The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatted beast together, and a little child shall lead them.
Isaiah 11 opens with a King rising from the line of Jesse, ruling in righteousness (verses 1–5). Verse 6 then shows what that rule does to the world itself, starting with the animals that now tear each other apart. The picture raises one sharp question: is this poetry about changed hearts, or a real change coming to real creatures?
Commentators place this promise in a coming age on this earth, not in heaven. One writer asks what ground there is to doubt it:
It is the world, the habitable earth to come, "of which we are speaking" (Heb. 2:5) — not heaven, but earth, and especially the land of Israel under Him whose right it is. What ground is there to doubt its plain and exact fulfilment? … Why should anyone think it impossible that God, in honour of the reign of Jesus, will change more than the face of nature? He will change the habits and instincts of every living creature, freeing creation from the bondage of corruption under which it now groans.
The list is not random. Isaiah sets each predator beside the prey it hunts today.
Missionaries would tell us, we believe, that killing and eating a young goat holds a special attraction for the leopard, just as the wolf preys on lambs by nature. All creation will be at peace and all fierceness gone — even the poisonous serpent stripped of its venom and its desire to bite.
Commentators differ on whether the beasts stand for men. One writer says the wolf is still a wolf here, so the picture cannot be only about changed hearts:
The wolf, the leopard and the lion are shown as still existing, set against the lamb, the young goat, the calf and the more general "fatling" — but with their instincts for prey completely gone. Taken as a picture of the soul, how strange to sort people into such classes, when the gospel declares that all are lost and ungodly on one side, and that all believers are equally saved and children of God on the other! … Until then, faith counts on the power God gives against a state of disorder, as when David saved the lamb and killed both the lion and the bear.
Another writer holds both together — the animals change, and they also picture something in us:
The wolf, the leopard and the young lion will stop killing, of course. But there is more in the passage than that. These fierce beasts represent the lust for blood and power in men, the cause of all the strife … But all that will be changed. … God's power will do this. Men will be born again.
Commentators trace the violence in nature back to Adam's fall. Everything placed under the first man went down with him:
Because the sin of Adam had effects far beyond his own race: all that was put under his dominion got into ruin and disorder. And this is not a mere imaginative notion of ruin, nor a fanciful reading of Old Testament prophecy. It is the doctrine plainly and positively laid down in Rom. 8. It says there that "the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it" — a clear reference to the fall of the one who was set over creation. He fell; and creation, being under the headship of Adam, fell along with him.
The verse ends with a child, not a lion tamer. The smallest figure in the picture is the one who leads.
Man boasts of his efforts, and they often fail. In this remarkable passage of Isaiah 11, God shows how He accomplishes His purposes and removes every trace of the power of evil — through a "little child." The word in the original could be translated "little finger." Before this tiny symbol the whole power and ferocity described in the earlier verses collapses. God fills the whole earth with His glory, blesses the people, and secures a resting place of glory.
- Cause — Creation's savagery is not original. Adam fell, and everything under his dominion fell with him.
- Cure — The verse follows a King described in verses 1–5. Peace among the animals is the overflow of righteousness on a throne.
- Reach — The healing extends past people to wolves, leopards and lions. Nothing under the curse is left outside the repair.
- Reversal — Predators keep their nature but lose their appetite for prey. The weakest figure in the picture, a little child, walks in front.
- Result — Not a distant heaven, but this earth restored. That is why commentators refuse to reduce the promise to a metaphor.
And the cow and the she-bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
Isaiah's picture of the coming reign reaches down to the feeding habits of animals. A cow and a bear graze side by side. Their young lie together, and a lion lives on straw. The verse raises two plain questions. Is this meant literally? And what could bring such a change about?
This scene belongs to the reign described earlier in the chapter. The animals change because of that reign. One writer answers the objection that such a change is unthinkable:
Why should anyone think it impossible that God, in honour of the reign of Jesus, will change all living nature — not only its face, but its habits and bent? He will deliver the creature from the bondage of corruption under which it now groans. Jehovah declares that the days must surely come when the ploughman will overtake the reaper, and the one who treads grapes will overtake the one who sows seed. Then not only the earth will answer His generous power, but the animal kingdom also.
The wording itself is the reason for reading the verse as fact. The bear is still a bear and the lion still a lion. Only the appetite has gone:
An allegorical sense does not fit the exactness of the language... The passage shows the wolf, the leopard and the lion still existing, and sets them against the lamb, the kid, the calf and the more general "fatling" — but with the instincts of prey completely gone. It speaks only of animals that once hunted, now living in peace with the gentlest cattle. So the only right way to read it is as a prediction of facts still to come.
Commentators differ on whether that exhausts the meaning. Some read the beasts as also standing for something in human beings:
The wolf and the leopard and the young lion represent the uncontrolled passions of men. These animals will no doubt stop being beasts of prey, but a greater change, because it is moral instead of physical, will take place in men, and the figure used teaches us this — a little child will be the leader.
The detail about the lion's food is the sharpest part of the verse. One writer traces it back to man's fall:
God's mercy will reach even to the animal creation. He placed it under man at the beginning, so it has suffered as a result of man's fall. Strong animals will no longer kill and devour the weak. Enemies like the wolf and the lamb will feed together. The greediest, like the lion, will be content with plant food. All hurt and destruction will cease.
The same picture reaches back to the first chapter of the Bible:
Verse 30 of that chapter expressly assigns every green plant to every beast of the earth. The same text proves that at this time "every animal in the earth was herbivorous"... No believer should question that past fact, if inspired prophecy assures him that the day is coming when the wolf will dwell with the lamb and the leopard lie down with the kid. In that day the cow and the bear will feed, their young lying down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. Here science will certainly complain and scoff.
Why do animals suffer now, and when will it end? One writer answers from Romans:
About creation, the eighth chapter of Romans tells us that "the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now." There is not an animal on earth that is free from pain. But verse twenty-one tells us of a different state of things to come: "the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God." This is, to my mind, the key to the eleventh chapter of Isaiah.
after
The blessing has one exception:
The only creature from which God does not remove the curse is the serpent. Even in that day Jehovah will remember the part the serpent played in producing the ruin He is now putting right. That is why we have the sentence, "dust shall be the serpent's food."
- Reign — God changes nature in honour of the reign of Jesus. The King comes first, and the changed creation follows.
- Release — The animals suffer because God placed them under man, and they fell with him. Their relief comes when creation is set free from its bondage to corruption.
- Reach — The blessing goes further down than nations and kings: to a cow, a bear, their young, and a lion's daily food.
- Reality — The predators still exist. Only their appetite for prey is gone. So the words describe fact, not metaphor.
- Reminder — One creature keeps its sentence. The serpent still eats dust, a standing memory of where the ruin began.