Bible Strands
Isaiah 17:11
though on the day you plant you make them grow, and on that morning you help your seed sprout—yet the harvest will vanish on the day of disease and incurable pain.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The prophet Isaiah pronounces judgment on a people who have forgotten God and turned to cultivated plots and exotic vines, immediately preceding the description of raging nations.
The words — תַּפְרִיחִי (taf.Ri.chi) = you cause to sprout and קָצִיר (ka.Tzir) = a harvest.
The thread — The motif of futile cultivation yielding sudden loss runs through Job 4:8, Hosea 8:7, and Psalm 90:6.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that human agricultural effort and ritual preparation collapse instantly under divine judgment, leaving no room for self-reliance.
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
In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
Cross-references
- Job 4:8 As I have observed, those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble reap the same.
- Hosea 8:7 For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. There is no standing grain; what sprouts fails to yield flour. Even if it should produce, the foreigners would swallow it up.
- Psalms 90:6 in the morning it springs up new, but by evening it fades and withers.
- Isaiah 18:5 For before the harvest, when the blossom is gone and the flower becomes a ripening grape, He will cut off the shoots with a pruning knife and remove and discard the branches.
- Isaiah 65:13 Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: “My servants will eat, but you will go hungry; My servants will drink, but you will go thirsty; My servants will rejoice, but you will be put to shame.
- Jeremiah 5:31 The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority. My people love it so, but what will you do in the end?
- Hosea 9:1 Do not rejoice, O Israel, with exultation like the nations, for you have played the harlot against your God; you have made love for hire on every threshing floor.
- Hosea 9:16 Ephraim is struck down; their root is withered; they cannot bear fruit. Even if they bear children, I will slay the darlings of their wombs.
- Hosea 10:12 Sow for yourselves righteousness and reap the fruit of loving devotion; break up your unplowed ground. For it is time to seek the LORD until He comes and sends righteousness upon you like rain.
- Joel 1:5 Wake up, you drunkards, and weep; wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it has been cut off from your mouth.