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Subject

Loneliness

Being alone, and the God who sets the solitary in families.

Part of Topics & Trials

Also called: alone, forsaken, isolation, no one with me, solitary, abandoned

What Loneliness covers, and where it stops

This subject covers being alone, in the places Scripture records it, and the God who sets the solitary in families. Sorrow after a person is taken belongs to Grief. The love that sticks closer than a brother belongs to Friendship.

On this page, 7 sections

The one drawing

Across the canon

377 verses across 48 of the 66 books, Genesis to Revelation. A column is taller and brighter where the King James text returns to it. Each book with a verse in it opens that book.

10 passages

Where Scripture speaks

The passages this subject stands on, in canon order.

And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
Genesis 2:18KJVEven in a perfect garden, God names Adam's aloneness not good.
And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?
Genesis 16:13KJVHagar, alone in the wilderness, discovers the God who sees her.
And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.
1 Kings 19:10KJVElijah, exhausted, insists he alone is left faithful — and is wrong.
Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate and afflicted.
Psalms 25:16KJVA direct cry from isolation: desolate and afflicted, asking to be seen.
God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land.
Psalms 68:6KJVGod's own description of himself: the one who sets the solitary in families.
I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul.
Psalms 142:4KJVNo one at his right hand, no one who cares — loneliness named plainly.
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Matthew 27:46KJVEven Jesus, on the cross, cries out in the language of forsakenness.
Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.
John 16:32KJVJesus foretells his own abandonment, and names the Father's presence anyway.
At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.
2 Timothy 4:16KJVPaul, deserted by every friend at his trial, is not deserted by the Lord.
Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
Hebrews 13:5KJVThe promise underneath every lonely psalm: never left, never forsaken.
Hagar, cast out and alone in the wilderness with Ishmael, discovers that God sees the solitary and provides (Genesis 21:14-19).
Hagar, cast out and alone in the wilderness with Ishmael, discovers that God sees the solitary and provides (Genesis 21:14-19).Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain

Loneliness in Scripture, in full

Loneliness in Scripture is the cry of the isolated, the widow, the outcast, and the misunderstood — from Hagar in the wilderness to David in the caves to Elijah after Carmel to Paul in the Mamertine. The Bible does not promise the removal of loneliness but the presence of the God who sees (El Roi, Genesis 16:13). The solitary are set in families (Psalm 68:6), and the Lord stands with those whom others forsake.

4 voices

What teachers have said

“Forsake me not, O Lord - Though all have forsaken me, do not thou. Be not far from me - Though my friends keep aloof, be thou near to help me.”

Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible

Written before 1832.

“my only one; which is now left alone and forsaken by my friends, and hath none to trust in but God.”

John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765

“My refuge is my God. Beautifully he said, ‘refuge,’ for there are many persecutors, and you alone are a refuge. Many are the wounds, but you alone are the physician.”

Jerome · Homily 68, on Psalm 90 (Alternate Series)

Written before 420.

“A heart-cutting paradox [UMBREIT]. God alone remains to whom he can look for attestation of his innocence; plaintively with tearful eye, he supplicates for this.”

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871

The words underneath

Each card is one Hebrew or Greek word behind loneliness. It gives the sense, the count across the canon, and the number in Strong's 1890 concordance.

370 verses

The complete list

The King James text uses the language of loneliness in 377 verses. 7 of them are quoted above and the other 370 stand here, book by book. 3 more verses above show loneliness without using one of its words, so they are outside that count. Open a book to read the references with a clause of each verse.

Genesis4
Exodus6
Leviticus6
Numbers3
Deuteronomy14
Joshua4
Judges6
1 Samuel4
2 Samuel5
1 Kings6
2 Kings5
1 Chronicles3
2 Chronicles12
Ezra4
Nehemiah4
Esther1
Job22
Psalms28
Proverbs12
Ecclesiastes3
Isaiah43
Jeremiah51
Lamentations9
Ezekiel37
Daniel7
Hosea4
Joel5
Amos2
Jonah1
Micah3
Zephaniah2
Zechariah1
Malachi1
Matthew7
Mark8
Luke10
John9
Acts4
Romans2
2 Corinthians1
Galatians2
1 Thessalonians1
1 Timothy1
2 Timothy1
Hebrews2
James1
2 Peter1
Revelation2

Topics & Trials

The subjects beside it