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Asaph wrote Psalm 73 about a crisis triggered by watching other people flourish while he struggled to stay faithful. He saw the prosperity of the wicked — "they have more than heart could wish" (v.7) — and said his feet had almost slipped. He had nearly abandoned his faith entirely because of what he was observing in other people's lives. The trigger for his crisis was comparison. It was only when he went into the sanctuary and saw those lives from God's perspective that the comparison lost its power over him.
Get These Verses Daily — Free“But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped.”
Asaph traces his near-collapse directly to comparing his life to the prosperity he saw in others. The crisis is real — he says his feet almost gave way. The psalm's recovery does not come from stopping the observation, but from changing the vantage point.
“But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.”
The Greek dokimazeto means testing through fire — examining your own work on its own terms, not in comparison to others. Paul identifies a kind of rejoicing available only when comparison is removed: a joy that belongs to you and cannot be taken by someone else's highlight reel.
“A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones.”
The Hebrew word raqab — 'rottenness' — means structural decay, rot that works from the inside. Comparison-envy is not described as merely unpleasant but as something that destroys the structure it inhabits.
“Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”
Paul explicitly says contentment was learned — the Greek emathon indicates learning through experience over time, not a natural trait. This normalizes the struggle with discontentment and frames it as something that can be actually learned, not just claimed.
“For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.”
Paul calls self-comparison unwise — the Greek ou syniasin means they do not understand, they are without understanding. The measuring system itself is broken when the standard is other people rather than God's calling for your specific life.
Galatians 6:4 addresses comparison directly: "But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another." The Greek word for "prove" — dokimazeto — means to test by examination, to put to the fire to verify. Paul is describing a shift from comparing your work to someone else's to examining your own work on its own terms. The rejoicing available from this is described as a different kind than comparison can produce — it belongs to yourself, not borrowed from someone else's measurement.
Proverbs 14:30 diagnoses the physical dimension: "envy the rottenness of the bones." The Hebrew word for "rottenness" — raqab — is the word for decay, for the structural disintegration that ruins from the inside out. Instagram comparison is a modern instance of the envy Solomon named as structurally destructive — not just unpleasant but rotting the bones.
Commentary is from a charismatic Protestant perspective, drawing on KJV text and public-domain sources including Spurgeon, Andrew Murray, and Matthew Henry.
Philippians 4:11 contains one of the most overlooked words in Paul's famous contentment statement: "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." The word "learned" — emathon — is the aorist form of manthano, the Greek word for learning through experience, through being a disciple. Contentment is not a disposition you either have or don't. Paul says explicitly that he had to learn it — through abundance and through need. Contentment under the pressure of comparison is an acquired skill, not a natural state.
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