Bible Strands

Isaiah 51:12

“I, even I, am He who comforts you. Why should you be afraid of mortal man, of a son of man who withers like grass?

Berean Standard Bible

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Study note

Setting — YHWH addresses the redeemed of Israel, who have just been described as returning with singing (v. 11) and are about to be charged with forgetting their Maker (v. 13). The speaker is God; the audience is a community still trembling under the threat of a human oppressor.

The words — The doubled אָנֹכִי ('a.no.Khi), "I, even I," is an emphatic self-identification that isolates the speaker from every other possible source of comfort. The root of מְנַחֵם (me.na.chem), "comforts," is נחם (nakhm), which elsewhere carries the sense of a change of mind or disposition (cf. Gen 6:6; 1 Sam 15:11).

The thread — The same contempt for mortal frailty runs through Psalms 118:6 ("What can man do to me?"), Isaiah 2:22 (man "has only the breath in his nostrils"), and 1 Peter 1:24 (flesh "withers like grass").

Why it lands — It forces the reader to name the specific human threat that has displaced God as the object of their trust, and to test whether that threat survives contact with the sentence "you wither like grass."

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

אָנֹכִ֧י'a.no.KhiIאָנֹכִ֛י'a.no.KhiIה֖וּאhu'[am] heמְנַחֶמְכֶ֑םme.na.chem./Khem[who] comforts/ youמִֽי־mi-who?אַ֤תְּ'at[are] youוַתִּֽירְאִי֙va./ti.re.'Iand/ you have been afraidמֵאֱנ֣וֹשׁme./'e.No.oshfrom/ a personיָמ֔וּתya.Mut[who] he diesוּמִבֶּן־u./mi./ben-and/ from/ a child ofאָדָ֖ם'a.Damhumankindחָצִ֥ירcha.Tzir[who] grassיִנָּתֵֽן׃yi.na.Tenhe is made

King James Version

I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass;

Cross-references