What Does Isaiah 40:7 Mean in the King James?
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
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 man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:THE THREAD
For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.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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