Bible verses for insecurity

“Who am I?” gets the same answer twice

The question at the top of this page is asked six times in the Bible, in both translations: by Moses (Exodus 3:11), by David four times (1 Samuel 18:18, 2 Samuel 7:18, the same prayer again at 1 Chronicles 17:16, and 1 Chronicles 29:14) and by Solomon (2 Chronicles 2:6). We counted it in the full text of each (the World English Bible). Only Moses means it as a way of saying no. David’s at 2 Samuel 7:18 is the same question asked in wonder: Who am I, Lord GOD, and what is my house, that you have brought me this far? Nobody in the six is told off for asking.

The answer Moses gets is three Hebrew words, ki ehyeh immak, Certainly I will be with you (interlinear). Gideon, threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites, makes the same kind of objection in Judges 6, the poorest family and the least in his father’s house, and is answered with the same three words, which both translations print in Judges 6:16 as Surely I will be with you. The Cambridge Bible says it plainly: “The same words as in Exodus 3:12”. It also records that the Greek translation has the angel say “The Lord will be with thee” instead, and that two nineteenth-century scholars, Moore and Budde, emended the Hebrew to match; Keil and Delitzsch and Ellicott simply point back to Exodus 3:12 (commentaries on Judges 6:16). In the Hebrew as it is printed, the two men get the same sentence.

Two verses after it, Moses asks what to say when people ask God’s name, and the answer is the same verb again:

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”Exodus 3:14 · World English Bible

Under I AM in both our translations is ehyeh, the word God has just used for I will be with you, and the King James prints the same verb a chapter later as I will be with thy mouth (4:12). Both of our texts say I AM here, so this is one of the places where the toggles cannot show you the thing. How much to make of it is argued. The Cambridge Bible renders it “I will be that I will be”, says the explanation “is thus of a character to reassure Moses”, and records that Ewald read verse 14 as explaining verse 12, which W. R. Smith called “a clumsy version”. The Pulpit Commentary holds that “No better translation can be given” than I AM THAT I AM (commentaries on Exodus 3:14). We are not going to settle it. The verb is the same one either way.

Neither man is fixed by the first answer. Moses objects five times in two chapters, and the last one, please send someone else, is the only one that makes God angry. Even then the answer is a companion:

And he said, O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee: and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart.Exodus 4:13-14 · King James Version

Gideon asks for a sign (6:17), then for the sign of the fleece, and then for the fleece again the other way round, prefacing the last request with Don’t let your anger be kindled against me (Judges 6:39). It is not. And the night before the battle he is offered one more reassurance he never asked for:

But if thou fear to go down, go thou with Phurah thy servant down to the host: And thou shalt hear what they say; and afterward shall thine hands be strengthened to go down unto the host. Then went he down with Phurah his servant unto the outside of the armed men that were in the host.Judges 7:10-11 · King James Version

Jeremiah, in the list above, is the third man to object, I am a child, in the verse straight after the one our birthday page recommends for cards. He gets the same promise in different words, I am with you to rescue you.

Saul, the tallest man in Israel, little in his own eyes

The Bible’s longest study of insecurity is a man who had every outward reason not to feel it:

He had a son whose name was Saul, an impressive young man; and there was not amongst the children of Israel a more handsome person than he. From his shoulders and upward he was taller than any of the people.1 Samuel 9:2 · World English Bible

When Samuel tells him he is wanted, he says what is in the list above: the smallest tribe, the least family. His word for least is tsa’ir (6810), and Gideon’s is the same; Brown-Driver-Briggs glosses it “little, with idea of insignificance” and cites Judges 6:15 and 1 Samuel 9:21 side by side. On the day he is publicly chosen, he cannot be found:

Therefore they asked of the LORD further, “Is there yet a man to come here?” The LORD answered, “Behold, he has hidden himself amongst the baggage.” They ran and got him there. When he stood amongst the people, he was higher than any of the people from his shoulders and upward.1 Samuel 10:22-23 · World English Bible

The King James has he hath hid himself among the stuff. And when Samuel confronts him in chapter 15, in the list above, he uses Saul’s own word back to him: little in your own sight is qatan, the word under smallest in 9:21 (interlinear). The Cambridge Bible calls it “a reference to Saul’s own words of astonishment that he should be chosen as king”.

What Samuel means by it divides the commentators. Matthew Poole and John Gill read it as humility then and pride now; Poole’s gloss is “modest, humble, and submissive”. Ellicott reports a different reading from the medieval Jewish commentator Kimchi: “Though thou seemest to thyself too little and weak to curb the people, yet wast thou the head”, which, Ellicott adds, Lange thought would mean Samuel had accepted Saul’s excuse (commentaries on 1 Samuel 15:17). The excuse is seven verses on, in Saul’s own words:

And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD, and thy words: because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice.1 Samuel 15:24 · King James Version

His next request is please honour me now before the elders of my people (15:30). The verb in I feared the people is yare, the one Jeremiah is told not to: the King James has Be not afraid of their faces. Our fear page has a section on fearing other people. Whichever reading of Samuel you take, one thing in 15:17 is not in doubt: Saul was small in his own eyes when he was made king, and it did not disqualify him.

The next chapter is the search for his replacement, and 16:7, in the list above, is God telling Samuel not to look at the height of his stature. The word is gavoah (1364), the one 9:2 used for Saul being taller than everyone. It is said about Eliab, David’s brother, but Matthew Poole reads it as Samuel being warned off a mistake he had made before, “whereby thou wast once deceived in Saul”, and Jamieson-Fausset-Brown say he “falls into the same error as formerly” (commentaries on 1 Samuel 16:7). The King James’s outward appearance is, word for word, “the eyes”.

Two chapters later the eyes are Saul’s:

And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him; and he said, They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom? And Saul eyed David from that day and forward.1 Samuel 18:8-9 · King James Version

The modern rendering says watched. The King James’s eyed is the literal one: the Hebrew is a verb made out of the noun for an eye, which Brown-Driver-Briggs glosses “eye (enviously), look (askance) at” and lists at this verse alone (the lexicon entry). Small in his own eyes, a choice made against what the eyes see, and a king eyeing the younger man: it is there to count in four chapters, and we are not claiming the narrator planned it. Where insecurity turns into the thing Saul does next, our verses about jealousy take over. In the same chapter, offered the king’s daughter, David says almost what Saul said in 9:21: Who am I, and what is my life, or my father’s family in Israel (18:18).

“Fearfully and wonderfully made”, read closely

Psalm 139:14 is the verse almost every list for insecurity leads with, and it has two things in it worth knowing. The first is fearfully. The Hebrew is nora’ot, from yare (3372), the same verb as Saul’s I feared the people, in the sense our fear page calls awe. Barnes gives the clause as “I am distinguished by fearful things”, and the Pulpit Commentary says “The wonderfulness of the human mechanism is so great that, if realized, it produces a sensation of fear”. It is a line about being astonished, more than about being confident.

The second is the pronoun. The Cambridge Bible notes that “The Ancient Versions represent the second person, thou art fearfully wondrous” (commentaries on Psalm 139:14): on their reading the sentence praises God rather than the speaker. The Hebrew as printed says I, both of our translations follow it, and so the toggles cannot show you the split. What is not in doubt is how the verse opens, I will give thanks to you. It is a thank-you, not a self-assessment. The verses around it, including the one word in the psalm that occurs nowhere else, are on our birthday page.

Measuring yourself against someone else

Saul’s trouble in chapter 18 began with a song that compared him with David, thousands against ten thousands. Two passages in the list are about exactly that. 2 Corinthians 10:12 says that people comparing themselves with themselves, are without understanding; the King James says they are not wise. Galatians puts the alternative in one line:

But let each man examine his own work, and then he will have reason to boast in himself, and not in someone else.Galatians 6:4 · World English Bible

And John 21:21-22 is Peter, straight after the conversation on the beach that our verses about regret are built on. He has just been asked three times and given work to do, and the first thing he does is look at another disciple and ask Lord, what about this man? The answer is the shortest one on this page: what is that to you? You follow me.

What this page is not

• It is not a pep talk. When Moses, Gideon and Jeremiah object, not one of them is answered with a compliment. Gideon had been greeted as you mighty man of valour before he objected (Judges 6:12), but the reply to the objection itself is Surely I will be with you. They are told who will be with them, and Moses and Gideon are given someone to go with.
• It is not a diagnosis. If the fear of being judged or watched is stopping you from ordinary things, like speaking in public, a job interview or eating in front of other people, the National Institute of Mental Health describes social anxiety disorder and the treatments that help.
• It is not about pride, or not only. Poole and Gill read little in your own sight as the humility Saul lost, and our page on pride and humility follows that thread. Where insecurity is really shame about something done, our verses about shame are the better fit.