This verse countenanceth their conjecture who take the locusts and vermin to be emblematical in part as well as literal; for it seems not very suitable to call their teeth teeth of a lion. For a nation; an innumerable multitude of locusts and caterpillars, called a nation here, as Solomon calls the conies and the ants, Proverbs 30:25,26. A prognostic of a very numerous and mighty nation, that ere long will invade Judah. Is come up, or suddenly will come, upon my land; upon Canaan, which God calls his land; or more particularly the two tribes, Judea strictly taken. Strong; mighty in power and undaunted in courage, if you refer it to the Assyrians or Babylonians; if to those vermin, they are, though each weak by itself, yet in those multitudes which come, strong enough, and irresistible, and shall do God's work, that is, waste the land, and devour all before them. Without number; not simply numberless, but in such multitudes none of you shall be able to recount them. Whose teeth are the teeth of a lion; a strong lion of the middle age, that hath whelps, and hunts the prey for them. And he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion; which is old, and the more fierce and terrible in his looks, no way lessened in his strength, and that preys for his young ones: now what waste such lions make, such these locusts will make, such the Assyrians will make.

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