Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall.
Parallel translations
- WEB Even the youths faint and get weary, and the young men utterly fall;
- KJV Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:
- NKJV Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall,
- NASB Though youths grow weary and tired, And vigorous young men stumble badly,
- NLT Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Even the strongest young people grow tired and stumble, showing the limits of human strength.
Overview
Isaiah concedes that youthful vigor, the height of natural strength, inevitably fails. Human ability has a ceiling and eventually collapses. This admission heightens the contrast with the God-given strength promised to those who wait on the Lord.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Amos 2:14Escape will fail the swift, the strong will not prevail by his strength, and the mighty will not save his life.
- Ps 34:10Young lions go lacking and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.
- Ps 33:16No king is saved by his vast army; no warrior is delivered by his great strength.
- Isa 9:17Therefore the Lord takes no pleasure in their young men; He has no compassion on their fatherless and widows. For every one of them is godless and wicked, and every mouth speaks folly. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.
- Isa 13:18Their bows will dash young men to pieces; they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb; they will not look with pity on the children.
- Eccl 9:11I saw something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; neither is the bread to the wise, nor the wealth to the intelligent, nor the favor to the skillful. For time and chance happen to all.
- Ps 39:5You, indeed, have made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing before You. Truly each man at his best exists as but a breath. Selah
- Jer 6:11But I am full of the LORD’s wrath; I am tired of holding it back. “Pour it out on the children in the street, and on the young men gathered together. For both husband and wife will be captured, the old and the very old alike.
- Jer 9:21For death has climbed in through our windows; it has entered our fortresses to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the town squares.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).
How Isaiah 40:30 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.