15 Bible Verses About Blooming

Isaiah 35:1-2

“The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing.”

Reflection: The desert in this promise is glad as well as green: it rejoices “with joy and singing.” The chapter goes on to tell the fearful, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come” (35:4), and then the blind see and the lame leap (35:5-6). Verse 6 names the water behind the flowering: “waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert,” and verse 7 adds that “the burning sand shall become a pool.”

Isaiah 27:6

“In days to come Jacob shall take root, Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots and fill the whole world with fruit.”

Reflection: The verse closes a song for “that day” (27:2) about a vineyard whose keeper is the Lord: “every moment I water it.” In an earlier vineyard song, in Isaiah 5, the vineyard yields wild grapes, and its owner says “briers and thorns shall grow up” in it (5:6). In chapter 27 the Lord says, “I have no wrath,” and Israel takes root, blossoms, and fills the whole world with fruit.

Hosea 14:5-6

“I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily; he shall take root like the trees of Lebanon; his shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive, and his fragrance like Lebanon.”

Reflection: Hosea 14 opens with a call, “Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God” (14:1), and gives the people the words of repentance to say. God’s reply begins, “I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely” (14:4), and then comes the dew, the lily and the trees of Lebanon. Verse 7 continues the picture, “they shall blossom like the vine,” and verse 8 names the source of it all: “from me comes your fruit.”

Isaiah 55:13

“Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

Reflection: Cypress comes up where thorns grew, and myrtle where there was brier. Two verses earlier, rain and snow make the earth “bring forth and sprout,” and God says his word will likewise “not return to me empty” (55:10-11). The verse calls the new growth “a name for the Lord” and “an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

Isaiah 61:11

“For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.”

Reflection: The speaker of verse 10 rejoices because God has clothed him “with the garments of salvation,” and verse 11 gives the reason in a garden picture: as the earth brings forth its sprouts, the Lord will cause righteousness and praise to sprout “before all the nations.” Earlier in the chapter, those who mourn in Zion are to be called “oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified” (61:3).

Psalm 1:3

“He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.”

Reflection: The tree is the man of verses 1 and 2, who keeps clear of the counsel of the wicked and meditates on the law of the Lord “day and night.” He is planted by streams of water, yields fruit in its season, and keeps his leaf. The wicked, by contrast, “are like chaff that the wind drives away” (1:4).

Jeremiah 17:7-8

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

Reflection: Like Psalm 1:3, this passage pictures a tree planted by water, and it adds a drought and a condition, trust in the Lord. The man who trusts in the Lord sends his roots out to the stream and “does not fear when heat comes”; his leaves stay green and he goes on bearing fruit “in the year of drought.” Verses 5 and 6 give the other side: the man who trusts in man is “like a shrub in the desert,” living in “an uninhabited salt land.”

Psalm 92:12-14

“The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green.”

Reflection: The heading calls this “A Psalm. A Song for the Sabbath.” Earlier the psalm grants that the wicked also “sprout like grass” and “flourish,” then adds that “they are doomed to destruction forever” (92:7). The righteous flourish like the palm and the cedar, planted “in the house of the Lord,” and still bear fruit in old age. Verse 15 gives the purpose of that green old age: “to declare that the Lord is upright.”

Proverbs 11:28

“Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf.”

Reflection: The proverb sets two kinds of trust against each other: the one who trusts in riches falls, and the righteous flourish “like a green leaf.” Psalm 52 makes the same contrast about a man who “trusted in the abundance of his riches” (52:7), while David says, “But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God” (52:8).

Numbers 17:8

“On the next day Moses went into the tent of the testimony, and behold, the staff of Aaron for the house of Levi had sprouted and put forth buds and produced blossoms, and it bore ripe almonds.”

Reflection: Numbers 16 records Korah and 250 chiefs of the congregation rising up against Moses and Aaron. In chapter 17 God ends the grumbling with twelve staffs, one from the chief of each fathers’ house, with Aaron’s name written on the staff of Levi; the staff of the man God chose would sprout (17:5). By the next day Aaron’s staff had budded, blossomed and borne ripe almonds, and God had it kept before the testimony “as a sign for the rebels” (17:10). Hebrews 9:4 lists “Aaron’s staff that budded” among the contents of the ark of the covenant.

Song of Solomon 2:11-12

“…for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.”

Reflection: The woman is reporting what her beloved says as he stands at the wall and calls her to “come away” (2:10). His reason is the season: winter and the rains are over, the flowers have appeared, and the next verse adds that the fig tree is ripening and “the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance” (2:13). In this song the blossoming marks the time for the two of them to go out together.

Habakkuk 3:17-18

“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.”

Reflection: Habakkuk 3 is headed “A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet” (3:1). In verse 16 he trembles as he waits for “the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us.” Verses 17 and 18 are conditional: though the fig tree does not blossom and the vine, the olive, the fields, the flock and the herd all fail, “yet I will rejoice in the Lord.” Verse 19 continues, “God, the Lord, is my strength,” and the chapter ends with a note for the choirmaster, setting it for stringed instruments.

Psalm 103:15-16

“As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.”

Reflection: David sets the shortness of human life inside a psalm about God’s compassion. The verse before says the Lord “knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (103:14). A person flourishes like a flower of the field, and when the wind passes over it, it is gone. Verse 17 sets against that flower what lasts: “But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him.”

Isaiah 40:8

“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”

Reflection: A voice tells the prophet to cry out, and the message is “All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field” (40:6). The flower fades “when the breath of the Lord blows on it” (40:7). Verse 8 repeats the line about withering and adds what does not wither, the word of God. First Peter 1:24-25 quotes these verses and says of that word, “this word is the good news that was preached to you.”

Matthew 6:28-29

“And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

Reflection: Jesus is answering anxiety about food, drink and clothing (6:25). The lilies neither toil nor spin, yet Solomon “in all his glory” was not dressed like one of them. Verse 30 ends with a question: if God clothes grass that “today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven,” “will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?”