Bible Strands
Ezekiel 32:4
I will abandon you on the land and hurl you into the open field. I will cause all the birds of the air to settle upon you, and all the beasts of the earth to eat their fill of you.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The Lord God addresses Pharaoh of Egypt through Ezekiel, pronouncing judgment immediately after describing the net of many peoples that will drag him down.
The words — The Hebrew verb נְטַשְׁתִּיךָ (ne.tash.Ti.kha) literally means “I will abandon you,” while אֲטִילֶךָ (a.ti.Le.kha) means “I will throw you,” both stressing divine action against the land and open field.
The thread — This pattern of leaving a corpse exposed to scavengers and open terrain appears in Isaiah 18:6, Ezekiel 29:5, and the judgment sequence of Ezekiel 31:12–13.
Why it lands — The passage requires the reader to acknowledge that earthly authority cannot halt physical ruin when God actively removes protection and leaves the corpse to nature.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Then will I leave thee upon the land, I will cast thee forth upon the open field, and will cause all the fowls of the heaven to remain upon thee, and I will fill the beasts of the whole earth with thee.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 18:6 They will all be left to the mountain birds of prey, and to the beasts of the land. The birds will feed on them in summer, and all the wild animals in winter.
- Ezekiel 29:5 I will leave you in the desert, you and all the fish of your streams. You will fall on the open field and will not be taken away or gathered for burial. I have given you as food to the beasts of the earth and the birds of the air.
- Ezekiel 31:12 Foreigners, the most ruthless of the nations, cut it down and left it. Its branches have fallen on the mountains and in every valley; its boughs lay broken in all the earth’s ravines. And all the peoples of the earth left its shade and abandoned it.
- 1 Samuel 17:44 “Come here,” he called to David, “and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!”
- Psalms 63:10 They will fall to the power of the sword; they will become a portion for foxes.
- Psalms 74:14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan; You fed him to the creatures of the desert.
- Psalms 79:2 They have given the corpses of Your servants as food to the birds of the air, the flesh of Your saints to the beasts of the earth.
- Psalms 83:9 Do to them as You did to Midian, as to Sisera and Jabin at the River Kishon,
- Psalms 110:5 The Lord is at Your right hand; He will crush kings in the day of His wrath.
- Isaiah 14:19 But you are cast out of your grave like a rejected branch, covered by those slain with the sword, and dumped into a rocky pit like a carcass trampled underfoot.