Five-minute study · Day 259 · Isaiah 40
Isaiah 40:8
A word worth stopping on: word דָבָר davar
'The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.' The word for 'word' is davar. It is the most common term for 'word' in the Hebrew Bible, but davar is heavier than the English 'word' suggests. Davar means word, thing, matter, event. A davar is a word that does something. When God speaks a davar, the davar produces the thing it names. 'By the word [davar] of the LORD were the heavens made' (Psalm 33:6). Isaiah sets this productive, active, reality-shaping davar against the most transient things in nature: grass and flowers. Everything visible withers. The davar stands.
Word study: word
- Hebrew
- דָבָר
- Pronounced
- davar
- Strong's
- H1697
- Definition
- Word, speech, thing, matter, affair, event. From the root davar, to speak. The noun encompasses both the spoken word and the reality the word produces. A davar is simultaneously a unit of speech and a unit of reality.
Davar appears 1,441 times in the Hebrew Bible, making it one of the most frequent nouns in the language. BDB provides an extensive entry with two primary semantic fields: (1) speech, word, utterance, and (2) thing, matter, affair, event. The two fields are not separate in Hebrew thought. A davar is a word that carries substance. When spoken by God, a davar creates what it names.
Oswalt's commentary on Isaiah 40-66 in the New International Commentary on the Old Testament identifies Isaiah 40 as the opening of the 'Book of Consolation' (chapters 40-66), addressed to Judah in exile or anticipating exile. The chapter begins with 'Comfort ye, comfort ye my people' (40:1) and builds toward the revelation of God's power and faithfulness. Verses 6-8 form a distinct unit: a voice commands, 'Cry.' The prophet asks, 'What shall I cry?' The answer: all flesh is grass, all its beauty like a wildflower, grass withers and flowers fade, but the davar of God stands forever.
The contrast is between two categories of reality. Grass and flowers represent the visible, temporal order: human strength, human beauty, human achievement. Everything in this category has a lifecycle. It sprouts, it blooms, it withers. The davar represents a different category: the spoken reality of God, which does not participate in the lifecycle of created things. Isaiah 55:10-11 develops this theme: 'As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth... so shall my word [davar] be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please.' The davar goes out, does its work, and accomplishes its purpose. It is self-executing.
The New Testament picks up Isaiah 40:8 directly. First Peter 1:24-25 quotes the passage: 'For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word [rhema] of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.' Peter identifies the davar of Isaiah 40:8 with the gospel message. The permanence Isaiah attributed to God's word is now attributed to the specific message about Jesus.
The davar's permanence is grounded in its source. Grass withers because it is created and contingent. The davar stands because it participates in the character of the God who speaks it. The word shares the permanence of its speaker. This is why Isaiah can make such an absolute claim: the davar endures forever because the God who speaks it endures forever.
Historical context · Isaiah's ministry approximately 740-680 BC; Isaiah 40-66 addressed to Judah in or anticipating Babylonian exile (586-539 BC); 1 Peter written approximately AD 62-64
Isaiah 40 and the Consolation of Exiles
Isaiah 40 opens the second major division of the book. Chapters 1-39 address Judah in the context of Assyrian threats (8th century BC). Chapters 40-66 address Judah in the context of Babylonian exile and anticipated restoration. The shift in setting is dramatic: the audience has lost everything. The Temple is destroyed (586 BC). The monarchy is ended. The people are in Babylon, surrounded by a foreign culture with foreign gods. The opening words, 'Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God' (40:1), are addressed to people who need comforting because their world has collapsed.
Oswalt notes that Isaiah 40:6-8 functions as the prophet's commissioning within this consolation section. A voice says, 'Cry.' The prophet responds, 'What shall I cry?' The answer provides the message: human achievement is transient; God's word is permanent. The comfort is grounded in the contrast between what can be lost (everything visible) and what cannot be lost (God's davar). For an audience that had lost temple, king, land, and national identity, the claim that something indestructible remained was the foundation of hope.
The grass and flower imagery is specific to the climate of the ancient Near East. The spring wildflowers of Israel and Mesopotamia are spectacular but brief. The chamsin (a hot desert wind from the east) can wither an entire field of flowers in a single day. James 1:10-11 uses the same image: 'the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth.' The audience knew exactly what Isaiah meant. They had watched fields of wildflowers bloom after the early rains and brown within weeks when the hot wind arrived. Human glory operates on the same schedule: vivid, brief, and subject to forces beyond its control.
The archaeological context of Babylonian exile includes the Murashu archive (clay tablets from Nippur, 5th century BC) documenting Jewish families in Babylonian business transactions, and the Al-Yahudu tablets (discovered in the early 2000s, published in 2015), which record a community of Judean exiles living near Babylon. These documents confirm that exiled Judeans maintained their identity in Babylon while living under foreign rule. Isaiah 40-66 was addressed to communities like these: displaced, culturally pressured, wondering whether their God's promises still held. The davar that stands forever was their anchor.
For reflection
Davar. A word that carries substance. A word that does the thing it names. Isaiah placed this word against the most temporary things he could name: grass and flowers. Anyone who has watched a spring field go brown under the hot wind knows the speed of it. One week the flowers are open. The next week the stems are dry sticks. Isaiah was writing to people who had watched their entire national life wither: the Temple gone, the king deposed, the land taken. Into that devastation, he planted one claim. The davar of your God stands. It outlasts the things you can see. Think about what has withered in your own life. Plans that dried up. Relationships that faded. Strength that gave out. What remains? Is there a davar, a word from God, that has outlasted every season of loss?
Davar: word, thing, matter, event. A word that carries substance and produces what it names. Isaiah set the permanence of God's davar against the transience of grass and flowers. First Peter 1:24-25 identifies this davar with the gospel.
Sources: BDB; Oswalt, 'Isaiah 40-66' (NICOT)