Bible Strands
Isaiah 15:6
The waters of Nimrim are dried up, and the grass is withered; the vegetation is gone, and the greenery is no more.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet pronounces judgment on Moab following the flight of its people and the weeping ascent to Luhith.
The words — The text foregrounds מֵ֥י נִמְרִ֖ים (mei nimrim), literally "waters of Nimrim," alongside יָבֵ֤שׁ (yaVesh), meaning "it has dried up."
The thread — This imagery of desiccated water sources mirrors the judgment on the Nile in Isaiah 19:5 and the agricultural ruin described in Joel 1:10.
Why it lands — The verse demands recognition that ecological collapse accompanies national destruction, requiring the reader to trace how physical desolation functions as a concrete marker of divine judgment.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
For the waters of Nimrim shall be desolate: for the hay is withered away, the grass faileth, there is no green thing.
Cross-references
- Numbers 32:36 Beth-nimrah, and Beth-haran as fortified cities, and they built folds for their flocks.
- Isaiah 19:5 The waters of the Nile will dry up, and the riverbed will be parched and empty.
- Joel 1:10 The field is ruined; the land mourns. For the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, and the oil fails.
- Numbers 32:3 “Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Sebam, Nebo, and Beon,
- Joshua 13:27 and in the valley, Beth-haram, Beth-nimrah, Succoth, and Zaphon, with the rest of the kingdom of Sihon king of Heshbon (the territory on the east side of the Jordan up to the edge of the Sea of Chinnereth).
- Isaiah 16:9 So I weep with Jazer for the vines of Sibmah; I drench Heshbon and Elealeh with my tears. Triumphant shouts have fallen silent over your summer fruit and your harvest.
- Habakkuk 3:17 Though the fig tree does not bud and no fruit is on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though the sheep are cut off from the fold and no cattle are in the stalls,
- Revelation 8:7 Then the first angel sounded his trumpet, and hail and fire mixed with blood were hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, along with a third of the trees and all the green grass.
- Jeremiah 48:34 There is a cry from Heshbon to Elealeh; they raise their voices to Jahaz, from Zoar to Horonaim and Eglath-shelishiyah; for even the waters of Nimrim have dried up.