Bible Strands
Isaiah 56:9
Come, all you beasts of the field; eat greedily, all you beasts of the forest.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God commands the beasts of the field and forest to approach and devour. This declaration follows His promise to gather Israel’s dispersed and immediately precedes a rebuke of Israel’s blind, mute watchmen.
The words — The Hebrew כֹּל (kol) means "every" or "all," and חַיְתוֹ (chayito) denotes "beast" or "animal." The imperative אֵתוּ ('etu) commands them to "come," paired with the infinitive לֶאֱכֹל (le'ekhol) for "to devour."
The thread — This summons of wild animals to consume appears in Jeremiah 12:9, Deuteronomy 28:26, and Isaiah 18:6 as a recurring image of desolation.
Why it lands — The text issues a direct command to scavengers without naming a target, creating an abrupt pivot from divine gathering to predatory imagery. It requires the reader to connect the preceding promise of gathering with the immediate description of spiritual blindness.
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
All ye beasts of the field, come to devour, yea, all ye beasts in the forest.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 12:9 Is not My inheritance to Me like a speckled bird of prey with other birds of prey circling against her? Go, gather all the beasts of the field; bring them to devour her.
- Deuteronomy 28:26 Your corpses will be food for all the birds of the air and beasts of the earth, with no one to scare them away.
- 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 39:17 And as for you, son of man, this is what the Lord GOD says: Call out to every kind of bird and to every beast of the field: ‘Assemble and come together from all around to the sacrificial feast that I am preparing for you, a great feast on the mountains of Israel. There you will eat flesh and drink blood.
- Revelation 19:17 Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out in a loud voice to all the birds flying overhead, “Come, gather together for the great supper of God,