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Bible Verses About God
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Search for Bible verses about God and most lists give you adjectives (loving, faithful, powerful), each paired with a verse that says so. That is not wrong, but it skips how Scripture tends to go about it. Comparatively little of the Bible stops to define God. Far more of it shows God speaking about himself, or someone naming him after an encounter, or a writer arguing from who God is to what follows for the people listening.
The passages below are chosen with that in mind. Some are God’s own words: the name given to Moses at the bush, the self-description on Sinai, the line in Malachi about not changing. Some are what people said back. They come from a servant woman in the wilderness, a psalmist who cannot find anywhere to hide, and a prophet answering a city that believes it has been forgotten. John’s Gospel insists that no one has seen God and then points to the one who has made him known.
Several of these read differently in their own chapter than they do on their own. Isaiah 55 is about mercy before it is about mystery. 1 John 4 is about how people treat each other before it is about a definition. Each passage is given in both translations, with a short note on what it is doing where it sits.
12 verses for when you need them
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
Exodus 3:14 ESVAnd God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
Exodus 3:14 KJVMoses asks for a name to give the Israelites, and the answer is I AM. Translators render the Hebrew in more than one way. The readings on offer tend to point at God's own being rather than at anything he is compared to, so the name works less like a title and more like a refusal to be defined from outside.
The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
Exodus 34:6-7 ESVAnd the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.
Exodus 34:6-7 KJVThe LORD passes before Moses and proclaims his own character: merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and also not clearing the guilty. Both halves belong to the same speech. Jonah 4:2 later quotes the merciful half back to God, and Jonah means it as a complaint.
So she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.”
Genesis 16:13 ESVAnd 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 16:13 KJVHagar has run from Sarai into the wilderness, pregnant and alone, when the angel of the LORD finds her. She names the God who spoke to her as the one who sees her. The naming comes from an Egyptian servant rather than from Abraham, and the text records it without correction.
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
Deuteronomy 6:4 ESVHear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
Deuteronomy 6:4 KJVThe confession Israel was to repeat is that the LORD is one. The passage moves straight on to loving him with heart, soul and might. The statement about God arrives attached to a demand on the person hearing it.
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Psalm 90:2 ESVBefore the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Psalm 90:2 KJVThe psalm reaches back past the mountains and the making of the earth and finds God already there, God from everlasting to everlasting. It sets that age against human life, which it compares to grass. The contrast is the point, and it does not flatter the reader.
Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.
Psalm 139:7-10 ESVWhither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
Psalm 139:7-10 KJVThe psalmist asks where it would be possible to go from God's presence and finds nowhere: heaven, Sheol, the far side of the sea. The same lines can be read as relief or as exposure, and the psalm seems content to hold both.
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
Isaiah 40:28 ESVHast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.
Isaiah 40:28 KJVThis is spoken to people complaining that their way is hidden from the LORD. The answer does not describe their situation. It describes God: everlasting, the Creator, never faint or weary, with an understanding beyond searching. The reassurance is that he is who he is.
“Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.
Isaiah 49:15 ESVCan a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.
Isaiah 49:15 KJVZion says she has been forsaken, and God answers with the picture of a nursing mother. She may forget her child, yet he will not forget. The most devoted human tie is used as the measure God exceeds, which is a striking image to find in a prophet.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:8-9 ESVFor my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:8-9 KJVThis is often quoted to mean that God is beyond understanding. In context, the higher thoughts follow a call for the wicked to return to a God who will abundantly pardon. Read that way, the distance being described is largely the distance between his mercy and ours.
“For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.
Malachi 3:6 ESVFor I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
Malachi 3:6 KJVI am the LORD, I change not. The verse draws a conclusion from it at once: therefore the children of Jacob are not consumed. God's constancy is offered as the reason a faithless people still exist, which makes it far less abstract than it sounds.
No one has ever seen God; God the only Son, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.
John 1:18 ESVNo man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
John 1:18 KJVNo one has ever seen God, and the Son has made him known. John's Gospel puts its clearest answer to what God is like in a person rather than in a definition. On that reading, the rest of the Gospel is the answer being worked out.
Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:8 ESVHe that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
1 John 4:8 KJVGod is love, stated in the middle of an argument about how believers treat one another. The same sentence says that whoever does not love does not know God. So one of the most quoted lines about God's nature is also one of the less comfortable ones.
Taken together, these read less like a list of attributes and more like a set of encounters. God names himself to Moses, describes himself on Sinai, and answers a city that feels forgotten. People name him back, sometimes with gratitude and sometimes, like Jonah, through gritted teeth.
What stands out is how often a statement about God comes with something attached. The LORD is one, so love him with everything. He does not change, so a faithless people are still here. God is love, so a person who will not love does not know him. Scripture seldom describes God and then leaves the reader alone with the description.
Many women come looking for verses about God wanting to know whether he notices them at all. Hagar's line in Genesis 16 is the plainest answer on this page. It belongs to a woman with no standing in the household she ran from, and the text lets her name stand.
Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version, which is in the public domain. Scripture quotations marked ESV are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.