Bible Strands
Isaiah 40:24
No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner have their stems taken root in the ground, than He blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like stubble.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — God addresses His audience in Isaiah 40 to illustrate the futility of earthly power, immediately after declaring He reduces princes to nothing and before asking who can compare to Him.
The words — אַף ('af) = even and בַּל (bal) = not form a repetitive structure that marks the instant transition from planting to withering in the text.
The thread — The motif of divine breath or wind scattering the powerless appears in Isaiah 41:16 and Jeremiah 23:19.
Why it lands — The text states that God's breath instantly withers and sweeps away rooted plants like stubble, asking the reader to recognize that human achievement and authority are as temporary as vegetation before divine power.
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
Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown: yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 41:16 You will winnow them, and a wind will carry them away; a gale will scatter them. But you will rejoice in the LORD; you will glory in the Holy One of Israel.
- Isaiah 17:13 The nations rage like the rush of many waters. He rebukes them, and they flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills, like tumbleweeds before a gale.
- Jeremiah 23:19 Behold, the storm of the LORD has gone out with fury, a whirlwind swirling down upon the heads of the wicked.
- Haggai 1:9 You expected much, but behold, it amounted to little. And what you brought home, I blew away. Why? declares the LORD of Hosts. Because My house still lies in ruins, while each of you is busy with his own house.
- 2 Samuel 22:16 The channels of the sea appeared, and the foundations of the world were exposed at the rebuke of the LORD, at the blast of the breath of His nostrils.
- 1 Kings 21:21 This is what the LORD says: ‘I will bring calamity on you and consume your descendants; I will cut off from Ahab every male in Israel, both slave and free.
- 2 Kings 10:11 So Jehu killed everyone in Jezreel who remained of the house of Ahab, as well as all his great men and close friends and priests, leaving him without a single survivor.
- Job 4:9 By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of His anger they are consumed.
- Job 15:30 He will not escape from the darkness; the flame will wither his shoots, and the breath of God’s mouth will carry him away.
- Job 18:16 The roots beneath him dry up, and the branches above him wither away.