Grass and green growth may describe vegetation that feeds creatures, the brief flourishing of human life or the food Israel remembers from Egypt. Isaiah contrasts grass that withers and a flower that falls with the enduring word of God.
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Full entry for חָצִיר (H2682) · Open the biblical lexicon
Grass and green growth may describe vegetation that feeds creatures, the brief flourishing of human life or the food Israel remembers from Egypt. Isaiah contrasts grass that withers and a flower that falls with the enduring word of God.
The BSB source-word alignment has 21 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include grass (5), like grass (3), The grass (3), [and] the grass (1), are grass (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Numbers 11:5. Its strongest book concentrations include Isaiah (9), Psalms (6), Job (2), 1 Kings (1).
Grass and green growth may describe vegetation that feeds creatures, the brief flourishing of human life or the food Israel remembers from Egypt. Isaiah contrasts grass that withers and a flower that falls with the enduring word of God. Psalm 90 places the grass image within prayer about generations, mortality and the need for wisdom. Psalm 104 praises the provision of grass for livestock and plants for human work.
Numbers recalls leeks among foods the people long for while complaining in the wilderness. The noun does not turn every plant into an identical symbol or make human frailty a verdict of worthlessness. Read what grows, who uses the image and what the surrounding text contrasts. A congregation can acknowledge its short life while receiving provision gratefully and listening to the word, without promising an unending harvest or treating ordinary food preferences as proof of rebellion.
Withering grass illustrates human transience in Isaiah and Psalm 90, while Psalm 104 praises vegetation's provision and Numbers names remembered food. These objects and literary purposes must remain distinct.
A voice says, “Cry out!” And I asked, “What should I cry out?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field.
The announced cry compares flesh to grass and its glory to a flower within the coming contrast.
The grass withers and the flowers fall when the breath of the Lord blows on them; indeed, the people are grass.
The grass withers and flower falls as the Lord's breath blows; the people are explicitly likened to grass.
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.”
The withering grass and fallen flower are contrasted with the enduring word of God in the announcement.
You sweep them away in their sleep; they are like the new grass of the morning—
The prayer describes people swept away in their sleep and compares them to the new grass of morning.
He makes the grass grow for the livestock and provides crops for man to cultivate, bringing forth food from the earth:
The psalm praises God causing grass for livestock and cultivated plants through which people produce food.
We remember the fish we ate freely in Egypt, along with the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.
The people remember leeks among Egyptian foods within their wilderness complaint and dissatisfaction with manna.
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.
Hebrew word. Transient vegetation symbolizing human fragility and mortality; grass withers, echoing life's brevity
Transient vegetation symbolizing human fragility and mortality; grass withers, echoing life's brevity
grass; also a leek (collectively) BDB: green grass Usage: grass, hay, herb, leek.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 3 selected witnesses from 21 lexical occurrence verses.
חָצִיר is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Grass gives a passage an accessible image because it grows and withers, but its role changes with the context. Isaiah's announced cry moves from human flesh and glory to the enduring word of God. Psalm 90's comparison belongs to a prayer asking to number days and seeking the Lord's compassion and favor. Psalm 104 attends to a different use: God supplies vegetation for livestock and plants through human cultivation.
Numbers records a remembered menu within an actual complaint about manna, rather than making leeks a permanent sign of disobedience. Teaching should keep the contrast or action the unit supplies. A congregation can face mortality honestly, value each person and seek wisdom for the days it has. It can also give thanks for food and work without treating the image as a guarantee of agricultural abundance.
Brief life deserves care, not contempt, and the enduring word calls for attention rather than denial of grief.
Isa.40.8
The licensed plant range includes the leek rendering in Numbers as well as grass. Twenty-one BSB tokens in twenty verses remain separate from canonical twenty-one; existing artifact transliteration is preserved and neither noun nor metaphor makes every food use identical.
First Peter 1:22-25 explicitly quotes Isaiah's grass and enduring-word contrast while calling hearers to sincere brotherly love and identifying the preached good news. Follow that stated quotation and exhortation, without turning transience into contempt for people or claiming that Numbers' leeks share the same symbolic meaning.