Isaiah 56:9 (DRB)

Passage

All ye beasts of the field come to devour, all ye beasts of the forest.

Nearby Context

Isaiah 56:7 I will bring them into my holy mount, and will make them joyful in my house of prayer: their holocausts, and their victims shall please me upon my altar: for my house shall be called the house of prayer, for all nations.

Isaiah 56:8 The Lord God, who gathereth the scattered of Israel, saith: I will still gather unto him his congregation.

Isaiah 56:9 All ye beasts of the field come to devour, all ye beasts of the forest.

Isaiah 56:10 His watchmen are all blind, they are all ignorant: dumb dogs not able to bark, seeing vain things, sleeping and loving dreams.

Isaiah 56:11 And most impudent dogs, they never had enough: the shepherds themselves knew no understanding: all have turned aside into their own way, every one after his own gain, from the first even to the last.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "beasts", "field", "come", "devour", and "forest". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "beasts" and "field", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 8's "The Lord God who gathereth the scattered..." into verse 10's "His watchmen are all blind they are...", so "beasts" and "field" belong inside that flow. In Isaiah context, the local focus is the Holy One of Israel, judgment and restoration, the servant of the LORD, and Zion's hope.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "beasts" and "field" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.