Isaiah 40:28-31 vs. “Soar Like Eagles”

Seeds Family Worship (now Seeds Kids Worship) · checked 2026-08-02

What we checked

PassageIsaiah 40:28-31 chapter ↗ 3 more proofs on Isaiah 40 →

Translation shownBSB (Berean Standard Bible)

Presents itself asquotation

Categoryadditions / omissions

AlbumThe Power of Encouragement (Vol. 5) · 2008

Words addressed tonot addressed to God (sung about Him)

Teaching or experiencescripture set to music

Graded against the standard

Quotation criteria this song presents words as scripture, so these apply

✓Text-faithful

✗Translation named

✓Context kept

Applies to every song the Name held holy · God shown holy · true of God · the standard

✓Reverent treatment

✓ What's good

Three consecutive verses sung whole and in order, with a chorus built entirely from the passage's own clauses
The reference is exact everywhere it appears: 40:29-31, not a vague “Isaiah 40,” so the edges of the span are visible and checkable
Seeds publishes a free chord chart whose copyright line names the translation actually sung
Nothing is trimmed inside the span, and no explanation is smuggled into the quotation

⚠ Cautions

The album page lists the scripture version as ESV while the song's own chart credits the NIV, and the sung wording is the NIV's. The label a listener sees first names the wrong text
The setting begins at v.29, so v.28, the everlasting Creator who never grows weary, is not sung. The promise's because lives there; read 40:27-31 alongside the song once

Verse Proof

Isaiah 40:28-31

The text in BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

“Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary; His understanding is beyond searching out. He gives power to the faint and increases the strength of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall. But those who wait upon the LORD will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.”

Isaiah, speaking comfort to a Judah headed for exile, at the close of the chapter that begins “Comfort my people.” Verse 27 records the complaint being answered: Jacob says his way is hidden from the LORD. The reply is an argument in four steps. Verse 28: have you not heard, the LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator, and He himself never grows tired or weary. Verse 29: therefore He can give power to the faint. Verse 30: every human reserve fails, even the youngest and strongest. Verse 31: but those who wait on this God renew their strength, rise, run, walk. The famous eagle verse is the conclusion; verse 28 is its ground.

What the song says, described not quoted

The song is verses 29 to 31, sung whole and in order for children, in the New International Version's wording. The verse section sings v.29 through twice, then v.30 in two halves, then v.31's opening clause about hoping in the LORD and renewed strength. The chorus is v.31's three promise pictures in the verse's own order, flight, running, walking, with the last doubled. Verse and chorus each come around again and nothing from outside the passage is ever sung. The label is precise about its span: the chord chart, the product page, and the official upload's title all say Isaiah 40:29-31, so v.28 is simply not sung, and no label says otherwise.

The translation is identifiable but mislabeled. Seeds' own chord chart prints the lyric with a copyright line crediting the New International Version, and the wording is the NIV's throughout. The album's product page says “Scripture Version: ESV.”

Inside the sung span, nothing shifted. Verses repeat, and the chorus doubles one clause, but every word is the passage's own. The shifts are on the labels. The album page names the ESV while the chart Seeds publishes for the song credits the NIV, and those are different renderings here: in the ESV, as in the BSB above, the eagles mount up with wings, while the song's own title carries the NIV's flight verb. The second shift is the span itself. The setting starts at v.29, so the argument's opening, the everlasting Creator who never grows weary, sits one verse above what a child memorizes.

~ Faithful & Labeled: Verses 29-31 are sung complete and in order in the NIV's wording. But the album page names the ESV as its scripture version. The sung span begins one verse after the everlasting-God ground the passage builds on.

▸ Official upload. Now listen with the proof in mind.

Verse 31 promises renewed strength, and verse 28 names the God who supplies it.

Why it matters

A word-for-word claim is only checkable against a stated text, and here the publisher's album page states one translation while its own chord chart credits another. A parent who reads “Scripture Version: ESV,” opens an ESV, and plays the song will find the words do not line up, starting with the title. The song is not the problem; the labeling is.

The span matters for a different reason. This is a memory song, and what it plants is the promise of vv.29-31 without the sentence that grounds it. The passage's logic is that the LORD can renew the faint because He himself never faints. That sentence is v.28, one verse above the label, a ten-second read away.

Is it safe to dwell on?

Sung on repeat, this song moves between God and the singer.

What repetition plants here is the passage's own promise: three pictures of not giving out, rising, running, walking, tied to hoping in the LORD. The centre of attention reads as mixed by honest count. Verse 29 is about God the giver, v.30 is about failing human strength, and the chorus's many repetitions are about the people who hope, so the song spends most of its words on the receivers. That is the passage's own proportion, not a drift the song introduced. A child looping this will own the promise for decades, and the one thing the loop does not carry is the reason it holds, the God of v.28 who does not grow weary. Supplying that verse once turns a memorized comfort into a memorized argument.

Helpful comparison

This is the second proof on this site from the same album. “Think About It” (Philippians 4:8) shows the identical pattern: verse sung faithfully in the NIV, chart crediting the NIV, album page saying ESV. Two songs from one album failing the same check the same way says the discrepancy belongs to the catalogue page, not to either song. It also dates the problem: Seeds announced its move to the ESV in 2011, three years after this album, and its later releases put the version inside the track title itself, as with “Wonderful (Psalm 139:14 ESV),” also on this site. The fix Seeds eventually adopted is the one this album's page needed.

Sources

Seeds Kids Worship — “Soar Like Eagles” chord chart (PDF) · (the printed lyric, the writer credits to Jason Houser and Elliot Park, the 2007 copyright, and the copyright line crediting the New International Version)
Seeds Kids Worship — Soar Like Eagles (Isaiah 40:29-31) · (the publisher's claim of word-for-word scripture from Isaiah 40:29-31, with no translation named on the page)
Seeds Kids Worship — The Power of Encouragement Vol. 5 · (album page: track 9, “Scripture Version: ESV”)
Seeds Kids Worship — free chord charts · (the chart index where the PDF lives)
WorshipHouse Kids — Soar Like Eagles (Isaiah 40:29-31) · (licensed video listing repeating the word-for-word claim for Isaiah 40:29-31)
Seeds Kids Worship — scripture reference song list · (one Isaiah 40 song in the catalogue, on this album)
PR.com — Seeds Family Worship releases its fifth album · (Nashville, October 30 2008; The Power of Encouragement as the fifth album)
The Gospel Coalition — new Seeds CD, now in ESV · (May 2011, the decision to switch all Seeds songs to the ESV)
YouTube — Isaiah 40:29-31, Soar Like Eagles (Seeds Kids Worship channel) · (the official upload; the reference in the title, no translation named)
Expository Songs — Seeds Family Worship · (independent index confirming the song, its span, and the writer credits)

Corrections

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