Therefore their inhabitants had little power. They were dismayed and confounded. They were like the grass of the field, and like the green herb, like the grass on the housetops, and like a field before its crop has grown.
Parallel Translations
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Therefore their inhabitants had little power. They were dismayed and confounded. They were like the grass of the field, and like the green herb, like the grass on the housetops, and like a field before its crop has grown.
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Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded: they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up.
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Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded; they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and as a field of corn before it is grown up.
Cross-references (14)
Passages linked to Isaiah 37:27 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 129:6 Let them be as the grass on the housetops, which withers before it grows up,
- Numbers 14:9 Only don’t rebel against Yahweh, neither fear the people of the land; for they are bread for us. Their defense is removed from over them, and Yahweh is with us. Don’t fear them.”
- 2 Kings 19:26 Therefore their inhabitants had little power. They were dismayed and confounded. They were like the grass of the field, and like the green herb, like the grass on the housetops, and like grain blasted before it has grown up.
- Psalms 37:2 For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither like the green herb.
- Psalms 90:5-6 You sweep them away as they sleep. In the morning they sprout like new grass. In the morning it sprouts and springs up. By evening, it is withered and dry.
- Psalms 92:7 though the wicked spring up as the grass, and all the evildoers flourish, they will be destroyed forever.
- Psalms 103:15 As for man, his days are like grass. As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
- Psalms 127:1-2 Unless Yahweh builds the house, they who build it labor in vain. Unless Yahweh watches over the city, the watchman guards it in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to stay up late, eating the bread of toil, for he gives sleep to his loved ones.
- Isaiah 19:16 In that day the Egyptians will be like women. They will tremble and fear because of the shaking of Yahweh of Armies’s hand, which he shakes over them.
- Isaiah 40:6-8 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.”
- Jeremiah 5:10 “Go up on her walls, and destroy; but don’t make a full end. Take away her branches, for they are not Yahweh’s.
- Jeremiah 37:10 For though you had struck the whole army of the Chaldeans who fight against you, and only wounded men remained among them, they would each rise up in his tent and burn this city with fire.’ ”
- James 1:10-11 and the rich, in that he is made humble, because like the flower in the grass, he will pass away. For the sun arises with the scorching wind and withers the grass, and the flower in it falls, and the beauty of its appearance perishes. So the rich man will also fade away in his pursuits.
- 1 Peter 1:24 For, “All flesh is like grass, and all of man’s glory like the flower in the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls;
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (9 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Hebrew, are short in hand.
Hebrew, are short in hand.
He showeth that the state and power of most flourishing cities endureth but a moment in respect of the Church, which shall remain forever, because God is the maintainer thereof.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Because thy rage against me, and thy tumult is…
Because thy rage against me, and thy tumult is come up into mine ears,..... The rage which Sennacherib expressed both by Rabshakeh, and in his letter against Hezekiah and his people, is taken by the Lord as against himself; so great was his care of them, and concern for them; and indeed there was a great deal of blasphemy belched out against himself; and so the Syriac version renders the next word, translated "tumult", "thy blasphemy"; though that may rather intend the blustering noise that Rabshakeh made, or the noise of the Assyrian army, the chariots and horsemen, and the multitude of the soldiers, which was not only heard by the Jews, and was terrible to them, but was taken notice of by the Lord, who had it in derision; hence he adds:
therefore will I put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips; comparing Sennacherib to leviathan, or the great whale, or to some very large and unruly fish, not easily caught and managed; see Job 41:1, or to a bear, or buffalo, in whose noses men put iron rings, and lead them about at pleasure; and also to a horse or mule, which are managed by the bit and bridle; signifying hereby the strength, fierceness, and fury of the Assyrian monarch, and the power of God to restrain him, which he could easily do:
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and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest; from Jerusalem, the same way he came to it, to his own land again, and so he did, Isa 37:37.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 27. Corn blasted] שדמה shedemah, parched: it does…
Verse 27. Corn blasted] שדמה shedemah, parched: it does not appear that there is any good authority for this word. The true reading seems to be שדפה shedephah, blasted, as it is in six MSS. (two ancient) here, and in the other copy.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Therefore - Not because you have so great power;…
Therefore - Not because you have so great power; but because I have rendered them incapable of resisting you.
Were of small power - Hebrew, ‘Short of hand;’ they were feeble, imbecile, unable to resist you.
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They were dismayed - Hebrew, ‘They were broken and ashamed.’ Their spirits sank; they were ashamed of their feeble powers of resistance; and they submitted to the ignominy of a surrender.
They were as the grass of the field - The same idea is expressed by Sennacherib himself in Isa 10:15, though under a different image (see the note on that verse). The idea here is, as the grass of the field offers no resistance to the march of an army, so it was with the strongly fortified towns in the way of Sennacherib.
As the grass on the housetops - In eastern countries the roofs of houses are always flat. They are made of a mixture of sand gravel, or earth; and on the houses of the rich there is a firmly constructed flooring made of coals, chalk, gypsum, and ashes, made hard by being beaten or rolled. On these roofs spears of wheat, barley, or grass sometimes spring up, but they are soon withered by the heat of the sun Psa 129:6-8. The idea here, therefore, is that of the greatest feebleness. His enemies were not simply like the grass in the field, but they were like the thin, slender, and delicate blade that sprung up in the little earth on the roof of a house, where there was no room for the roots to strike down, and where it soon withered beneath the burning sun.
As corn blasted before it is grown up - Before it acquires any strength. The idea in all these phrases is substantially the same - that they were incapable of offering even the feeblest resistance.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Therefore--not because of thy power, but because I made…
Therefore--not because of thy power, but because I made them unable to withstand thee.
grass--which easily withers (Isa 40:6; Psa 37:2).
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on . . . housetops--which having little earth to nourish it fades soonest (Psa 129:6-8).
corn blasted before it be grown up--SMITH translates, "The cornfield (frail and tender), before the corn is grown."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 27. When, in the order of events, a greatly…
27. When, in the order of events, a greatly superior invader comes upon a weak people, the statement that the latter is of small power, literally, short of hand, unable to reach to an equality of fighting force, is very plain. The comparison, as… grass of the field… on the housetops… as corn blasted, etc., under the scorching sun — this adds essential force to the powerlessness of the invaded.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 27. Therefore their inhabitants … confounded] Better, And their…
27. Therefore their inhabitants … confounded] Better, And their inhabitants (being) of small power (lit. “short of hand”) were terrified and ashamed.
grass on the housetops] See Psa_129:6-8.
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corn blasted before it be grown up] The Hebr. text reads “a corn-field before it is in stalk” (see R.V.). The A.V. adopts the reading of 2Ki_19:26, which is perhaps to be preferred—“a blasting before it is in stalk.” But neither rendering accounts quite satisfactorily for the words “before it is in stalk.” In all probability they are, as Wellhausen has suggested, a corruption of the opening words of the next verse, which is obviously unsymmetrical as it stands.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (27) Therefore.—Better, and.
(27) Therefore.—Better, and.
They were as the grass of the field.—One symbol of weakness follows after another. The “grass upon the housetops” was, in this respect, a proverbial emblem (Psa_129:6). The italics in as corn seem to suggest some error in transcription. The words as they stand give a field before the blades; those in 2Ki_19:26, a blasting.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Therefore. The original is not so emphatic, but still…
Therefore. The original is not so emphatic, but still contains the idea, not merely of sequence, but of consequence. God, having decreed the successes of the Assyrians, effected them (in part) by infusing weakness into the nations that were their adversaries. They were as the grass of the field. (comp. Isa_40:6, Isa_40:7) The comparison is one constantly used by the Hebrew psalmists, (Psa_37:2 Psa_90:5 Psa_92:7 Psa_103:15) and was not unknown to the Assyrians ("Records of the Past," vol. 3. p. 41; vol. 5. p. 14). The delicate grass of spring in the East withers within a few weeks, and the fresh and tender herbage becomes yellow, parched, and sapless. The grass that springs upon the earthen roofs of houses fails even more rapidly. (comp. Psa_129:6) As corn blasted before it be grown up; literally, like a field before the stalk. Our translators seem to have rightly preferred the reading of 2Ki_19:26 (shdephah, equivalent to "blasting") to that of Isaiah (shdemah, equivalent to "field") in this place. Their rendering brings out the true sense.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.