This verb portrays organic decay and withering, especially of plant life. In Isaiah 33:9, Lebanon itself is described as mouldering or withering—a poetic image of widespread desolation. Similarly in Isaiah 19:6, reeds and rushes wither as waterways dry up. The Syriac cognate confirms the sense of mouldy decay. This is the slow deterioration of once-living things deprived of vitality, whether vegetation suffering drought or majestic forests succumbing to judgment.