Bible Verses About

“This is the one I esteem:
He who is humble and contrite in spirit
and trembles at My Word.” Isaiah 66:2

This Bible verse from Isaiah is really cool.  One main reason why I love it is because it uses the word esteem.  Esteem means to honor, to lift up, to put in the spotlight.  That’s a pretty cool word picture.  God very rarely says that He will esteem someone.  But here in this Bible verse, He gives the criteria for the person whom He will esteem.  In another post, we went through a verse that said that the sacrifices that God wants from us are a broken spirit and a contrite heart.  Here again in this verse, we see that God esteems the one who has a humble and contrite spirit.  So what does contrite mean anyway?  It’s very similar to things like humility, meekness, and surrender.  In my mind a contrite spirit is one who is humble and stands with the fear of the Lord.

But what about the second part of the verse?  What does it mean to tremble at the word of God?  Obviously trembling is a synonym of fear, and people only generally tremble in the presence of something powerful.  When I see that phrase, “who trembles at my word,” in my mind it brings the idea that we first fully realize how powerful God’s word is, that it isn’t just some book written thousands of years ago to a people group a lot different from us.  Rather, it’s powerful and relevant for today, and has the ability to change our lives if we’ll give it the respect and attention it deserves.  That’s what the phrase means to me.