Bible Verses for Loneliness: God's Presence

The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him.”

The man gave names to all livestock, and to the birds of the sky, and to every animal of the field; but for man there was not found a helper comparable to him.

Behold, you have driven me out today from the surface of the ground. I will be hidden from your face, and I will be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth. Whoever finds me will kill me.”

Cain left the LORD’s presence, and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

Abram said, “Lord GOD, what will you give me, since I go childless, and he who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?”

She went and sat down opposite him, a good way off, about a bow shot away. For she said, “Don’t let me see the death of the child.” She sat opposite him, and lifted up her voice, and wept.

Jacob was left alone, and wrestled with a man there until the breaking of the day.

Yet the chief cup bearer didn’t remember Joseph, but forgot him.

She bore a son, and he named him Gershom, for he said, “I have lived as a foreigner in a foreign land.”

“The leper in whom the plague is shall wear torn clothes, and the hair of his head shall hang loose. He shall cover his upper lip, and shall cry, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’

All the days in which the plague is in him he shall be unclean. He is unclean. He shall dwell alone. His dwelling shall be outside of the camp.

Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people. Your eyes will look and fail with longing for them all day long. There will be no power in your hand.

Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob. Outlaws joined up with Jephthah, and they went out with him.

There was no deliverer, because it was far from Sidon, and they had no dealings with anyone else; and it was in the valley that lies by Beth Rehob. They built the city and lived in it.

They went over there, to go in to stay in Gibeah. He went in, and sat down in the street of the city; for there was no one who took them into his house to stay.

Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died; and she was left with her two sons.

Mahlon and Chilion both died, and the woman was bereaved of her two children and of her husband.

would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from having husbands? No, my daughters, for it grieves me seriously for your sakes, for the LORD’s hand has gone out against me.”

Elkanah her husband said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? Why don’t you eat? Why is your heart grieved? Am I not better to you than ten sons?”

Then David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech came to meet David trembling, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no man with you?”

Is that why all of you have conspired against me, and there is no one who discloses to me when my son makes a treaty with the son of Jesse, and there is none of you who is sorry for me, or discloses to me that my son has stirred up my servant against me, to lie in wait, as it is today?”

Absalom her brother said to her, “Has Amnon your brother been with you? But now hold your peace, my sister. He is your brother. Don’t take this thing to heart.” So Tamar remained desolate in her brother Absalom’s house.

But Absalom fled and went to Talmai the son of Ammihur, king of Geshur. David mourned for his son every day.

So Absalom fled and went to Geshur, and was there three years.

King David longed to go out to Absalom, for he was comforted concerning Amnon, since he was dead.

The king said to her, “What ails you?” She answered, “Truly I am a widow, and my husband is dead.

Absalom lived two full years in Jerusalem, and he didn’t see the king’s face.

Absalom answered Joab, “Behold, I sent to you, saying, ‘Come here, that I may send you to the king, to say, “Why have I come from Geshur? It would be better for me to be there still. Now therefore, let me see the king’s face; and if there is iniquity in me, let him kill me.”’”

David came to his house at Jerusalem; and the king took the ten women his concubines, whom he had left to keep the house, and put them in custody and provided them with sustenance, but didn’t go in to them. So they were shut up to the day of their death, living in widowhood.

David said longingly, “Oh that someone would give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate!”

Then Elijah said to the people, “I, even I only, am left as a prophet of the LORD; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men.

But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree. Then he requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is enough. Now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.”

He said, “I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of Armies; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”

He said, “I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of Armies; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”

Elisha saw it, and he cried, “My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” He saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.

For the LORD saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter for all, slave and free; and there was no helper for Israel.

He was thirty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years. He departed with no one’s regret. They buried him in David’s city, but not in the tombs of the kings.

Uzziah the king was a leper to the day of his death, and lived in a separate house, being a leper; for he was cut off from the LORD’s house. Jotham his son was over the king’s house, judging the people of the land.

Between morning and evening they are destroyed. They perish forever without any regarding it.

“Call now; is there any who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn?

Isn’t it that I have no help in me, that wisdom is driven away from me?

For now you are nothing. You see a terror, and are afraid.

so that my soul chooses strangling, death rather than my bones.

I loathe my life. I don’t want to live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath.

How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone until I swallow down my spittle?

There is no umpire between us, that might lay his hand on us both.

“My soul is weary of my life. I will give free course to my complaint. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.

Aren’t my days few? Stop! Leave me alone, that I may find a little comfort,

Why do you hide your face, and consider me your enemy?

He has lived in desolate cities, in houses which no one inhabited, which were ready to become heaps.

“I have heard many such things. You are all miserable comforters!

But now, God, you have surely worn me out. You have made all my company desolate.

My face is red with weeping. Deep darkness is on my eyelids,

My friends scoff at me. My eyes pour out tears to God,

“Now give a pledge. Be collateral for me with yourself. Who is there who will strike hands with me?

But as for you all, come back. I will not find a wise man amongst you.

“He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.

My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me.

Those who dwell in my house and my maids consider me a stranger. I am an alien in their sight.

I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer. I beg him with my mouth.

My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother.

Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me.

All my familiar friends abhor me. They whom I loved have turned against me.

whom I, even I, will see on my side. My eyes will see, and not as a stranger. “My heart is consumed within me.

“If I go east, he is not there. If I go west, I can’t find him.

He works to the north, but I can’t see him. He turns south, but I can’t catch a glimpse of him.

He breaks open a shaft away from where people live. They are forgotten by the foot. They hang far from men, they swing back and forth.

“Oh that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me;

They are driven out from amongst men. They cry after them as after a thief,

so that they live in frightful valleys, and in holes of the earth and of the rocks.

They bray amongst the bushes. They are gathered together under the nettles.

They abhor me, they stand aloof from me, and don’t hesitate to spit in my face.

I cry to you, and you do not answer me. I stand up, and you gaze at me.

I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to ostriches.

For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David. How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?

For the Chief Musician; set to “The Doe of the Morning.” A Psalm by David. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?

But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people.

Don’t be far from me, for trouble is near. For there is no one to help.

Turn to me, and have mercy on me, for I am desolate and afflicted.

When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up.

Because of all my adversaries I have become utterly contemptible to my neighbours, a horror to my acquaintances. Those who saw me on the street fled from me.

I am forgotten from their hearts like a dead man. I am like broken pottery.

But in my adversity, they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together. The attackers gathered themselves together against me, and I didn’t know it. They tore at me, and didn’t cease.

My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my plague. My kinsmen stand far away.

“Hear my prayer, LORD, and give ear to my cry. Don’t be silent at my tears. For I am a stranger with you, a foreigner, as all my fathers were.

I said, “Oh that I had wings like a dove! Then I would fly away, and be at rest.

Behold, then I would wander far off. I would lodge in the wilderness.” Selah.

But it was you, a man like me, my companion, and my familiar friend.

A Psalm by David, when he was in the desert of Judah. God, you are my God. I will earnestly seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh longs for you, in a dry and weary land, where there is no water.

God sets the lonely in families. He brings out the prisoners with singing, but the rebellious dwell in a sun-scorched land.

I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s children.

Those who sit in the gate talk about me. I am the song of the drunkards.

Reproach has broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness. I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; for comforters, but I found none.

We see no miraculous signs. There is no longer any prophet, neither is there amongst us anyone who knows how long.

My soul longs, and even faints for the courts of the LORD. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

I am counted amongst those who go down into the pit. I am like a man who has no help,

set apart amongst the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more. They are cut off from your hand.

You have taken my friends from me. You have made me an abomination to them. I am confined, and I can’t escape.

LORD, why do you reject my soul? Why do you hide your face from me?

You have put lover and friend far from me, and my friends into darkness.

How long, LORD? Will you hide yourself forever? Will your wrath burn like fire?

I am like a pelican of the wilderness. I have become as an owl of the waste places.

I watch, and have become like a sparrow that is alone on the housetop.

My days are like a long shadow. I have withered like grass.

They wandered in the wilderness in a desert way. They found no city to live in.

Therefore he brought down their heart with labour. They fell down, and there was no one to help.

I fade away like an evening shadow. I am shaken off like a locust.

I am a stranger on the earth. Don’t hide your commandments from me.

My soul is consumed with longing for your ordinances at all times.

Woe is me, that I live in Meshech, that I dwell amongst the tents of Kedar!

My soul has had her dwelling too long with him who hates peace.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yes, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

Look on my right, and see; for there is no one who is concerned for me. Refuge has fled from me. No one cares for my soul.

Therefore my spirit is overwhelmed within me. My heart within me is desolate.

The heart knows its own bitterness and joy; he will not share these with a stranger.

A man who isolates himself pursues selfishness, and defies all sound judgement.

Wealth adds many friends, but the poor is separated from his friend.

All the relatives of the poor shun him; how much more do his friends avoid him! He pursues them with pleas, but they are gone.

Then I returned and saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold, the tears of those who were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.

There is one who is alone, and he has neither son nor brother. There is no end to all of his labour, neither are his eyes satisfied with wealth. “For whom then do I labour and deprive my soul of enjoyment?” This also is vanity. Yes, it is a miserable business.

For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls, and doesn’t have another to lift him up.

Again, if two lie together, then they have warmth; but how can one keep warm alone?

and the doors shall be shut in the street; when the sound of the grinding is low, and one shall rise up at the voice of a bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low;

By night on my bed, I sought him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I didn’t find him.

I opened to my beloved; but my beloved left, and had gone away. My heart went out when he spoke. I looked for him, but I didn’t find him. I called him, but he didn’t answer.

The daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a hut in a field of melons, like a besieged city.

Her gates shall lament and mourn. She shall be desolate and sit on the ground.

Woe to those who join house to house, who lay field to field, until there is no room, and you are made to dwell alone in the middle of the land!

In my ears, the LORD of Armies says: “Surely many houses will be desolate, even great and beautiful, unoccupied.

and the LORD has removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many within the land.

For it will be that as wandering birds, as a scattered nest, so will the daughters of Moab be at the fords of the Arnon.

Be ashamed, Sidon; for the sea has spoken, the stronghold of the sea, saying, “I have not travailed, nor given birth, neither have I nourished young men, nor brought up virgins.”

Take a harp; go about the city, you prostitute that has been forgotten. Make sweet melody. Sing many songs, that you may be remembered.

For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness. The calf will feed there, and there he will lie down, and consume its branches.

I said, “I won’t see the LORD, the LORD in the land of the living. I will see man no more with the inhabitants of the world.

When I look, there is no man, even amongst them there is no counsellor who, when I ask, can answer a word.

“Now therefore hear this, you who are given to pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me. I won’t sit as a widow, neither will I know the loss of children.’

But these two things will come to you in a moment in one day: the loss of children and widowhood. They will come on you in their full measure, in the multitude of your sorceries, and the great abundance of your enchantments.

The things that you laboured in will be like this: those who have trafficked with you from your youth will each wander in his own way. There will be no one to save you.

But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me.”

Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who has conceived these for me, since I have been bereaved of my children and am alone, an exile, and wandering back and forth? Who has brought these up? Behold, I was left alone. Where were these?’”

There is no one to guide her amongst all the sons to whom she has given birth; and there is no one who takes her by the hand amongst all the sons whom she has brought up.

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him.

“I have trodden the wine press alone. Of the peoples, no one was with me. Yes, I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath. Their lifeblood is sprinkled on my garments, and I have stained all my clothing.

We have become like those over whom you never ruled, like those who were not called by your name.

Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men, that I might leave my people and go from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.

“I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, ‘How we are ruined! We are greatly confounded because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings.’”

My tent has been destroyed, and all my cords are broken. My children have gone away from me, and they are no more. There is no one to spread my tent any more, to set up my curtains.

For even your brothers, and the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you! Even they have cried aloud after you! Don’t believe them, though they speak beautiful words to you.

For who will have pity on you, Jerusalem? Who will mourn you? Who will come to ask of your welfare?

Woe is me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife, and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have not lent, neither have men lent to me; yet every one of them curses me.

I didn’t sit in the assembly of those who make merry and rejoice. I sat alone because of your hand, for you have filled me with indignation.

For I have heard the defaming of many: “Terror on every side! Denounce, and we will denounce him!” say all my familiar friends, those who watch for my fall. “Perhaps he will be persuaded, and we will prevail against him, and we will take our revenge on him.”

Therefore the LORD says concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: “They won’t lament for him, saying, ‘Ah my brother!’ or, ‘Ah sister!’ They won’t lament for him, saying ‘Ah lord!’ or, ‘Ah his glory!’

“Go up to Lebanon, and cry out. Lift up your voice in Bashan, and cry from Abarim; for all your lovers have been destroyed.

But to the land to which their soul longs to return, there they will not return.”

There is no one to plead your cause, that you may be bound up. You have no healing medicines.

All your lovers have forgotten you. They don’t seek you. For I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the greatness of your iniquity, because your sins were increased.

Give wings to Moab, that she may fly and get herself away: and her cities will become a desolation, without anyone to dwell in them.

Her cities have become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land in which no man dwells. No son of man passes by it.

How the city sits solitary, that was full of people! She has become as a widow, who was great amongst the nations! She who was a princess amongst the provinces has become a slave!

She weeps bitterly in the night. Her tears are on her cheeks. Amongst all her lovers she has no one to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her. They have become her enemies.

“From on high has he sent fire into my bones, and it prevails against them. He has spread a net for my feet. He has turned me back. He has made me desolate and I faint all day long.

“For these things I weep. My eye, my eye runs down with water, because the comforter who should refresh my soul is far from me. My children are desolate, because the enemy has prevailed.”

Zion spreads out her hands. There is no one to comfort her. The LORD has commanded concerning Jacob, that those who are around him should be his adversaries. Jerusalem is amongst them as an unclean thing.

“They have heard that I sigh. There is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble. They are glad that you have done it. You will bring the day that you have proclaimed, and they will be like me.

He has made me dwell in dark places, as those who have been long dead.

He has walled me about, so that I can’t go out. He has made my chain heavy.

Yes, when I cry, and call for help, he shuts out my prayer.

He has turned away my path, and pulled me in pieces. He has made me desolate.

I have become a derision to all my people, and their song all day long.

Let him sit alone and keep silence, because he has laid it on him.

“Go away!” they cried to them. “Unclean! Go away! Go away! Don’t touch! When they fled away and wandered, men said amongst the nations, “They can’t live here any more.”

We are orphans and fatherless. Our mothers are as widows.

The elders have ceased from the gate, and the young men from their music.

Why do you forget us forever, and forsake us for so long a time?

But of those who escape, they will escape and will be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning, everyone in his iniquity.

As for your birth, in the day you were born your navel was not cut. You weren’t washed in water to cleanse you. You weren’t salted at all, nor wrapped in blankets at all.

No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you, to have compassion on you; but you were cast out in the open field, because you were abhorred in the day that you were born.

Now it is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty land.

My sheep wandered through all the mountains and on every high hill. Yes, my sheep were scattered on all the surface of the earth. There was no one who searched or sought.”

Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost. We are completely cut off.’

“The virgin of Israel has fallen; She shall rise no more. She is cast down on her land; there is no one to raise her up.”

They will wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they will run back and forth to seek the LORD’s word, and will not find it.

Misery is mine! Indeed, I am like one who gathers the summer fruits, as gleanings of the vineyard. There is no cluster of grapes to eat. My soul desires to eat the early fig.

It will happen that all those who look at you will flee from you, and say, ‘Nineveh is laid waste! Who will mourn for her?’ Where will I seek comforters for you?”

After he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into the mountain by himself to pray. When evening had come, he was there alone.

Behold, your house is left to you desolate.

Then he said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with me.”

He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What, couldn’t you watch with me for one hour?

He came again and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy.

About the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lima sabachthani?” That is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

He lived in the tombs. Nobody could bind him any more, not even with chains,

Always, night and day, in the tombs and in the mountains, he was crying out, and cutting himself with stones.

When evening had come, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and he was alone on the land.

But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they both were well advanced in years.

Now when he came near to the gate of the city, behold, one who was dead was carried out, the only born son of his mother, and she was a widow. Many people of the city were with her.

The unclean spirit, when he has gone out of the man, passes through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, ‘I will turn back to my house from which I came out.’

The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, another steps down before me.”

You will seek me and won’t find me. You can’t come where I am.”

Little children, I will be with you a little while longer. You will seek me, and as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you can’t come,’ so now I tell you.

Behold, the time is coming, yes, and has now come, that you will be scattered, everyone to his own place, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.

But Mary was standing outside at the tomb weeping. So as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb,

They asked her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have laid him.”

“Lord, they have killed your prophets. They have broken down your altars. I am left alone, and they seek my life.”

I had no relief for my spirit, because I didn’t find Titus my brother, but taking my leave of them, I went out into Macedonia.

For most certainly in this we groan, longing to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven,

that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

But we, brothers, being bereaved of you for a short season in presence, not in heart, tried even harder to see your face with great desire,

Therefore when we couldn’t stand it any longer, we thought it good to be left behind at Athens alone,

But Timothy has just now come to us from you, and brought us glad news of your faith and love, and that you have good memories of us always, longing to see us, even as we also long to see you.

night and day praying exceedingly that we may see your face and may perfect that which is lacking in your faith?

longing to see you, remembering your tears, that I may be filled with joy;

This you know, that all who are in Asia turned away from me, of whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes.

for Demas left me, having loved this present world, and went to Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia; and Titus to Dalmatia.

At my first defence, no one came to help me, but all left me. May it not be held against them.

Then I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open the book or to look in it.