What Does Isaiah 40:7 Mean?
The grass dries, the flower withers, because the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people is grass.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.THE KEY
The “spirit” that blows over the grass is the same Hebrew word as wind and breath, so the verse pictures divine presence as a moving force before which human life is fragile.
THE MEANING
Your life is grass: it can flourish, yet it withers beneath the LORD’s moving breath and wind. The verse names human life as exposed and passing in the present.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that human flourishing can make itself permanent: even a blossoming life remains vulnerable when the LORD’s wind passes over it.
THE ROOT
רוּחַ
ruach
GROWS FROM
רוח
Wind or moving air; breath, and by extension spirit.
The KJV’s “spirit” here and “wind” in Psalm 103:16 translate the same word, רוּחַ (ruach), which also names breath. The verse holds divine presence, moving air, and breath within one word as it describes human life withering beneath the LORD’s ruach.
ALSO GROWS
ruach: Moving air that passes over a flower of the field.
רוּחַ
The psalm uses the same Hebrew word for the wind that passes over the grass-like person, making Isaiah’s image audible in another verse.
ruach: The life-bearing breath within living flesh.
רוּחַ
The same word associated with breath also appears in Isaiah’s picture of fragile human life.
ruach: The Spirit of God moving over the waters.
רוּחַ
The same word rendered “Spirit” in Isaiah also names God’s moving presence at the beginning of creation.
THE PATTERN
Human flourishing is as brief as grass and flower beneath the passing wind.
As for humankind, his days are like grass; like the blossom of the field, so he blooms.For breath passes over it, and it is gone; and its place no longer sees it.For all flesh is as grass, and all its weight is as the blossom of grass. The grass dries, and the blossom falls.THE THREAD
For breath passes over it, and it is gone; and its place no longer sees it.Isaiah’s “spirit” and this psalm’s “wind” are both רוּחַ (ruach, wind/breath/spirit). The psalm makes the passing image stark: the wind crosses the flower, and it is gone.
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