Grass
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G5528 names grass or low vegetation and can refer to herbage or hay in a material list. In the Gospels it appears as field growth clothed by God, the surface where crowds sit, emerging crop growth, and vegetation within parables.
Reader summary
Full entry for χόρτος (G5528) · Open the biblical lexicon
G5528 names grass or low vegetation and can refer to herbage or hay in a material list. In the Gospels it appears as field growth clothed by God, the surface where crowds sit, emerging crop growth, and vegetation within parables.
The BSB source-word alignment has 15 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include grass (9), of the field (2), [the] stalk (1), hay (1), plant (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 6:30. Its strongest book concentrations include 1 Peter (3), Matthew (3), James (2), Mark (2).
G5528 names grass or low vegetation and can refer to herbage or hay in a material list. In the Gospels it appears as field growth clothed by God, the surface where crowds sit, emerging crop growth, and vegetation within parables. James and 1 Peter use grass to portray the brevity of human splendor, while Revelation depicts grass within judgments on creation.
The word can hold provision, beauty, growth, perishability, and vulnerability without turning nature into a coded message in every verse. It helps teachers speak about creaturely dependence, mortality, patient growth, and God's care. It should not be used to scold people with anxiety, promise immunity from hunger, dismiss human worth as disposable, or ignore the human responsibility to feed, shelter, cultivate, and protect one another.
G5528 ranges from literal grass and vegetation to hay and metaphors of transience. The surrounding argument decides whether provision, growth, seating, mortality, wealth, or judgment is foregrounded.
If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
Jesus points to grass that God clothes despite its brief life, grounding his call away from anxious striving in the Father's knowing care.
All by itself the earth produces a crop—first the stalk, then the head, then grain that ripens within.
The earth's ordered growth moves from stalk to head to ripe grain, illustrating a process the farmer receives rather than mechanically controls.
“Have the people sit down,” Jesus said. Now there was plenty of grass in that place, so the men sat down, about five thousand of them.
Abundant grass provides the ordinary place where the crowd sits before Jesus distributes food, keeping the sign in a concrete created setting.
For, “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall,
Peter cites grass and falling flowers to contrast mortal flesh and glory with the enduring word of the Lord.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Grass as fleeting, perishable vegetation symbolizing human mortality and the brevity of earthly life.
Grass as fleeting, perishable vegetation symbolizing human mortality and the brevity of earthly life.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
15 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
grass, hay
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Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 4 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 3 selected witnesses from 15 lexical occurrence verses.
χόρτος is a primary word - no further derivation.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
G5528 makes a small part of creation carry several faithful lessons without losing its ordinary meaning. Grass grows, clothes a field, seats a crowd, becomes hay, withers, and can be harmed. Jesus uses its brief beauty to direct disciples toward the Father's care, not to deny that hunger and clothing are real needs. Mark's crop sequence honors growth that occurs through a process the sower cannot command at will.
Peter's quotation humbles human glory while contrasting it with God's enduring word; it does not erase the value of mortal persons. Churches should therefore join trust with tangible provision, ecological responsibility, grief-aware care, and patience with slow formation. A grass image cannot guarantee a painless life or excuse leaders from budgets, benevolence, wages, and food relief.
It can teach that ordinary creation is seen by God, that human control is limited, that visible success fades, and that lasting confidence belongs in God's faithful word rather than beauty, wealth, or institutional prominence.
Matt.6.30
G5528 is a masculine Greek noun whose range includes grass, low vegetation, and hay. Literal setting, agricultural sequence, material lists, and comparison formulas distinguish these uses; the noun itself does not always signal a metaphor for mortality.
Old Testament grass imagery joins provision and beauty with rapid withering, especially when human strength is compared with God's enduring word. The New Testament carries those patterns into Jesus' teaching, apostolic exhortation, and apocalyptic judgment.