Isaiah 40:30-31

A couple weeks ago, I read Isaiah 40:30-31:  "30 Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; 31 but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." [ESV]

I noticed that the contrast between the faltering strength of the "youths" and "young men" and the sustained strength of "they who wait for the LORD" is highlighted by the different number of verbs used to describe them.  The first group has three ("shall faint," "[shall] be weary," and "shall fall exhausted"), but the second group has four ("shall renew their strength," "shall mount up," "shall run," and "shall walk") (plus a further two if you include the negated "not be weary" and "not faint").  That those in the second group are able to do more illustrates the greater strength that they have because they "wait for the LORD."

Isaiah 40:24

Months ago, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from 9 February 2018:

The reading was Isaiah 40:21-31, and as I was following along in the Latin Vulgate, I noticed a particular word in verse 24:

et quidem neque plantatos neque satos neque radicato in terra trunco eorum repente flavit in eos et aruerunt et turbo quasi stipulam auferet eos

In the ESV, this is:

Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

The word "stipulam" ("stubble") stood out to me because I wrote about it in Malachi 4:1 last year.  Similar comments apply here:  the Latin word is a diminutive (with the "-ula(m)" suffix), and there may be a slightly disparaging sense in its use in this context, although this isn't present in the Hebrew, where the word is קַשׁ, just as in Malachi 4:1.