Isaiah 55:10

For just as rain and snow fall from heaven and do not return without watering the earth, making it bud and sprout, and providing seed to sow and food to eat,

Berean Standard Bible

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Study note

Setting — YHWH addresses the post-exilic community, using the natural cycle of rain to frame the efficacy of His word in the following verse.

The words — יֵרֵד (yered, "it comes down") and גֶּשֶׁם (geshem, "rain") together carry the mechanism: the downward, irreversible motion that makes the analogy to God's word in v. 11 work.

The thread — Deuteronomy 32:2 applies the same rain image to Moses' teaching, and Isaiah 30:23 promises rain for seed as a sign of restoration.

Why it lands — The verse shifts the condition of efficacy from the hearer to the sender: the word works because it is sent, not because the receiver is prepared.

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 as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

Cross-references

2 Corinthians 9:9 As it is written: “He has scattered abroad His gifts to the poor; His righteousness endures forever.”
Deuteronomy 32:2 Let my teaching fall like rain and my speech settle like dew, like gentle rain on new grass, like showers on tender plants.
Isaiah 30:23 Then He will send rain for the seed that you have sown in the ground, and the food that comes from your land will be rich and plentiful. On that day your cattle will graze in open pastures.
Ezekiel 34:26 I will make them and the places around My hill a blessing. I will send down showers in season—showers of blessing.
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.
Isaiah 61:11 For as the earth brings forth its growth, and as a garden enables seed to spring up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.
Psalms 65:9 You attend to the earth and water it; with abundance You enrich it. The streams of God are full of water, for You prepare our grain by providing for the earth.
1 Samuel 23:4 Once again, David inquired of the LORD, and the LORD answered him: “Go at once to Keilah, for I will deliver the Philistines into your hand.”
Psalms 72:6 May he be like rain that falls on freshly cut grass, like spring showers that water the earth.
Isaiah 5:6 I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and thorns and briers will grow up. I will command the clouds that rain shall not fall on it.”