I will also send wild beasts among you,.... Either in a literal sense, as lions, bears, wolves, &c. and so is the reverse of what is promised to them on their doing well, Leviticus 26:6; or figuratively, mighty monarchs and cruel oppressors, such as were the kings of Assyria and Babylon, Jeremiah 50:17,
which shall rob you of your children; as the bears, in a literal sense, destroyed the children of them in the times of Elisha, 2 Kings 2:24,
and destroy your cattle; the tame beasts, who often become a prey to the wild ones, as both those of the flock, and of the herd, sheep and oxen, do to lions, wolves, &c.
and make you few in number; or diminish them, their number, by bereaving them of…
John Calvin on Leviticus 26:14–end
Leviticus 26:14-45
14. But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments;
14. Si autem non audieritis me, neque feceritis omnia praecepta ista.
15. And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant:
15. Et, si decreta mea spreveritis, et judicia mea abominata fuerit anima vestra, ita ut non faciatis omnia praecepta mea, et irritum faciatis pactum meum:
16. I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain; for your enemies sh…
Read the whole note in the consoleKeil & Delitzsch on Leviticus 26:21-22
The second stage. - But if the people's resistance amounted to a hostile rebellion against God, He would smite them sevenfold for their sin by sending beasts of prey and childlessness. By beasts of prey He would destroy their cattle, and by barrenness He would make the nation so small that the ways would be deserted, that high roads would cease because there would be no traveller upon them on account of the depopulation of the land (Isa 33:8; Zep 3:6), and the few inhabitants who still remained would be afraid to venture because of the wild beasts (Eze 14:15). עם קרי הלך ("to go a meeting with a person," i.e., to meet a person in a hostile manner, to fight against him) only occurs here in Le…
Read the whole note in the consoleHenry, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Clarke, Gill, Calvin and Keil & Delitzsch are in the public domain; Tyndale Open Study Notes © Tyndale House Publishers, CC BY-SA 4.0 — all from the Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org). Rashi: the Rosenbaum & Silbermann Pentateuch (public domain) and the Judaica Press and Metsudah Tanakh (CC BY), via Sefaria. Spurgeon's Treasury of David: public domain (lyteword's markdown edition, CC0).
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
