Jeremiah 2:15

He afterwards adds, Over him roar the lions. The Prophet seems not simply to compare the enemies of Israel to lions on account of their cruelty, but also by way of contempt, as though he had said, that Israel found that not only men were incensed against them, but also wild beasts: and it is more degrading when God permits us to be torn by the beasts of the field. It is then the same, as though he had said, that Israel were so miserably treated, that they were not only slain by the hands of enemies, but were also exposed to the beasts of prey. And then he adds, they have sent forth their voice; which is the same as to say, that Israel, whom God was wont to protect by his powerful band, were become the food of wild beasts, and that lions, as it were in troops, were roaring against them.

He then adds, without a metaphor, that his land was laid waste, and his cities burnt without an inhabitant This language cannot be suitably applied to lions or to any other wild beasts; but what he had figuratively said before, he now explains in a plain manner, and says, that the land was desolate, that the cities were cut off or burnt up. Now this, as we have said, could not have been the case, had not Israel departed from God, and had been on this account deprived of his help. (42)

Over him shall young lions roar;
They have uttered their voice,
And have made his land a waste;
His cities are grown over with grass,
Without an inhabitant.

The verb in the first line is future, the other verbs are in the past tense; and Blarney thinks that they are so put to denote the certainty of what is said, as it is often done by the prophets: and this is rendered probable by what is contained in Jeremiah 4:7, where the same judgment is spoken of. The verb נצתה, in the received text, ought evidently to be נצתו, according to the Keri and twenty MSS.; and so we find it in Jeremiah 9:10. Our version and Calvin give it the idea of “burning;” but according to Leigh and Parkhurst, its meaning is, to shoot forth, to produce grass, or to grow over with grass, as the case is with ruined cities; and the words connected with it here and in other places seem to favor this meaning. It is rendered in our version, “laid waste,“ in Jeremiah 4:7, and “desolate” in Jeremiah 46:19. — Ed