Vol. 06 · Misquoted ·Scripture ·276 of 348
"The lion shall lie down with the lamb."
They never said that.
What people say
"The lion shall lie down with the lamb."
What was actually said
"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid." The Prophet Isaiah — Isaiah 11:6 (KJV, 1611)
Why it stuck
Isaiah named the wolf, not the lion. The mistake is partly because lions appear in the next verse ("And the lion shall eat straw like the ox," 11:7). Memory merges the two images.
The Peaceable Kingdom iconography — lion and lamb — is post-biblical, via Edward Hicks's Quaker paintings (1820s–40s).
Know another line by heart?
Play the duel and see how many you can spot. Or browse the whole shelf.