Bible Strands
Psalms 103:16
when the wind passes over, it vanishes, and its place remembers it no more.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses a listener amid a meditation on divine mercy, positioning this observation directly after the grass-and-flower comparison of verse 15 and before the declaration of God’s eternal faithfulness in verse 17.
The words — ר֣וּחַ (Ruach) means wind or breath, and מְקוֹמֽ/וֹ (mekomo) means its place. The text states that when the wind passes over, the subject vanishes and its location no longer recognizes it.
The thread — The wind-sweeping motif runs in Isaiah 40:7 and Job 20:9, while the theme of a forgotten dwelling after death appears in Job 14:10.
Why it lands — The passage asks the reader to acknowledge human fragility as a factual baseline before turning attention to the contrasting permanence of divine covenant loyalty.
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 wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 40:7 The grass withers and the flowers fall when the breath of the LORD blows on them; indeed, the people are grass.
- Job 20:9 The eye that saw him will see him no more, and his place will no longer behold him.
- Job 14:10 But a man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last, and where is he?
- Genesis 5:24 Enoch walked with God, and then he was no more, because God had taken him away.
- Job 7:6 My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they come to an end without hope.
- Job 8:18 If he is uprooted from his place, it will disown him, saying, ‘I never saw you.’
- Job 27:20 Terrors overtake him like a flood; a tempest sweeps him away in the night.