Her princes within her [are] roaring lions
Or, "as roaring lions"; there being a defect of the note of
similitude; which is supplied by the Targum, Septuagint, Vulgate
Latin, Syriac, and Arabic versions. This is to be understood, not
of the princes of the blood; but of civil magistrates in common;
the members of the grand sanhedrim; the princes of the Jewish
world, that crucified the Lord of glory; and who gaped upon him
with their mouths like ravening and roaring lions, as is foretold
they should, ( Psalms 22:12
Psalms
22:13 ) and who breathed out threatenings and slaughter
against the disciples of Christ; and by their menaces endeavoured
to frighten and deter them from preaching in his name, and from a
profession of him; see ( 1
Corinthians 2:8 ) ( Acts 4:5 Acts 4:6 Acts 4:18 ) ( Acts 5:27 Acts 5:28 ) : her
judges [are] evening wolves;
or, like them, cruel, voracious, never satisfied; especially are
very ravenous in the evening, having had no food all day; not
daring to go abroad in the daytime to seek their prey; see (
Jeremiah
5:6 ) . The Septuagint and Arabic versions read "wolves of
Arabia"; but wrongly; (See Gill on Habakkuk
1:8) such rapacious covetous judges were there in
Christ's time; who gives us an instance in one, by which we may
judge of the rest, who feared not God, nor regarded men, (
Luke 18:2 ) such
as these were hungry and greedy after gifts and bribes to pervert
judgment, and to devour the poor, the widow, and the fatherless,
on whom they had no mercy: they gnaw not the bones till the
morrow;
or rather, "in the morning" {z}; that is, either they leave not
the bones till the morning, as Jarchi and Kimchi interpret it;
they are so hungry, that they eat up bones and all at once, and
reserve nothing for the next day; which expresses both the
greediness of these judges, and the total consumption of the
estates of men made by them: or else the sense is, that not
having gnawn any bones in the morning, or eaten anything that
day, hence they are so greedy in the evening; and so this last
clause gives a reason why evening wolves are so voracious; for
which such cruel judges are compared to them.