When they couch in [their] dens, [and] abide in the covert to lie in wait?

Ver. 40. When they couch in their dens, &c.] When both by might and sleight they provide for themselves. Hunters with all their pains and means cannot catch a beast as soon as the lion can. An ape he hateth in a special manner, as being too crafty for him; and yet he feareth man (although as the poet Ennius saith),

Simia quam similis furpissima bestia nobis,

whereof no other probable reason can be given, but the small remnant of God's image left as yet in man, who once had dominion over all the creatures, and is still feared by the fiercest of them.

And abide in the covert to lie in wait?] Where they crouch, counterfeit themselves asleep, lie quiet and close, as cats that would catch mice, or foxes birds. But if this way they speed not, Basil saith they set up a loud roar, whereby the beasts are so amazed, that they have no power to stir out of the place they stand in, till the lions have taken them.

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