Bible Strands
Leviticus 26:22
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.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — God addresses Israel through Moses within the covenant curse sequence of Leviticus 26, responding to the nation's continued hostility and refusal to accept discipline. This verse functions as the third escalation of judgment after prior warnings and multiplied plagues.
The words — חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה (chaiyat hasadeh) literally means "wild animals of the field," and שִׁכְלָה (shiklah) translates to "to make childless" or "to bereave." These terms specify both the agent and the precise demographic outcome of the coming judgment.
The thread — The pattern of God deploying field beasts to enforce covenant consequences runs through Deuteronomy 32:24 and Ezekiel 14:15, while the resulting desolation of travel routes mirrors the deserted highways in Judges 5:6. These references establish a consistent biblical motif where ecological and social collapse serve as divine discipline.
Why it lands — The text plainly states that persistent covenant rebellion will trigger a systematic dismantling of family lines, livestock, and public infrastructure. It requires the reader to acknowledge that spiritual hostility directly produces measurable communal ruin.
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
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.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 32:24 They 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.
- Ezekiel 14:15 Or 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,
- Judges 5:6 In the days of Shamgar son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were deserted and the travelers took the byways.
- Zechariah 7:14 But 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.”
- Leviticus 26:6 And 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 Kings 17:25 Now when the settlers first lived there, they did not worship the LORD, so He sent lions among them, which killed some of them.
- 2 Chronicles 15:5 In those days there was no safety for travelers, because the residents of the lands had many conflicts.
- Isaiah 33:8 The highways are deserted; travel has ceased. The treaty has been broken, the witnesses are despised, and human life is disregarded.
- Lamentations 1:4 The 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.
- Ezekiel 5:17 I 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.”