Psalms 103:16
in Psalms 103when the wind passes over, it vanishes, and its place remembers it no more.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; And the place thereof shall know it no more.
KJV
For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.
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This verse in Psalms 103
Commentary
9 notes on this verseFor the wind passeth over it, and it is gone. Only a little wind is needed, not even a scythe is demanded, a breath can do it, for the flower is so frail. How small a portion of deleterious gas suffices to create a deadly fever, which no art of man can stay. No need of sword or bullet, a puff of foul air is deadlier far, and fails not to lay low the healthiest and most stalwart son of man. And the place thereof shall know it no more. The flower blooms no more.
This site's exposition
his days are like grass
on Psalms 103:15-16
Man gets grass and a wild flower of the field for his picture. The flower blooms, and the wind passes once and takes it. The ground it grew on keeps no record that it stood there.
This site's exposition
its place remembers it no more
A hot desert wind could scorch a meadow in a day. Job 7:10 says the same of a man gone down to the grave, whose place will know him no longer. Verse 17 sets the lasting loving devotion of the LORD against that forgetting.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers1 voice
"The wind shall go over on it, it shall not be; and the place thereof shall know it no more" [Psalm 103:16]. For he is not speaking of grass, but of that for whose sake even the Word became grass. For you are man, and on your account the Word became man. "All flesh is grass:" "and the Word was made flesh." [John 1:14] How great then is the hope of the grass, since the Word has been made flesh? That which abides for evermore, has not disdained to assume grass, that the grass might not despair of itself.
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
Such a thing is man: God considers this, and pities him; let him consider it himself, and be humble, dead to this world and thoughtful of another. (2.) How long and lasting God's mercy is to his people (
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens
For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone,....
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone. Only a little wind is needed, not even a scythe is demanded, a breath can do it, for the flower is so frail. How small a portion of deleterious gas suffices to create a deadly fever, which no art of man can stay. No need of sword or bullet, a puff of foul air is deadlier far, and fails not to lay low the healthiest and most stalwart son of man. And the place thereof shall know it no more. The flower blooms no more. It may have a successor, but as for itself its leaves are scattered, and its perfume will never again sweeten the evening air. Man also dies and is gone, gone from his old haunts, his dear home, and his daily labours, never to return. As far as this world is concerned, he is as though he never had been; the sun rises, the moon increases or wanes, summer and winter run their round, the rivers flow, and all things continue in their courses as though they missed him not, so little a figure does he make in the affairs of nature. Perhaps a friend will note that he is gone, and say, But when the "dirges due" are silent, beyond a mound of earth, and perhaps a crumbling stone, how small will be the memorial of our existence upon this busy scene! True there are more enduring memories, and an existence of another kind coeval with eternity, but these belong, not to our flesh, which is but grass, but to a higher life, in which we rise to close fellowship with the Eternal.
The wind passeth over it - Referring perhaps to some blasting pestilential wind.
1 more voice on this verse
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone - Margin, as in Hebrew, “it is not.” The reference is either to a hot and burning wind, that dries up the flower; or to a furious wind that tears it from its stem; or to a gentle breeze that takes off its petals as they loosen their hold, and are ready to fall. So man falls - as if a breath - a breeze - came over him, and he is gone. How easily is man swept off! How little force, apparently, does it require to remove the most beautiful and blooming youth of either sex from the earth! How speedily does beauty vanish; how soon, like a fading flower, does such a one pass away! And the place thereof shall know it no more - That is, It shall no more appear in the place where it was seen and known. The “place” is here personified as if capable of recognizing the objects which are present, and as if it missed the things which were once there. They are gone. So it will soon be in all the places where we have been; where we have been seen; where we have been known. In our dwellings; at our tables; in our places of business; in our offices, counting-rooms, studies, laboratories; in the streets where we have walked from day to day; in the pulpit, the court-room, the legislation-hall; in the place of revelry or festivity; in the prayer-room, the Sabbath-school, the sanctuary - we shall be seen no longer. We shall be gone: and the impression on those who are there, and with whom we have been associated, will be best expressed by the language, “he is gone!” Gone; - where? No one that survives can tell. All that they whom we leave will know will be that we are absent - that we are “gone.” But to us now, how momentous the inquiry, “Where shall we be, when we are gone from among the living?” Other places will “know” us; will it be in heaven, or hell?
The words behind it
9 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| כִּ֤י | ki | if | H3588 → | 4482 times |
| ר֣וּחַ | ruach | a wind | H7307 → | 378 times |
| עָֽבְרָה־ | ʾaverah- | it passes by | H5674 → | 556 times |
| בּ֣וֹ | bo | on it | ||
| וְאֵינֶ֑נּוּ | veeinenu | and there not [is] it | H369 → | 789 times |
| וְלֹא־ | velo'- | and not | H3808 → | 5168 times |
| יַכִּירֶ֖נּוּ | yakirenu | it will recognize it | H5234 → | |
| ע֣וֹד | od | again | H5750 → | 490 times |
| מְקוֹמֽוֹ׃ | mekomo | place its | H4725 → | 401 times |
כִּ֤יif
kiH3588 →4482 times
ר֣וּחַa wind
ruachH7307 →378 times
עָֽבְרָה־it passes by
ʾaverah-H5674 →556 times
בּ֣וֹon it
bo
וְאֵינֶ֑נּוּand there not [is] it
veeinenuH369 →789 times
וְלֹא־and not
velo'-H3808 →5168 times
יַכִּירֶ֖נּוּit will recognize it
yakirenuH5234 →
ע֣וֹדagain
odH5750 →490 times
מְקוֹמֽוֹ׃place its
mekomoH4725 →401 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Genesis 5:24Enoch walked with God, and then he was no more, because God had taken him away.
it leads to
- Hebrews 11:5–6
By faith Enoch was taken up so that he did not see death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.” For before he was taken, he was commended as one…
- 1 John 1:7
But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
- Genesis 5:22
And after he had become the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters.
- Luke 23:43
And Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”
- 2 Kings 2:11
As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire with horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up into heaven in a whirlwind.
- Hebrews 11:5–6
Through
Job 20:9The eye that saw him will see him no more, and his place will no longer behold him.
it leads to
Where this verse is studied
On this page
Studies9
On this verse
About Psalms
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Psalms; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 103; Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Vol. 4; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Psalms; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763) and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.