You’re sitting in a pews-and-dusty-hymnals Bible study, or maybe you're just deep in a late-night Wikipedia rabbit hole, and the question pops up: what is the longest scripture in the bible? It seems like a Sunday School layup. Simple, right? But if you ask a biblical scholar, a data analyst, and a casual reader, you might actually get three different answers. Most people will immediately point to Psalm 119. They aren't wrong, strictly speaking. It’s a massive, sprawling acrostic poem that dwarfs everything else in the Psalter. Yet, if you change the metric from "verses" to "word count," the crown starts to shift.
The Bible is a library, not a single book. Because it was written over centuries in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, the "length" of a scripture depends entirely on whether you’re counting the original parchment scrolls or the English translation sitting on your nightstand.
The Heavyweight Champion: Psalm 119
Let’s start with the obvious giant. If we define "scripture" as a single chapter or a specific liturgical unit, Psalm 119 is the undisputed heavyweight champion.
It has 176 verses.
To put that in perspective, the shortest "book" in the Bible, 2 John, only has 13 verses. Psalm 119 is literally thirteen times longer than an entire book of the New Testament. It’s an alphabetical acrostic, meaning every eight verses begin with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It’s a rhythmic, obsessive, and deeply beautiful meditation on the "Law" or "Word" of God.
Honestly, it’s a marathon. If you try to read it aloud at a normal pace, it’ll take you about fifteen minutes. Most other psalms take about forty-five seconds.
But here is where it gets tricky. "Scripture" can also mean an entire book. If you're asking which book holds the title for the longest scripture in the bible, the answer isn't actually the Psalms.
The Battle of the Books: Jeremiah vs. Psalms
If you look at a standard table of contents, the Book of Psalms looks like the winner because it has 150 chapters. It’s thick. It takes up a lot of physical real estate in the middle of your Bible.
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However, biblical scholars like those at the American Bible Society or writers for Biblica often point out a surprising fact: The Book of Jeremiah is actually the longest book in the Bible when measured by word count in the original Hebrew.
How does that work?
The Psalms are poetry. They have lots of "white space" on the page. Jeremiah, on the other hand, is a dense, rambling, heartbreaking collection of prophetic warnings and historical narratives. In the original languages, Jeremiah contains approximately 33,000 words. The Psalms come in second at roughly 30,000. Genesis and Ezekiel aren't far behind.
It’s kind of like comparing a book of short poems to a massive Russian novel. The poem book might have more "pages," but the novel has more "ink."
Why the Word Count Fluctuates
Translation changes everything. If you read the King James Version (KJV), the word counts will look different than if you read the New International Version (NIV) or the English Standard Version (ESV).
Hebrew is a very "tight" language. A single word in Hebrew often requires three or four words in English to translate accurately. Because Jeremiah has so much complex prose, its English word count explodes.
So, when someone asks what is the longest scripture in the bible, you have to ask them: "Do you mean the most verses, or the most words?"
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- Psalm 119: Longest individual chapter (176 verses).
- Jeremiah: Longest book by total word count.
- Psalms: Longest book by number of chapters.
Looking at the New Testament
The Old Testament usually hogs the spotlight in this conversation because, frankly, it’s much larger. But the New Testament has its own giants.
The Gospel of Luke is the longest book in the New Testament. This often catches people off guard because they assume it’s the Book of Acts or maybe Revelation. Nope. Luke is a meticulous researcher. He’s a doctor. He likes details.
If you combine Luke and Acts (which were written by the same person), "Luke-Acts" actually makes up nearly 30% of the entire New Testament. That’s more than all of the Apostle Paul’s letters combined.
The longest "scripture" or chapter in the New Testament is Luke 1, with 80 verses. It’s a beast of a chapter that covers the births of John the Baptist and Jesus. It’s longer than many whole books in the Bible.
The "Middle" Misconception
You might have heard a fun "fact" that Psalm 118 is the middle of the Bible, or that Psalm 117 is the shortest chapter.
Psalm 117 is definitely the shortest. It’s only two verses long. It’s the "sprint" to Psalm 119’s "triathlon."
But the "middle" of the Bible is a moving target. If you include the Deuterocanonical books (used by Catholic and Orthodox traditions), the middle shifts. If you count by words, the middle is in a different place than if you count by chapters.
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The obsession with finding the exact middle or the exact longest verse (which is Esther 8:9, by the way) is a relatively modern fascination. The original writers didn’t use chapters and verses. Those were added centuries later—chapters in the 13th century and verses in the 16th century—mostly to help people find their place without pointing vaguely at a twenty-foot-long scroll.
Why Does Length Even Matter?
You might wonder why we care which part is the longest. Is it just trivia?
Not really. Understanding the scale of these writings helps us understand the emphasis of the authors. The length of Psalm 119 tells us that the ancient Israelites didn't just "follow rules"—they were emotionally obsessed with the beauty of divine guidance.
The length of Jeremiah shows us the sheer scale of the crisis facing Jerusalem at the time. He had a lot to say because the situation was dire. He wasn't interested in brevity; he was interested in survival and repentance.
The length of Luke’s Gospel shows a shift toward historical preservation. He wanted to make sure the "orderly account" was so thorough that no one could doubt the events of Jesus' life.
Actionable Insights for Your Next Reading
Knowing what is the longest scripture in the bible can actually change how you approach your personal study or your church’s reading plan.
- Don't try to "power through" Jeremiah. Because it’s the longest book by word count, it’s easy to get bogged down in the "weeping prophet's" repetitive warnings. Break it into three-chapter chunks.
- Treat Psalm 119 as a devotional, not a reading task. Since it’s the longest chapter, reading it in one go can feel like a chore. Instead, read one eight-verse section (one Hebrew letter) per day. It’ll take you 22 days, and you’ll actually absorb it.
- Check your translation. If you’re doing a "Bible in a Year" challenge, be aware that some days will feel much heavier than others purely because of the word density in books like Jeremiah or Ezekiel.
- Look at the "Small" Scriptures. Sometimes the most power is packed into the shortest units. Compare the massive sprawl of Psalm 119 with the two-verse punch of Psalm 117. Both are "scripture," but they serve completely different liturgical purposes.
If you're looking for the physical middle of a standard Protestant Bible to start your journey, you'll usually land somewhere around Psalm 117 or 118. It’s a good place to start, tucked right between the shortest and the longest songs ever written.
The reality is that whether you’re measuring by the stroke of a pen in ancient Hebrew or the number of verses in a modern digital Bible, these "longest" sections represent the foundational pillars of Western literature and faith. They aren't just long for the sake of being long; they are expansive because the authors felt the subject matter required that much space to breathe.