Bible Dictionary

FLOURISH

Agriculture & Daily Life • Both

To flourish means to bud, bloom, grow, prosper, or become fresh and vigorous. Scripture uses the image for plants, people, righteousness, and renewed care or affection.

Definition

To flourish means to bud, bloom, sprout, grow fresh, become vigorous, or prosper. The word may describe plants, people, righteousness, an almond tree, or renewed care and affection. It can also be translated blossom, bud, become green, or revive.

Biblical Usage

Scripture uses flourishing imagery for the righteous, plants, grass, the almond tree, and renewed concern. In Philippians, care for Paul is said in the older translation to have flourished again, while the Revised Version reads that the thought or care was revived.

Historical Background

The underlying Hebrew terms include words meaning to break forth, bloom, be green or fresh, and sprout. The interpretation of the almond tree in Ecclesiastes 12:5 is disputed in the supplied material, with suggestions including blossoming, shedding flowers, despised gray hair, or wakefulness.

Related Figures

Historical Bible Dictionaries

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)

flur'-ish (parach, tsuts; anathallo):The translation of parach, "to break forth" (Ps 72:7; 92:12,13; Pr 14:11; Isa 66:14; So 6:11; 7:12; the Revised Version (British and American) "budded"); of tsuts "to bloom" (Ps 72:16, 90:6; 92:7; 103:15; 132:18); ra`anan, "green," "fresh," is translated "flourishing" in Ps 92:14, the Revised Version (British and American) "green," and ra`anan, Aramaic in Da 4:4; nubh, "to sprout" (Zec 9:17, the King James Version "cheerful").In an interesting passage (Ec 12:5 the King James Version), the Hiphil future of na'ats, meaning properly "to pierce or strike," hence, to slight or reject, is translated "flourish"; it is said of the old man "The almond tree shall flourish," the Revised Version (British and American) "blossom" (so Ewald, Delitzsch, etc.); na'ats has nowhere else this meaning; it is frequently rendered "contemn;" "despise," etc. Other renderings are, "shall cause loathing" (Gesenius, Knobel, etc.), "shall be despised," i.e. the hoary head; "The almond tree shall shake off its flowers," the silvery hairs falling like the fading white flowers of the almond tree; by others it is taken to indicate "sleeplessness," the name of the almond tree (shaqedh) meaning the watcher or early riser (compare Jer 1:11, "a rod of an almond-tree," literally, "a wakeful (or early) tree"), the almond being the first of the trees to wake from the sleep of winter.See ALMOND."Flourish" appears once only in the New Testament, in the King James Version, as translation of anathallo, "to put forth anew," or "to make put forth anew" (Php 4:10): "Your care for me hath flourished again," the Revised Version (British and American) "Ye have revived your thought for me."W. L. Walker

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