🕊️WEB · Isaiah 40:6
What does Isaiah 40:6 mean?
"The voice of one saying, “Cry!” One said, “What shall I cry?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory is like the flower of the field."
— Isaiah 40:6 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
The voice of one who calls out, “Prepare the way of Yahweh in the wilderness! Make a level highway in the desert for our God.
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The uneven shall be made level, and the rough places a plain.
Yahweh’s glory shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken it.”
The voice of one saying, “Cry!” One said, “What shall I cry?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades, because Yahweh’s breath blows on it. Surely the people are like grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God stands forever.”
You who tell good news to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who tell good news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with strength. Lift it up. Don’t be afraid. Say to the cities of Judah, “Behold, your God!”
Explanation
Isaiah 40:6 records a brief exchange between two voices in a heavenly scene. One voice commands, "Cry!" — meaning "proclaim a message" — and another voice, likely the prophet himself or a heavenly messenger, asks what he should announce. The answer given is that "all flesh is like grass, and all its glory is like the flower of the field." In plain language, this means that human beings, along with everything about them that seems impressive or lasting — their strength, beauty, achievements, status — are as fragile and temporary as grass and wildflowers, which flourish briefly and then wither.
This verse opens a major turning point in the book of Isaiah. Chapters 1–39 largely deal with judgment on Judah for its sin, but chapter 40 begins a section of comfort, written to a people either facing or already experiencing Babylonian exile. Isaiah (or, as many scholars believe, a prophet writing in his tradition later in the exile) is preparing to announce that God's judgment has run its course and that deliverance is coming. Before offering that comfort, though, the passage first establishes a sobering truth: human power — including the power of Babylon, the empire that had crushed Judah — is not ultimate. The verse humbles human pretension before it exalts God's enduring word.
Theologically, the verse draws a sharp contrast between the fleeting nature of humanity and the permanence of God. Isaiah 40:8, which follows shortly after, completes the thought: "the grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God stands forever." The point
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