I will send wild animals against you to rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and reduce your numbers, until your roads lie desolate.
Parallel translations
- WEB I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number. Your roads will become desolate.
- KJV I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your high ways shall be desolate.
- NKJV I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number; and your highways shall be desolate.
- NASB I will also let loose among you the animals of the field, which will deprive you of your children and eliminate your cattle, and reduce your number so that your roads become deserted.
- NLT I will send wild animals that will rob you of your children and destroy your livestock. Your numbers will dwindle, and your roads will be deserted.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God warns of wild beasts that would kill children and livestock and leave roads desolate. Continued rebellion brings loss and emptiness.
Overview
Wild animals overrunning the land reverse the earlier promise to remove dangerous beasts (v. 6). The loss of children, herds, and safe travel pictures a society unraveling under judgment. Such desolation displays the cost of forsaking God, who alone gives security and life to His people.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- Ezek 14:15Or if I send wild beasts through the land to leave it childless and desolate, with no man passing through it for fear of the beasts,
- Deut 32:24They will be wasted from hunger and ravaged by pestilence and bitter plague; I will send the fangs of wild beasts against them, with the venom of vipers that slither in the dust.
- Judg 5:6In the days of Shamgar son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were deserted and the travelers took the byways.
- Lev 26:6And I will give peace to the land, and you will lie down with nothing to fear. I will rid the land of dangerous animals, and no sword will pass through your land.
- 2 Kgs 17:25Now when the settlers first lived there, they did not worship the LORD, so He sent lions among them, which killed some of them.
- Isa 33:8The highways are deserted; travel has ceased. The treaty has been broken, the witnesses are despised, and human life is disregarded.
- Lam 1:4The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to her appointed feasts. All her gates are deserted; her priests groan, her maidens grieve, and she herself is bitter with anguish.
- Ezek 5:17I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring a sword against you. I, the LORD, have spoken.”
- Zech 7:14But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known, and the land was left desolate behind them so that no one could come or go. Thus they turned the pleasant land into a desolation.”
- Ezek 14:21For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem My four dire judgments—sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague—in order to cut off from it both man and beast?
- Ezek 33:28I will make the land a desolate waste, and the pride of her strength will come to an end. The mountains of Israel will become desolate, so that no one will pass through.
- 2 Kgs 2:24Then he turned around, looked at them, and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Suddenly two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.
- Jer 15:3I will appoint over them four kinds of destroyers, declares the LORD: the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, and the birds of the air and beasts of the earth to devour and destroy.
- 2 Chr 15:5In those days there was no safety for travelers, because the residents of the lands had many conflicts.
- Mic 3:12Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, and the temple mount a wooded ridge.
- Isa 24:6Therefore a curse has consumed the earth, and its inhabitants must bear the guilt; the earth’s dwellers have been burned, and only a few survive.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Every sacrifice, every priest, and every day of atonement points beyond itself to the one perfect offering and the great High Priest who, by his own blood, makes the unclean holy once for all.
How Leviticus 26:22 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.