own ravenous maw. Nahum alludes to this invariable practice in these words: "He filled his holes with prey, and his dens with ravin." And said Jehovah to the sorrowful and humbled Job, " Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion ? or fill the appetite of the young lions, when they couch in their dens, and abide in the covert to lie in wait.”▾ Like other wild beasts, he slumbers in his covert during the day, that he may return at night to the chace with re"novated vigour : "Thou makest darkness, and it is night, wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God. The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens." w Although the lion fearlessly meets his antagonist in the open field, in this respect differing from leopards and some other beasts of prey, that never openly attack the fated victim, yet this bold and noble animal often descends to stratagem and ambuscade: " He couches in his den, and abides in the covert to lie in wait." He watches the approach of his victim with cautious attention, carefully avoiding the least noise, lest he should give warning of his presence and designs. Such has the glowing pencil of David painted the insidious conduct of the murderer : "He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor --- he croucheth and humbleth himself, that the poor may fall by his strong ones." "Like as a lion that is greedy of his prey, and as it were a young lion lurking in secret places." Statius thus describes the lion watching in his den: "sævo speculantur ab antro Aut cervum aut nondum, bellantum fronte juvencum." Lib. vii, 1. 670. Buffon's Nat. Hist. vol. v, p. 81, 82. Job xxxviii, 39. " Psa. civ, 20. * Psa. x, 10. y Psa. xvii, 12. a From his lurking place, he commonly leaps upon the victim at one spring. So, in the farewell prediction of Moses, it is foretold," Dan is a lion's whelp, he shall leap from Bashan." This fact is attested by all the ancient historians: Aristotle asserts, that when the lion judges himself within reach, he throws himself upon his prey; Pliny says, he leaps with a bound; and Solinus, when he is in full pursuit, he springs forward upon the game. When he leaps on his prey, says Buffon, he makes a spring of twelve or fifteen feet. In the same manner acted Dan; proceeding, as it were, by a single bound, from the one extremity of Canaan to the other, he invaded the city of Laish, which, after its reduction, he called by his own name. The incursions of that powerful and merciless destroyer, into the inhabited country, are commonly attended with horrible devastation. Every intelligent reader of the Scriptures will discover many proofs of this assertion, of which only one or two can be quoted. The first is from the prophecies of Balaam concerning the future prosperity of Israel; "Behold the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion; he shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain."< The second is quoted from the song of Hezekiah, after he was recovered from his sickness: "I reckoned till morning, that as a lion, so will he break all my bones." breaks the bones of his prey with his teeth; he tears them to pieces with his nails, and rends them asunder. When the accusers of Daniel were cast into the lions' den, the prophet informs us, "The lions had the mastery of them, z Hist. lib. ix, cap. 44. a Lib. viii, cap. 16. b Bochart Hieroz. lib. ii, cap. 2, p. 739, 740. d Isa. xxxviii, 13. He and brake all their bones in pieces, or ever they came at the bottom of the den." In Homer, the son of Atreus in battle resembles a lion that singles out for inevitable destruction, an ox, the best of the herd; having put the rest to flight, he breaks his neck, having first seized him with his strong tusks.f And Horace addresses Chloe in the twenty-third ode of the second book, "Atqui non ego te, tigris ut aspera Getulusve leo, frangere persequor." The full import of the verb to break, in these quotations, may be learned from a passage in the prophecies of Hosea, where Jehovah threatens the ten tribes for their apostacy: "Therefore, I will be unto them as a lion; as a leopard by the way will I observe them; I will meet them as a bear bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart, and there will I devour them like a lion; the wild beast shall tear them." The prophet knew that the lion aims chiefly at the heart, which he no sooner lays bare, than he greedily devours and drinks its blood. When the lion, says Homer, has rent a fawn to pieces, he carries it off to his den and tears out its tender heart.h According to the prophets, entire regions are sometimes depopulated by his fury: "The young lions roared upon him, and yelled, and they made his land waste." His de vastations are depicted in still more vivid colours in a following chapter: "The 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, and thy cities shall be laid waste without an inhabitant." These, it must be admitted, are mystical lions, the Cæsars and e Dan. vi, 24. f Iliad, lib. xi, 1. 175. s Hos. xiii, 8. * Jer. ii, 15. h Lib. xi, 1. 113-115. J Jer. iv, 7. Alexanders, whom incensed heaven raises up to punish the nations for their iniquity; but the name of lions is assigned to them, because the valour of a conqueror and the rage of a lion, produce the same deplorable effects. Jehovah accordingly threatens to send wild beasts among his ancient people, which should rob them of their children, and destroy their cattle, and make them few in number, and their highways should be desolate. m Nature, it is pretended by some writers, has provided for the safety of mankind, by appointing that the lioness shall bring forth but once in her life, and only one cub. Such is the opinion of Herodotus, and many other ancients; but it is contradicted by Homer, who asserts more than once, that the lion rears a number of whelps; and by a much higher authority, the Spirit of inspiration. The prophet Ezekiel, in his parable of the lions' whelps, puts this question: "What is thy mother? A lioness: she lay down among lions, she nourished her whelps among young lions. And she brought up one of her whelps; it became a young lion, and it learned to catch the prey; it devoured men," Nahum bears his testimony to the same fact: "The lion did tear in pieces enough for his whelps, and strangled for his lionesses." Ancient writers are much divided in relation to the number of whelps the lioness brings forth at a birth, and the number of times she goes with young. Eustathius inclines to the opinion advanced 1 * Lev. xxvi, 22. Instances of this terrible calamity are mentioned by Diodorus, lib. iii, p. 115; by Ælian, lib. xvii, cap. 41; and other ancient writers, quoted by Bochart, lib. ii, cap. 2, p. 741. 1 Lib. iii, cap. 108. Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. viii, cap. 16. Aristot. Hist. lib. vi, cap. 31. Ælian de Nat. Animal. lib. iv, cap. 34. m Iliad, lib. xvii, 1. 133.—'ws tis te λEWY WEgi diσI TEXEOσ49; and lib. xviii, by some, that she brings forth two cubs, because she has two teats. Philostratus writes, that she has whelps three times; the first time she produces three, the second time two, and the last time one, surpassing all the others in beauty of form and ferocity of disposition. But, as the determination of this point involves the illustration of no text of Scripture, it falls not within the object of this work; it is sufficient to observe, that the united and harmonious testimony of these ancient writers fully vindicates the language used by the sacred writers on this head. The lion was of old among the agents which the Judge of all the earth employed to execute his vengeance on corrupt and impenitent nations. He delivered the remnant of Moab that escaped from the sword, to the devouring jaws of that destroyer; and in the same manner he punished the Cuthites, that Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, sent from Babylon to occupy the cities of Samaria, for their idolatries. In the punishment of more private offenders, we find him often engaged; he killed the prophet who disobeyed the express command of God, not to eat bread nor drink water in Bethel, nor to return by the same road; and the man who refused to smite the prophet, who required him to do so in the name of the Lord.¶ Although the lion is the terror of the forest, and has been known to scatter destruction over the fairest regions of the east; yet he is often compelled to yield to the superior prowess or address of man. When Samson, the P Ælian affirms that she brings forth five times; five whelps at the first litter, four at the second, three at the third, two at the fourth, and last of all one. Lib. iv, cap. 34. And Bochart. Hieroz. lib. ii, cap. 2, p. 743. 91 Kings xiii, 24, and xx, 35, 36. |