7 A lion is gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations; he is on his way, he is gone forth from his place, to make your land desolate, that your cities be laid waste, without inhabitant.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The Prophet more fully declares the import of the threatening which we briefly considered yesterday; for God said in the former verse, that he would bring an evil from the north; and the kind of evil it was to be he now describes, and compares the king of Babylon to a lion; and afterwards, without a figure, he calls him the destroyer of nations By the similitude of lion he means that the Israelites would not be able to resist; and when he adds that he would be the desolator of nations, he intimates that they would perish with the rest: for if Nebuchadnezzar was sufficiently able to destroy many nations, how could the Jews escape a similar calamity? He shall come, he says, the desolator of nations But he uses the past tense throughout, in order to shew the certainty of the prediction, and thus to shake secure men with fear, who had become torpid in their hypocrisy; for they would have otherwise deemed all threatenings as nothing: for as long as God spared them, they despised his judgment, and promised themselves impunity in their sins. Hence the Prophet, in order to awake them, set the matter before them, as though Nebuchadnezzar had already come with a strong and powerful army to lay waste Judea; for he says, that a lion had ascended from his hiding -- places: but the term for the last word means an entangled density, as when trees are entwined together, or when a place is filled with thorns. [1] But the similitude is most suitable, because the Jews never thought that the king of Babylon would come forth from places so remote; for the passing through was difficult, and the expedition attended with great toil: yet the Prophet says, that the lion would come from his recesses, and that nothing would hinder him from breaking forth and coming to the open country. He at last concludes by saying, that the cities would be laid waste, [2] so as to be without an inhabitant It now follows --
1 - The word "thicket, "in our version, correctly expresses it; a tangled wood, where trees cross and entwine with each other. -- Ed.
2 - "Laid waste" is the Chaldee sense; but the verb means in Hebrew to germinate, to produce grass, to grow over with grass as ruined cities do. The words which follow, "without an inhabitant," shew that this meaning suits here, -- Thy cities shall grow over with grass, without an inhabitant. The Targum is, Thy cities shall be desolate without an inhabitant. -- Ed.
Rather, A "lion"... a "destroyer" of nations: a metaphor descriptive of the impending calamity. A lion is just rousing himself from his lair, but no common one. It is destroyer, not of men, but of nations.
Is on his way - literally, "has broken up his encampment." Jeremiah uses a military term strictly referring to the striking of tents in preparation for the march.
Without an inhabitant - The final stage of destruction, actually reached in the utter depopulation of Judaea consequent upon Gedaliah's murder.
The lion is come up - Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. "The king (Nebuchadnezzar) is come up from his tower." - Targum.
The destroyer of the Gentiles - Of the nations: of all the people who resisted his authority. He destroyed them all.
The (f) lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way; he is gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate; thy cities shall be laid waste, without an inhabitant.
(f) Meaning Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, (2-Kings 24:1).
The lion is come up from his thicket,.... Meaning Nebuchadnezzar (s), 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.
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 (t) here used, according to R. Joseph Kimchi.
(s) So T. Bab. Megilia, fol. 11. 1. & Sanhedrin. fol 94. 2. (t) "gramine succrescente obducantur quidam" in Gataker.
lion--Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans (Jeremiah 2:15; Jeremiah 5:6; Daniel 7:14).
his thicket--lair; Babylon.
destroyer of the Gentiles--rather, "the nations" (Jeremiah 25:9).
The lion - Nebuchadnezzar, so called from his fierceness and strength.
*More commentary available at chapter level.