---

In the East, the houses have generally flat roofs. These are covered with a kind of compost or cement. This should obstruct all vegetation; but if chipped and broken up in any part, grass seeds carried there by the wind take root and grow. The plant springs up rapidly, from the thinness of the soil, and from its warm exposure. From its elevated situation it is seen at a distance, and makes a goodly show. But the same causes make the plant feeble and shrivelled, and it withers before it reaches maturity. Who would covet such prosperity as this? It is not the tall, majestic tree, which has withstood the winds and storms of centuries. It is as grass; not even as grass sown in the humble valley, full of moisture, and rich in beauty: it is as grass on the housetop, which dies before the ears are fully formed. Their prosperity has no stability: its roots are not deep in the Divine blessing.

(N. McMichael.)

---

---

KJV: Let them be as the grass upon the housetops, which withereth afore it groweth up:

WEB: Let them be as the grass on the housetops, which withers before it grows up;