The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God stands forever.”
⛓ Read Isaiah 40 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion5
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
Isaiah declares, 'the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.' Jesus' 'heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will by no means pass away' applies this contrast of transient creation and abiding divine word to his own speech. High coherence on the enduring-word theme.
High confidence'The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever' is the closest source for the permanence of God's word over against transient creation. Mark transfers the abiding-word of Isaiah 40 to 'my words,' an implicit christological claim; the verbal contrast (pass away / not pass away vs. wither / stand forever) is strong.
High confidence'Easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of the Law to fall' coheres with 'the grass withers... but the word of our God stands forever,' affirming the imperishability of God's word against the transient cosmos. Strong conceptual coherence with a recurrent Isaianic theme.
Medium confidence'The grass withers... but the word of our God stands forever'; heaven-and-earth-may-pass-but-the-law-endures echoes the abiding word.
Medium confidence'Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away' draws on Isaiah 40:8, 'the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever,' contrasting transient creation with God's enduring word.
Medium confidence