Hosea 13:8

as a dear A striking but uncommon comparison. Comp. Lamentations 3:10.

the caul of their heart Rather, the enclosure of their heart, i.e., not the pericardium, which is what the Authorized Version appears to have supposed, but the breast.

as a lion Most render, as a lioness; but this is at any rate uncertain. There is nothing as in Job 4:11 specially to suggest the female. The masculine undoubtedly occurs in Psalms 57:5 (Hebr.). The root-idea is probably voracity; but unfortunately there is no cognate in Assyrian. The numerous words for lion in Hebrew are as trouble-some to express in English, as the translators of the Sept. found them in Greek (Sept. here has σκύμνοι δρυμοῦ).