A voice saith, Cry. And he saith, What shall I cry? -- All flesh is grass, and all the comeliness thereof as the flower of the field.
Isaiah 40 opens with God telling His servants to comfort His people. The first thing He tells them to shout is that human life fades like grass. Why does comfort start with a word that flattens every human hope?
One writer explains why comfort has to start with such a word.
If God will comfort His people, what does the Lord say? "All flesh is grass," and so on. It must begin there. The grass is withered, because the Spirit of the Lord has blown upon it. But the word of God will stand for ever. That was the foundation of hope. If anyone could have gained anything, it would have been the Jews, who had everything. But they were no more than the grass of the field — the grass that withers.
This cry was not for Isaiah's day alone. Its subject is man as such.
Here follows the substance of John the Baptist's testimony, though it may be seen still more clearly at the end of this age. "All flesh is grass"; it is man morally and universally. "And all its beauty is like the flower of the field" (v. 6). Could a man use this to think well of himself? Verse 7 cuts down all boasting — "The grass withers, the flower fades: because the Spirit (or, breath) of Jehovah blows upon it." God is pointing to its frailty, not its beauty. The moment God tests what it is, even by the breath of His nostrils, all flesh comes to nothing.
The verse compares our beauty to a blossom, and a blossom fades before the grass does. Progress changes nothing.
The question between God and every soul is this: is man as bad as God's testimony says he is? The starting point in preaching the gospel is God's declaration: "All flesh is grass." Take man in every state of moral and intellectual improvement, and he is grass. "All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass" (the flower is a much more fleeting thing than the grass itself).
Does this leave out Israel, the nation with the promises? One writer answers, and shows what still secures its future.
God has chastised Jerusalem enough, and the Lord speaks to her heart. But with that comes this solemn truth — "All flesh is grass." The people, God's own people according to the flesh, come under this description — "the people are grass." That withers, but it does not stop their full blessing. Only they must know that "God's word abides for ever," and that is what secures the promises and their fulfilment.
"What shall I cry?" is a servant's question. The answer still sets what God's servants must say today.
This is the first part of the message that leads to lasting comfort. If the servants of God obey His commands and stay true to their commission, they will lift up their voices and "cry" this solemn truth. They will not play the devil's gospel of evolution to the people, or join in that deceptive talk about the natural goodness in man… They will tell the truth: the very best that man can produce is like the poppy in a summer cornfield, bright and attractive for a day, and then — withered and gone.
Peter quotes this word again in the New Testament. Taken to heart, it does not crush a person; it turns him.
We must remember that the word of God covers more than the gospel that saves men. It also includes the solemn truth Peter quotes from Isaiah 40:6 (in chapter 1:24), a word that declares the condition of men. When this word about himself comes home to a man, it produces repentance towards God in him, and he is ready to put his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The lesson is not learned once. It returns every time we lean on our own plans.
We must truly be brought to the end of everything that self has anything to do with. Until then, God cannot show Himself. But we can never get to the end of our plans until we are brought to the end of ourselves. We must see that "all flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field."
- Cry — The comfort of Isaiah 40 opens with a command to shout an unwelcome truth; God levels before He builds.
- Grass — "All flesh" covers man as he is, everywhere. The picture is frailty, not beauty: one breath from the Lord ends him.
- Flower — Our finest work fades first. Improve a man morally or mentally, and he is still grass.
- People — Israel holds the promises, and Israel is grass too. Its blessing still stands, because God's word outlasts the grass.
- Comfort — God's servants must still cry this, not flatter. Taken to heart, it produces repentance, faith in Christ, and an end to trusting our own plans.
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, for the breath of Jehovah bloweth upon it surely the people is grass.
Isaiah 40 opens with God telling His prophet to comfort His people. Then, before any comfort arrives, God passes sentence on everything human. The verse says that grass and flower fail for one reason: God Himself breathes on them. Older translations render the phrase "the Spirit of the LORD blows upon it," where the ESV has "the breath of the LORD."
The picture is not just that people die in time. Something acts on the grass, and that something is God:
Verse 7 cuts down all boasting — "The grass withers, the flower fades: because the Spirit (or, breath) of Jehovah blows upon it." God is pointing at its frailty, not its beauty. The moment God tests what it is, all flesh comes to nothing — even if He tests it only by the breath of His nostrils. And God says this sentence over and over. The first repetition seems to be there to underline the judgement on "the people," that is, the Jews.
The flower catches the eye, and it is the first part to go. Gospel preaching has to start where God starts:
The question between God and every soul is this: is man as bad as God's testimony says he is? The starting-point in preaching the gospel is God's declaration: "All flesh is grass." Take man in every state of moral and intellectual improvement, and he is grass. "All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass" (the flower is a much more fleeting thing than the grass itself).
The second half of the verse names God's own people, and that closes the last exit:
Put to the test "all flesh is grass," and any natural "goodliness" that man has is but a flower that fades. This is true not only of the Gentiles – "all flesh" – but of the people God favoured most, the Jews, for the prophet adds "the people is grass." The Jew has lost his kingdom. The nation is scattered. The Gentiles have failed completely in government. Still, "the word of our God shall stand for ever."
One writer ties these words to the preaching of John the Baptist, who came just before Jesus. John's message stood on different ground from the prophets before him:
From now on the prophet's appeal rests on their ruin beyond recovery. The appeal of the older prophets always assumed the nation could still return to Jehovah… Like them, John the Baptist did preach repentance. But it was a repentance founded on ruin without remedy… What remains of man? Nothing. The wrath of the Lord has blown upon him. From then on, repentance meant admitting that a man must judge himself in God's presence.
This verse sits inside a chapter of comfort. God does not soothe first and expose later. He takes away every false support before giving the true one:
If God will comfort His people, what does the Lord say? "All flesh is grass"… It must begin there… That is why there is such confusion in the heart of a newly converted man, and even of a Christian, if he does not pay attention to it. The word comes to tell him the grass has withered, and that the flesh cannot produce anything good. But he does not yet rest on this: that the word of the Lord endures for ever, and that the blessing therefore cannot fail to His own. Two things must come first. We must stop trying to get good out of the flesh, and we must be sure that the word of the Lord endures for ever. Until then we shall always be troubled and weak under the enemy's attacks.
The verse also settles what to expect from human leadership and human plans:
Men cannot do it; the best of men will fail. In the past there were great men whom the people trusted. They were only the flower of the summer cornfield. Their influence did not last. They came and went, and left the world no better than they found it… "The grass withers, the flower fades." Nothing men achieve lasts, because they leave God out of their plans.
- Breath — The grass does not just die of old age. God breathes on it. That breath shows frailty, not beauty, and it is enough to bring all flesh to nothing.
- All — "All flesh" leaves no category outside. Then "the people are grass" removes the last claim, the one made by God's own nation.
- Nothing — Ask what remains of man after that breath: nothing. This is why John's call to repentance rested on ruin with no remedy in man.
- First — God says this before He comforts. Any confidence left in the flesh keeps a believer weak and unsettled.
- Stands — Set what withers against what does not. The word of God outlasts every leader, movement and achievement men trust in.