“For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.”
The statement 'When the wind passes over it, it is gone, and its place knows it no more' completes the image of transience with the detail of erasure: not merely death but the obliteration of all trace. The 'wind' (ruah) is the same word for spirit and breath; the very breath that animates grass and flower can obliterate it. The phrase 'its place knows it no more' suggests a total disappearance, as though the grass never existed. This verse expresses the existential horror of non-being: the creature's place will know it no more, its existence will leave no mark. The parallelism with human existence (verse 15-16) drives home the terrible fragility of created life. Yet by placing these verses in the context of divine compassion, the psalm suggests that this transience does not result in abandonment; God's mercy accompanies and comprehends human limitation. The very insignificance of grass becomes a sign of God's grace: God cares for creatures who will soon vanish.
Church Fathers on Psalms 103:16
1. ...“Bless the Lord, O my soul! And all that is within me, His holy Name” Psalm 102:1. I suppose that he speaks not of what is within the body; I do not suppose him to mean this, that our lungs and liver, and so forth, are to burst forth into the voice of blessing of the Lord. There are lungs in our breast indeed, like a kind of bellows, which send forth successive breathings, which breathing forth of the air inhaled is pressed out into voice and sound, when the words are…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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