Are We Really Valuable to God?

Ron Simkins – November 25, 2025 1 Comment

This week, Ron Simkins reminds us how valuable we are to God through the study of the word segullah. May his writing bring encouragement to you today. –Melissa Logsdon, NCF Associate Pastor

In my last essay, I suggested that we often ask the wrong question about ourselves. We often hear the question “Are humans good or bad?” And, most of us, in moments of honesty and reflection find ourselves wondering “Am I really good or really bad?” I also suggested that a realistic answer to both questions is “Yes!” For that reason, I personally do not wish to stand before God trying to convince God, or anybody else, that I am “good enough” to be with a Good God forever or to be in God’s good forever family.

Thankfully, the biblical writers tell us that God has a different paradigm. God sees humans as valuable. I think this valuableness is what the creation of humans is all about. And, this valuableness of humans is what God is revealing to us through Jesus’ humanity then and now. (See 1 Corinthians 15:47-58 if you would like to read one of many biblical reflections on this claim.)

In this essay, I want to look at one of the words in the Old Testament that reflects how much God values humans. God willing, after the first of the year I will follow up with the same concept in the New Testament. (I owe this insight from both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament to my friend Walter Zorn who has written about it several times through the years including in his recent book “Biblical Texts: Mistranslated, Misinterpreted, and Misapplied”.)

The Hebrew word is segullah. Although it appears only eight times in the Hebrew Bible, it carries a weighty insight. Two times it is used of the prized treasures amassed by kings. In 1 Chronicles 29:3, it is used of the huge personal treasure King David amassed so that his son Solomon could build the Temple in Jerusalem. In Ecclesiastes 2:8, it describes the vast resources the king has accumulated in these words: “I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure (segullah) of kings and provinces.” Both usages describe the highly prized treasures that very wealthy people often amass.

What is fascinating is that the other six usages of the word in the Hebrew Bible all describe how God thinks about God’s relationship with humans who seek God. In each of the quotations from the NIV, I will substitute “most prized treasure” for the various translations used in the NIV.  Contextually the references in the Hebrew Bible are mostly focused on Israel’s calling to be God’s unique place for a special revelation of God’s purposes and ways. They are called God’s “most prized treasure,” and God wants them to live like they are that valuable to God.

TORAH

Exodus 9:4 “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my ‘most prized treasure (segullah)’. Although the whole earth is mine, 6 you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

Deuteronomy 7:6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, the Lord’s “most prized treasure (segullah).”

Deuteronomy 14:2 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the Lord has chosen you to be the Lord’s “most prized treasure (segullah).”

Deuteronomy 26:17 You have declared this day that the Lord is your God and that you will walk in obedience to him, that you will keep his decrees, commands and laws—that you will listen to him. 18 And the Lord has declared this day that you are his people, his “most prized treasure (segullah)” as he promised, and that you are to keep all his commands. 19 He has declared that he will set you in praise, fame and honor high above all the nations he has made and that you will be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he promised.   [A description of the two sides of the covenant relationship between God and Israel. God treasures Israel and Israel is to “listen” and “keep” God’s ways of living.]

PROPHETS

Malachai 3:16 Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name. 17 “On the day when I act,” says the Lord Almighty, “they will be my “most prized treasure (segullah).”

WRITINGS

Psalm 135:3 Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good; sing praise to his name, for that is pleasant.
4 For the Lord has chosen Jacob to be his own, Israel to be the Lord’s “most prized treasure (segullah)”.

In case you are tempted to think that these quotations disprove my answer to the intial question – are we good or are we bad? Please note that the majority of the usages of segullah (most prized treasure) occur in Deuteronomy. And, Deuteronomy is the book that most clearly reminds Israel that they should not think that they are only “good” or that they are “better than” other people.

Three times in Deuteronomy 9:5-13, God tells Moses that God was quite aware that God’s choice to work through Israel was a choice to work through a very stubborn people. (Aren’t many of us? Perhaps most of us in our own way?) They were sometimes good. They were sometimes bad. A description of my life, and a description of everyone I have ever known—even the very best. 

So, entertain with me the question—“What if you, I, we, entertained more deeply the possibility that despite the fact that even at our best we are not good enough, we are ‘God’s most prized treasure?’” –Ron Simkins, NCF Pastor Emeritus