst poetically described by the psalmist becomes an actual feature of Jesus' suffering on the cross.