Rush

Rush (Hebrew gome or agmon) refers to the bulrush and reed plants that grew in marshy areas and along riverbanks throughout the biblical world. Job 8:11 asks rhetorically, "Can the rush grow up without mire? can the flag grow without water?" — using the waterside reed as an image of what cannot exist without its proper environment, applied to the impossibility of the godless man prospering without God. Isaiah 9:14 uses the figure of head and tail, palm branch and rush, for the leaders and prophets of Israel. Isaiah 19:15 employs the same contrast for Egypt. In Isaiah 58:5, bowing down the head "as a bulrush" describes a merely external, performative fast without genuine humility of heart.