Jeremiah 4:7

7 Invaders have pounced like a lion from its cover, ready to rip nations to shreds, Leaving your land in wrack and ruin, your cities in rubble, abandoned.

Jeremiah 4:7 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 4:7

The lion is come up from his thicket
Meaning Nebuchadnezzar ^F19, from Babylon, who is compared to a lion for his strength, fierceness, and cruelty; see ( Jeremiah 50:17 ) so the Roman emperor is called a lion, ( 2 Timothy 4:17 ) , agreeably to this the Targum paraphrases it,

``a king is gone from his fortress;''

or tower; and the Syriac version,

``a certain most powerful king is about to go up as a lion out of his wood:''

and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way;
he who had conquered and destroyed other nations not a few, and these mighty and strong; and therefore the Jews could not expect but to be destroyed by him. This tyrant was a type of antichrist, whose name is Apollyon, a destroyer of the nations of the earth, ( Revelation 9:11 ) ( 9:18 ) he is gone forth from his place, to make thy land desolate;
from Babylon, where his royal palace was, in order to lay waste the land of Judea; and he is represented as being come out, and on the road with this view, to strike the inhabitants of Judea with the greater terror, and to hasten their flight, their destruction being determined and certain: and thy cities shall be laid waste without an inhabitant;
they shall become so utterly desolate, that there should be none dwelling in them, partly by reason of the multitudes of the slain, and partly by reason of multitudes that should flee; and should be laid waste to such a degree, that they should be covered with grass growing upon them; which is the signification of the word ^F20 here used, according to R. Joseph Kimchi.

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FOOTNOTES:

F19 So T. Bab. Megilia, fol. 11. 1. & Sanhedrin. fol 94. 2.
F20 (hnyut) "gramine succrescente obducantur quidam" in Gataker.

Jeremiah 4:7 In-Context

5 "Sound the alarm in Judah, broadcast the news in Jerusalem. Say, 'Blow the ram's horn trumpet through the land!' Shout out - a bullhorn bellow! - 'Close ranks! Run for your lives to the shelters!'

6 Send up a flare warning Zion: 'Not a minute to lose! Don't sit on your hands!' Disaster's descending from the north. I set it off! When it lands, it will shake the foundations.

7 Invaders have pounced like a lion from its cover, ready to rip nations to shreds, Leaving your land in wrack and ruin, your cities in rubble, abandoned.

8 Dress in funereal black. Weep and wail, For God's sledgehammer anger has slammed into us head-on.

9 "When this happens" - God's Decree - "King and princes will lose heart; priests will be baffled and prophets stand dumbfounded."