Grass

Green vegetation, which grows rapidly after rainfall, and serves as good food for many animals. The withering of grass in hot weather is often used in Scripture as a symbol of the frailty and brevity of human life.

Grass is food for animals

1 Kings 18:5 See also Numbers 22:4; Deuteronomy 11:15; Job 6:5, Job 40:15; Psalm 104:14, Psalm 106:20; Jeremiah 14:5; Daniel 4:25, Daniel 4:32–33, Daniel 5:21

Then Ahab said to Obadiah, “Go throughout the land to every spring and every valley. Perhaps we will find grass to keep the horses and mules alive so that we will not have to destroy any livestock.”

Rain is essential for the growth of grass

Job 38:25–27 See also Deuteronomy 32:2; 2 Samuel 23:4; Psalm 147:8; Proverbs 19:12; Micah 5:7

Who cuts a channel for the flood or clears a path for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a barren land, on a desert where no man lives, to satisfy the parched wasteland and make it sprout with tender grass?

Grass grows quickly and abundantly

Isaiah 44:3–4 See also Job 5:25; Psalm 72:16, Psalm 92:7; Isaiah 35:7, Isaiah 66:14

For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and currents on the dry ground. I will pour out My Spirit on your descendants, and My blessing on your offspring. They will sprout among the grass like willows by flowing streams.

Grass withers, dies and burns easily

Isaiah 15:6 See also Psalm 102:4, Psalm 102:11; Isaiah 5:24; Jeremiah 12:4; Revelation 8:7

The waters of Nimrim are dried up, and the grass is withered; the vegetation is gone, and the greenery is no more.

The life cycle of grass is short

Psalm 129:6 See also Isaiah 37:27; Matthew 6:28–34 parallel Luke 12:27–31

May they be like grass on the rooftops, which withers before it can grow,

The brevity of human life is compared to that of grass

Isaiah 40:6–8 See also 2 Kings 19:25–26; Job 8:11–13; Psalm 37:1–2, Psalm 90:5, Psalm 103:13–19; Isaiah 51:12; 1 Peter 1:24–25

A voice says, “Cry out!” And I asked, “What should I cry out?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall when the breath of the LORD blows on them; indeed, the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.”