Bible Strands
Psalms 63:10
They will fall to the power of the sword; they will become a portion for foxes.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — David writes from a wilderness stronghold, contrasting his reliance on God with the fate of his pursuers. The text states that his enemies will fall to the sword and become carrion for foxes.
The words — The Hebrew יַגִּירֻהוּ (ya.giRuHu) means "they will pour him out," paired with מְנָת (meNat) "portion" and שֻׁעָלִים (shu'aLim) "foxes" to describe total disposal.
The thread — This imagery of being handed over to violence and wild animals appears in Jeremiah 18:21, Ezekiel 35:5, and Ezekiel 39:4.
Why it lands — The passage demands recognition that human schemes to destroy God's anointed end in complete humiliation and divine reversal.
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
They shall fall by the sword: they shall be a portion for foxes.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 18:21 Therefore, hand their children over to famine; pour out the power of the sword upon them. Let their wives become childless and widowed; let their husbands be slain by disease, their young men struck down by the sword in battle.
- Ezekiel 35:5 Because you harbored an ancient hatred and delivered the Israelites over to the sword in the time of their disaster at the final stage of their punishment,
- Ezekiel 39:4 On the mountains of Israel you will fall—you and all your troops and the nations with you. I will give you as food to every kind of ravenous bird and wild beast.
- 1 Samuel 26:10 David added, “As surely as the LORD lives, the LORD Himself will strike him down; either his day will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish.
- 1 Samuel 31:1 Now the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled before them, and many fell slain on Mount Gilboa.
- Song of Solomon 2:15 Catch for us the foxes—the little foxes that ruin the vineyards—for our vineyards are in bloom.
- 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,