Self-pity

Sorrow or despondency aroused by one's own suffering or misfortune. It can result from personal loss or suffering, hardship in God's service or the judgment of God. Its cure is to remember the goodness of God.

Examples of self-pity as a result of personal loss or suffering

The Israelites in the wilderness

Exodus 16:3 See also Exodus 14:10–12, Exodus 17:3; Numbers 11:4–6, Numbers 14:1–4; Deuteronomy 1:26–28; 1 Corinthians 10:10–11

“If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt!” they said. “There we sat by pots of meat and ate our fill of bread, but you have brought us into this desert to starve this whole assembly to death!”

Job

Job 6:1–13, Job 10:1 See also Job 3:1–26, Job 12:1–6, Job 16:6–17:2, Job 30:9–31

“I loathe my own life; I will express my complaint and speak in the bitterness of my soul.

Other examples

Genesis 27:34, Genesis 27:38; 2 Samuel 15:30; 2 Kings 20:2–3 parallel Isaiah 38:2–3; Psalm 10:1, Psalm 73:2–3, Psalm 73:13–14, Psalm 74:1

Examples of self-pity as a result of hardship in the service of God

Moses

Numbers 11:11–15 See also Exodus 5:22–23, Exodus 17:4

So Moses asked the LORD, “Why have You brought this trouble on Your servant? Why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid upon me the burden of all these people? Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth, so that You should tell me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries an infant,’ to the land that You swore to give their fathers? Where can I get meat for all these people? For they keep crying out to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ I cannot carry all these people by myself; it is too burdensome for me. If this is how You are going to treat me, please kill me right now — if I have found favor in Your eyes — and let me not see my own wretchedness.”

Elijah

1 Kings 19:4 See also 1 Kings 19:10, 1 Kings 19:14

while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He sat down under a broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”

Jeremiah

Jeremiah 15:10 See also Jeremiah 15:18, Jeremiah 20:7–10, Jeremiah 20:14–18

Woe to me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife and conflict in all the land. I have neither lent nor borrowed, yet everyone curses me.

Other examples

Jeremiah 45:3 See also Jonah 4:1–5

You have said, ‘Woe is me because the LORD has added sorrow to my pain! I am worn out with groaning and have found no rest.’”

Examples of self-pity as a result of God's judgment

Psalm 137:1–9; Lamentations 3:1–18; Revelation 18:9–19 The kings, merchants and sailors will be full of self-pity when they see the destruction of Babylon, because their opportunities for making wealth will be gone.

People calling upon others to pity them

Job 19:21 See also Mark 9:22; Luke 17:13

Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me.

Turning to God puts self-pity in its true perspective

Psalm 43:5, Psalm 73:16–17 See also Psalm 3:1–4, Psalm 13:1–6, Psalm 37:1–7, Psalm 73:23–28, Psalm 106:7; Lamentations 3:19–26, Lamentations 3:31–33; 2 Corinthians 1:5, 2 Corinthians 6:3–10; James 1:2–3; 1 Peter 4:13

Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why the unease within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.

When I tried to understand all this, it was troublesome in my sight until I entered God’s sanctuary; then I discerned their end.