16 birthday Bible verses to thank God for the year and ask for the next
Written by Raphael Navarro Schmitt · Reviewed by Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt ·
Short answer
The Bible does not celebrate birthdays, but it says a great deal about counted time. Psalm 89:10 puts a number on a life, and Psalm 138:16 says the days were written in a book before any of them existed. The verses below thank God for a year and ask for the next.
Birthdays appear only a couple of times in the Bible, and always as the party of a foreign ruler that ends badly. There is no verse written for your birthday, and anyone who promises one is inventing it. What there is, in quantity, is counted time, age, and a God who accompanies a whole life, from the womb to the grey hair.
This list does two different jobs. One is writing to someone whose birthday it is; the other is looking at your own year just gone, which is far less festive and is usually what a person is doing when they come looking for this. The first verses are about who formed you, the middle ones ask for the year ahead, and the last ones are about getting older — the part nobody puts on a card, and the part that consoles most after forty.
If you are only sending one, choose by the person’s life, not by the beauty of the sentence. Psalm 19:5 is for someone starting something. Isaiah 46:4 is for someone afraid of time.
All 16 verses, one by one
13For you have possessed my temperament. You have supported me from the womb of my mother.
14I will confess to you, for you have been magnified terribly. Your works are miraculous, as my soul knows exceedingly well.
The beginning of everything, and so the beginning of the list. A birthday marks the exit; this verse is about what came before it, when nobody had yet seen your face.
Read the chapterYour eyes saw my imperfection, and all this shall be written in your book. Days will be formed, and no one shall be in them.
A book with the days already entered — and, in this edition, eyes that had already seen the imperfection. Consolation and fright in the same line, which may make it the most honest verse there is to read on a birthday.
Read the chapterThe days of our years in them are seventy years. But in the powerful, they are eighty years, and more of these are with hardship and sorrow. For mildness has overwhelmed us, and we shall be corrected.
The psalm puts an actual figure on a life: seventy years, eighty for the strong — and it says plainly that much of the extra comes with hardship. A birthday is precisely the day that arithmetic becomes visible.
Read the chapter24‘May the Lord bless you and keep you.
25May the Lord reveal his face to you and take pity on you.
26May the Lord turn his countenance toward you and grant peace to you.’
The blessing the priests spoke over the people, word for word. It works well said aloud over somebody on their day, which is exactly what it was written for.
Read the chapterMay he grant to you according to your heart, and confirm all your counsels.
A wish, not a promise — and that is what makes it usable. It was written for a king on the eve of a large decision, which sets the right scale: it asks for the plans ahead to hold, not for comfort about what is past.
Read the chapterThroughout every single day, I will bless you. And I will praise your name, in this time and forever and ever.
Every single day, not only this one. The short verse for someone about to post something and hoping not to sound like a shop-bought card.
Read the chapterFor by me, your days will be multiplied and years of life will be added to you.
The speaker here is Wisdom personified, and the promise is conditional on listening to her. Long life turns up as a consequence of how you live, not as a raffle.
Read the chapterFor we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works which God has prepared and in which we should walk.
The Greek word behind "handiwork" is the one that gives us "poem". On a birthday, this is the verse that answers the question nobody asks out loud: what for.
Read the chapterI am confident of this very thing: that he who has begun this good work in you will perfect it, unto the day of Christ Jesus.
Especially for anyone reaching a birthday feeling they should be further along. The sentence does not say the work is finished; it says who is responsible for finishing it.
Read the chapterAll things have their time, and all things under heaven continue during their interval.
The most quoted line of the most sceptical book in the Bible. On a birthday it works the opposite way round from what you expect: it does not promise that time will improve, it promises that time has an order.
Read the chapterHe satisfies your desire with good things. Your youth will be renewed like that of the eagle.
Youth renewed like the eagle’s is what people go looking for around fifty. Note that what is renewed is the strength, not the age.
Read the chapterI will fill him with length of days. And I will reveal to him my salvation.
Length of days and salvation in the same sentence, in that order. It makes a good birthday wish precisely because it does not stop at the first item.
Read the chapter17You have taught me from my youth, O God. And so I will declare your wonders continuously,
18even in old age and with grey hairs. Do not abandon me, O God, while I announce your arm to every future generation: your power
An old man talking to God about getting old. The request is not for more time: it is not to be set aside while there is still something to tell the younger ones.
Read the chapterIn old age is wisdom, and in length of days is prudence.
One line that is worth a whole card for someone turning sixty, seventy, eighty. And it is said inside a book where almost everything else is being contested.
Read the chapterOld age is a crown of dignity, when it is found in the ways of justice.
Notice the condition at the end of the verse: the crown belongs to old age found in the ways of justice. Growing old on its own is not an honour; growing old well is.
Read the chapterEven to your old age, I am the same. And even with your grey hairs, I will carry you. I have made you, and I will sustain you. I will carry you, and I will save you.
Last on the list, and the one that stays. God commits to the whole of old age with four verbs in a row — I made, I will carry, I will sustain, I will save. It is for anyone afraid of the next year.
Read the chapter
Frequently asked questions
What is the best Bible verse to wish someone a happy birthday?
Numbers 6:24-26 is the most used and the safest: it is the blessing the priests spoke over the people and it fits any age. For someone starting a project or a new stage, Psalm 19:5 is more precise. For someone feeling the weight of time, Isaiah 46:4.
Does the Bible say celebrating birthdays is wrong?
No. The Bible neither forbids nor commands it. The two birthday feasts it narrates belong to foreign rulers and end badly, which some traditions have read as a warning — but the text draws no rule from it, and most Christian churches celebrate without a second thought.
Which verse should I write in a birthday card?
Pick a short one, because a card has little room and a long sentence loses its force. Psalm 144:2, Psalm 19:5 and Philippians 1:6 each fit on one line. Write the reference underneath, so the person can read the whole chapter later if they want to.
Is there a verse for your own birthday when you do not feel like celebrating?
Psalm 89:10 is the fitting one: it names the length of a life without asking anyone to be glad about it. Philippians 1:6 helps when the frustration is a sense of having arrived late somewhere. Neither requires you to be at peace with the date.
A prayer to take with you
Lord, thank you for another year — including the months of it I would rather not have lived. Teach me to count the days I still have without wasting them on fear of what is coming. And let this year that starts today be your time before it is mine. Amen.