What Does Isaiah 55:10 Mean?
For as the rain comes down, and the snow from the heavens, and does not return there, but drenches the earth, and makes it bear and sprout, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater.
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
For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:THE KEY
Rain fulfills its purpose not by returning to heaven, but by becoming birth, seed, and bread on earth.
THE MEANING
What reaches your life as nourishment enters your ground and becomes growth. Provision can sustain the present as bread and continue forward as seed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that provision only meets the present: what nourishes you can also become seed for what follows.
THE ROOT
וְהוֹלִידָהּ
veholidah
GROWS FROM
ילד
To bear, beget, or give birth.
“bear” in this verse is veholidah. The Hebrew verb pictures the watered earth as giving birth. Seed and bread are what the earth brings forth, and the same root also names children and generations.
ALSO GROWS
yalad: To bear or beget.
יָלַד
This is the verb’s root form: what the rain reaches becomes something the earth gives birth to.
yeled: Child or offspring.
יֶלֶד
The branch makes the verse’s growth image more vivid: what the earth produces is described with the language of offspring.
toledot: Generations or descendants.
תּוֹלְדוֹת
The same root extends birth into what continues after it, echoing seed carried forward for another sowing.
זֶרַע
zera
GROWS FROM
זרע
To sow or scatter seed.
The seed and the sower share this root: the seed is already bound to the act that carries it forward. The verse holds present nourishment and future sowing together.
ALSO GROWS
zaraʿ: To sow.
זָרַע
The seed’s root carries the next action: it can be scattered into the ground and begin the cycle again.
zorea: Sower.
זֹרֵעַ
This is the same root in the verse’s “sower,” linking the seed directly to the person who carries it forward.
הִרְוָה
hirvah
GROWS FROM
רוה
To water thoroughly, saturate, or drink one’s fill.
“drenches” in this verse is hirvah. The root carries more than the image of a little water reaching the soil: it describes saturation, being filled. This fullness becomes the condition for the earth’s birth and growth.
ALSO GROWS
ravah: To be saturated or drink one’s fill.
רָוָה
The same root describes fullness, showing that the earth receives enough to be filled before it brings forth.
revayah: Saturation or abundance.
רְוָיָה
This noun preserves the root’s sense of being filled, deepening “watereth” into nourishment that reaches fullness.
THE PATTERN
What nourishes the earth becomes both life for the present and seed for what comes next.
You soak its ridges, lower its furrows, melt it with showers, and bless its sprouting.And God said, "Let the earth sprout green growth, the seed-bearing plant, and the fruit tree making fruit after its kind, whose seed is in it, upon the earth." And it was so.Now the one who supplies seed to the sower supplies bread for eating, and fills out your sown seed, and makes grow the fruits of your alignment.THE THREAD
So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what I delight in, and shall break through in the thing to which I sent it.The next verse names the rain’s movement as a pattern for the word: it goes forth, does not return empty, and accomplishes its purpose. Isaiah 55:10 shows that purpose taking form as birth, growth, seed, and bread.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us