What does the bible say about the Lion.
May 12, 2020 12:21:44 #
We often hear Jesus referred to as the Lamb of God, a symbol of meekness and sacrifice. But there is a vastly different image of Jesus in the Bible: the lion. According to the Book of Revelation 5:5, Christ is the “Lion of the tribe of Judah” who will return to defeat Satan in battle. Why a lion? What does the Bible say about the connection between lions and the Messiah?
The Most Dreaded Hunter
In the days of the Bible, lions were the most feared predators that roamed the Land of Israel. The shepherds of ancient Israel were constantly on the lookout for lions attacking their defenseless flock. Only the most heroic fighters like Samson and David were able to slay a lion. So, it should come as no surprise that the Bible refers to lions as the greatest symbol of might and authority.
A Most Powerful Ruler
The Bible mentions lions almost 200 times. Jacob ensured that Judah would be the ancestor of the kings of Israel by comparing him to a lion that has “gone up from the prey” (Genesis 49:9). King David was said to have the “heart of a lion” (2 Sam. 17:10). The lion is the preeminent symbol of royalty, so it is appropriate that the final book of the Bible depicts the triumphant messianic king as the “Lion of the tribe of Judah” (Rev. 5:5).
Discover the language of JudahLions are so important in the Bible that Hebrew has six different words for lion: aryeh, lavi, kefir, layish, shahal, shahaz. Each refers to a different stage of the lion’s long life. However, the translation of these names makes no distinction because English only has the word “lion”. To truly understand the promised arrival of the Lion of Judah, return to the language of Judah, enroll today in our live online Biblical Hebrew course.
The Most Dreaded Hunter
In the days of the Bible, lions were the most feared predators that roamed the Land of Israel. The shepherds of ancient Israel were constantly on the lookout for lions attacking their defenseless flock. Only the most heroic fighters like Samson and David were able to slay a lion. So, it should come as no surprise that the Bible refers to lions as the greatest symbol of might and authority.
A Most Powerful Ruler
The Bible mentions lions almost 200 times. Jacob ensured that Judah would be the ancestor of the kings of Israel by comparing him to a lion that has “gone up from the prey” (Genesis 49:9). King David was said to have the “heart of a lion” (2 Sam. 17:10). The lion is the preeminent symbol of royalty, so it is appropriate that the final book of the Bible depicts the triumphant messianic king as the “Lion of the tribe of Judah” (Rev. 5:5).
Discover the language of JudahLions are so important in the Bible that Hebrew has six different words for lion: aryeh, lavi, kefir, layish, shahal, shahaz. Each refers to a different stage of the lion’s long life. However, the translation of these names makes no distinction because English only has the word “lion”. To truly understand the promised arrival of the Lion of Judah, return to the language of Judah, enroll today in our live online Biblical Hebrew course.
May 13, 2020 08:40:47 #
Additional information, bahmer, to compliment what you have posted. 
From a messianic website of Jewish believers in Jesus/Yeshua as their Messiah:
https://www.jewishjewels.org/news-letters/name-messiah/
His Name is “Lion”
Lion (aryeh) is a traditional name for Messiah, derived from the blessing that Jacob gave to his son Judah: “Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bows down, he lies down as a lion; and as a lion, who shall rouse him?” (Gen.49:9).
Verse 10 continues with: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and to Him shall be the obedience of the people.”
Shiloh, in Jewish tradition, is also one of Messiah’s names, but the focus of Jacob’s blessing is on the Messiah as a Lion (in character attributes, not in essence). The word lion is mentioned three times in Genesis 49:9. Judah is first a cub or whelp (gur aryeh). Next he is a lion (aryeh), then a fully mature lion (lavi).
Tsvi Sadan comments in his book that this picture of a cub growing to maturity fits well with the Jewish understanding of the way in which Messiah will come: first as the “Son of Joseph,” then as the “Son of David.” The “Son of Joseph” (like Joseph, Jacob’s son who was sold into slavery) is premature or “killed.” Then the Messiah as “Son of David” will be as a fully-grown lion, and king over all. Messiah at first has authority like a lion’s cub, but in the end like a lion king.
One rabbinic commentator, Abravanel, says of the phrase, “From the prey, my son, you have gone up,” that Messiah removes Himself from all prey and cruelty, since his instruments are not ‘instruments of cruelty.’ Therefore, the Lion of Judah does not seek to devour Israel, but to protect them from other predators.
What about Yeshua? “For it is evident that our Lord arose from Judah…” (Heb. 7:14) “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.” (Micah 5:2)
Yeshua, born in Bethelem, of the tribe of Judah, came as a Lamb at His first coming (like the suffering Joseph), but is returning as a Lion at His next coming (which, according to Rabbi Kaduri is SOON!). Yeshua is returning as the REAL LION KING (not the Disney version!)
The definitive verse on Yeshua as Lion is Revelation 5:5: “But one of the elders said to me, ‘Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals.” Yeshua is the only One Worthy to open and read the scroll. He is the Messiah, HaMashiach, Ben David! Strong. Powerful. Authoritative. Majestic. King of kings and Lord of lords.
From the perspective of Traditional Judaism today:
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-lion-in-judaism
Called in the Talmud "the king of the beasts" (Ḥag. 13b), the lion has many Hebrew names:
אַרְיֵה (aryeh) or אֲרִי (ari), and לָבִיא (lavi) fem. לְבִיאָה (levi'ah), both of which are used for e lion in general,
כְּפִיר (kefir), usually a young lion,
לַיִשׁ (layish), mostly poetical, and according to some, "an old lion,
שַׁחַל (shaḥal), general name for the lion in poetry, though like שַׁחַץ (shaḥaẓ) perhaps the intention is any fierce animal
and, גּוּר (gur) almost always meaning "a lion's whelp (cub)."
Rashi comments that ari is the large lion, shaḥal the medium-sized one, and kefir the small lion, while the first six are cited in Sanhedrin 95a. Similarly, Kimchi breaks the different terms for lion into categories of size in his comment to Judges 14:5. More likely, though, the different terms with the exception of gur, "cub" (Nah. 2:13), are synonyms employed by the biblical poets. In fact, lavi (= Akkadian lābu), shaḥal, and layish (= Akkadian nēšu; l/n interchange) are attested only in poetry.
In the Bible's references to the lion, many of them are descriptive, metaphoric, and allegorical. To the lion were compared the tribes of Judah (Gen. 49:9) and Dan (Deut. 33:22); Balaam said of the Israelites: "Behold a people that riseth up as a lioness (lavi), and as a lion (ari) doth he lift himself up" (Num. 23:24); the mother of the kings of Judah was compared to a lioness and her sons to lion (gureha) cubs (Ezek. 19:2–3). David, of whom it was said that his "heart is as the heart of a lion" (II Sam. 17:10), declared in his lament over Saul and Jonathan that "they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions" (ibid. 1:23).
This combination of the lion, the king of the beasts, and the eagle , the king of the birds (the biblical reference is to the vulture ), is very common in later Jewish art, particularly on the Holy Ark, and occurs in Ezekiel's vision of the lion, the ox, the eagle, and the cherub (Ezek. 1:10; 10:14).
In the Temple there were carvings of "lions, oxen, and cherubim" (I Kings 7:29), while a lion with eagle's wings symbolized in the Book of Daniel (7:4) the kingdom of Babylonia. The lion is mentioned several times together with the bear as the most powerful beasts of prey (Lam. 3:10; Prov. 28:15; I Sam. 17:34; et al.).
When a lion attacks its prey there is no escape from it, being mentioned in many parables, as when Amos (3:12) declares that a shepherd can rescue out of its jaws no more than "two legs, or a piece of an ear." Nor is a lion in the least frightened even when shepherds gather to chase it away (Isa. 31:4). An encounter between a man and a lion is usually fatal to the former (I Kings 13:24; 20:36), lions having killed new settlers in the cities of Samaria (II Kings 17:25), and having claimed victims, according to Jeremiah (5:6), in the land of Judah.
Only in exceptional instances was a lion slain in such a clash, as when encountering a man of great personal courage such as Samson (Judg. 14:6), David (I Sam. 17:34), and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada (II Sam. 23:20). Among the Samaria ivories of the ninth century B.C.E. are two representations of lions (image in IDB 3, 137). From the eighth century is a seal inscribed, "property of Shema, servant of Jeroboam," with an engraving of a lion (Ahituv, 206).
From the Bible it is clear that lions did not permanently inhabit populated areas; their haunts were the mountains of Lebanon (Song 4:8), Bashan (Deut. 33:22), the thickets of the Jordan (Jer. 49:19), and the desert regions of the Negev (Isa. 30:6). From there they invaded populated areas, penetrating deeply and regularly, in particular at times of drought when wild animals, their usual prey, had decreased in number.
Lions also multiplied when the country lay destroyed and derelict. In the neighborhood of Ereẓ Israel long- and short-maned lions were to be found. There are evidences that there were lions in the country in mishnaic and talmudic and even in crusader times (in the Negev). The last lions in the Middle East were destroyed in the 19th century.
The lion figures prominently in folklore as a result of two main references to it in the Bible: the appellation of Judah as "a lion's whelp" (Gen. 49:9; Dan is also so called in Deut. 33:22, but the lion is always associated with Judah) and as one of the figures in the divine chariot of Ezekiel (Ezek. 1:10). A secondary motif is connected with the statement of Judah b. Tema (Avot 5:20) "Be as strong as a leopard, light as an eagle, fleet as a hart, and brave as a lion to perform the will of thy Father who is in heaven."
Based on the image of the Lion of Judah in Genesis, the name Aryeh ("lion") became a common Jewish personal name mostly in all combinations with Judah and with Leib (Loeb), its German or Yiddish translation, thus giving the composite names Judah Aryeh, Judah Leib, and Aryeh Leib.
The Judah mentioned in the verse, however, is associated not only with the son of Jacob of that name, but with the tribe, and particularly with the House of David (cf. Rashi ad loc.), and as a result the Lion of Judah became one of the most common of Jewish symbols.
It is also one of the appellatives of the king of Ethiopia, who according to Ethiopian tradition is descended from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The rampant Lion of Judah is a favorite embellishment of the synagogue ark, the mantle covering the scroll of the Torah, etc.
The Lion of the Divine Chariot is one of the four figures of Ezekiel's merkavah (divine chariot) which consisted of a human being, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. Different opinions are expressed in the Talmud as to the permissibility of reproducing these figures, but the general consensus is that the only reproductions wholly forbidden are either the four together or the complete human form (see Art ).
On the other hand, almost complete freedom was accorded in the reproduction of the lion, possibly both because of its national association as described above and because of the figures of lions upon the laver in Solomon's Temple (I Kings 7:29) and especially in the steps leading to his throne and on its sides (ibid. 10:20).
Jacob b. Asher opens his Tur Oraḥ Ḥayyim with the above-quoted passage of Judah b. Tema, and the four animals mentioned in it have often been made the subject of paintings. The word lion is often employed figuratively in a laudatory sense, mostly referring to an outstanding scholar. Thus Joshua b. Hananiah refused to controvert the ruling of Eliezer b. Hyrcanus after the latter's death because "one does not answer a lion after its death" (Git. 83a).
Ḥiyya is called "the lion of the brotherhood" (Shab. 111a); a scholar, the son of a scholar, is called "a lion, son of a lion," while one of no such distinguished parentage is called "the lion the son of a jackal" (BM 84b); and Simeon b. Lakish expressed his admiration for the learning of Kahana, who had come to Ereẓ Israel from Babylon, in the words "a lion has come up from Babylon" (BK 117a).
In one instance, however, it is used in a pejorative sense. Proselytes to Judaism who convert for selfish personal motives are called, in contradistinction to gerei ẓedek, righteous proselytes, "the converts of lions" (e.g., Kid. 75b), the allusion being to the Samaritans who adopted the worship of YHWH only because of their fear of lions (II Kings 17:25–28).
From a messianic website of Jewish believers in Jesus/Yeshua as their Messiah:
https://www.jewishjewels.org/news-letters/name-messiah/
His Name is “Lion”
Lion (aryeh) is a traditional name for Messiah, derived from the blessing that Jacob gave to his son Judah: “Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bows down, he lies down as a lion; and as a lion, who shall rouse him?” (Gen.49:9).
Verse 10 continues with: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and to Him shall be the obedience of the people.”
Shiloh, in Jewish tradition, is also one of Messiah’s names, but the focus of Jacob’s blessing is on the Messiah as a Lion (in character attributes, not in essence). The word lion is mentioned three times in Genesis 49:9. Judah is first a cub or whelp (gur aryeh). Next he is a lion (aryeh), then a fully mature lion (lavi).
Tsvi Sadan comments in his book that this picture of a cub growing to maturity fits well with the Jewish understanding of the way in which Messiah will come: first as the “Son of Joseph,” then as the “Son of David.” The “Son of Joseph” (like Joseph, Jacob’s son who was sold into slavery) is premature or “killed.” Then the Messiah as “Son of David” will be as a fully-grown lion, and king over all. Messiah at first has authority like a lion’s cub, but in the end like a lion king.
One rabbinic commentator, Abravanel, says of the phrase, “From the prey, my son, you have gone up,” that Messiah removes Himself from all prey and cruelty, since his instruments are not ‘instruments of cruelty.’ Therefore, the Lion of Judah does not seek to devour Israel, but to protect them from other predators.
What about Yeshua? “For it is evident that our Lord arose from Judah…” (Heb. 7:14) “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.” (Micah 5:2)
Yeshua, born in Bethelem, of the tribe of Judah, came as a Lamb at His first coming (like the suffering Joseph), but is returning as a Lion at His next coming (which, according to Rabbi Kaduri is SOON!). Yeshua is returning as the REAL LION KING (not the Disney version!)
The definitive verse on Yeshua as Lion is Revelation 5:5: “But one of the elders said to me, ‘Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals.” Yeshua is the only One Worthy to open and read the scroll. He is the Messiah, HaMashiach, Ben David! Strong. Powerful. Authoritative. Majestic. King of kings and Lord of lords.
From the perspective of Traditional Judaism today:
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-lion-in-judaism
Called in the Talmud "the king of the beasts" (Ḥag. 13b), the lion has many Hebrew names:
אַרְיֵה (aryeh) or אֲרִי (ari), and לָבִיא (lavi) fem. לְבִיאָה (levi'ah), both of which are used for e lion in general,
כְּפִיר (kefir), usually a young lion,
לַיִשׁ (layish), mostly poetical, and according to some, "an old lion,
שַׁחַל (shaḥal), general name for the lion in poetry, though like שַׁחַץ (shaḥaẓ) perhaps the intention is any fierce animal
and, גּוּר (gur) almost always meaning "a lion's whelp (cub)."
Rashi comments that ari is the large lion, shaḥal the medium-sized one, and kefir the small lion, while the first six are cited in Sanhedrin 95a. Similarly, Kimchi breaks the different terms for lion into categories of size in his comment to Judges 14:5. More likely, though, the different terms with the exception of gur, "cub" (Nah. 2:13), are synonyms employed by the biblical poets. In fact, lavi (= Akkadian lābu), shaḥal, and layish (= Akkadian nēšu; l/n interchange) are attested only in poetry.
In the Bible's references to the lion, many of them are descriptive, metaphoric, and allegorical. To the lion were compared the tribes of Judah (Gen. 49:9) and Dan (Deut. 33:22); Balaam said of the Israelites: "Behold a people that riseth up as a lioness (lavi), and as a lion (ari) doth he lift himself up" (Num. 23:24); the mother of the kings of Judah was compared to a lioness and her sons to lion (gureha) cubs (Ezek. 19:2–3). David, of whom it was said that his "heart is as the heart of a lion" (II Sam. 17:10), declared in his lament over Saul and Jonathan that "they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions" (ibid. 1:23).
This combination of the lion, the king of the beasts, and the eagle , the king of the birds (the biblical reference is to the vulture ), is very common in later Jewish art, particularly on the Holy Ark, and occurs in Ezekiel's vision of the lion, the ox, the eagle, and the cherub (Ezek. 1:10; 10:14).
In the Temple there were carvings of "lions, oxen, and cherubim" (I Kings 7:29), while a lion with eagle's wings symbolized in the Book of Daniel (7:4) the kingdom of Babylonia. The lion is mentioned several times together with the bear as the most powerful beasts of prey (Lam. 3:10; Prov. 28:15; I Sam. 17:34; et al.).
When a lion attacks its prey there is no escape from it, being mentioned in many parables, as when Amos (3:12) declares that a shepherd can rescue out of its jaws no more than "two legs, or a piece of an ear." Nor is a lion in the least frightened even when shepherds gather to chase it away (Isa. 31:4). An encounter between a man and a lion is usually fatal to the former (I Kings 13:24; 20:36), lions having killed new settlers in the cities of Samaria (II Kings 17:25), and having claimed victims, according to Jeremiah (5:6), in the land of Judah.
Only in exceptional instances was a lion slain in such a clash, as when encountering a man of great personal courage such as Samson (Judg. 14:6), David (I Sam. 17:34), and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada (II Sam. 23:20). Among the Samaria ivories of the ninth century B.C.E. are two representations of lions (image in IDB 3, 137). From the eighth century is a seal inscribed, "property of Shema, servant of Jeroboam," with an engraving of a lion (Ahituv, 206).
From the Bible it is clear that lions did not permanently inhabit populated areas; their haunts were the mountains of Lebanon (Song 4:8), Bashan (Deut. 33:22), the thickets of the Jordan (Jer. 49:19), and the desert regions of the Negev (Isa. 30:6). From there they invaded populated areas, penetrating deeply and regularly, in particular at times of drought when wild animals, their usual prey, had decreased in number.
Lions also multiplied when the country lay destroyed and derelict. In the neighborhood of Ereẓ Israel long- and short-maned lions were to be found. There are evidences that there were lions in the country in mishnaic and talmudic and even in crusader times (in the Negev). The last lions in the Middle East were destroyed in the 19th century.
The lion figures prominently in folklore as a result of two main references to it in the Bible: the appellation of Judah as "a lion's whelp" (Gen. 49:9; Dan is also so called in Deut. 33:22, but the lion is always associated with Judah) and as one of the figures in the divine chariot of Ezekiel (Ezek. 1:10). A secondary motif is connected with the statement of Judah b. Tema (Avot 5:20) "Be as strong as a leopard, light as an eagle, fleet as a hart, and brave as a lion to perform the will of thy Father who is in heaven."
Based on the image of the Lion of Judah in Genesis, the name Aryeh ("lion") became a common Jewish personal name mostly in all combinations with Judah and with Leib (Loeb), its German or Yiddish translation, thus giving the composite names Judah Aryeh, Judah Leib, and Aryeh Leib.
The Judah mentioned in the verse, however, is associated not only with the son of Jacob of that name, but with the tribe, and particularly with the House of David (cf. Rashi ad loc.), and as a result the Lion of Judah became one of the most common of Jewish symbols.
It is also one of the appellatives of the king of Ethiopia, who according to Ethiopian tradition is descended from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The rampant Lion of Judah is a favorite embellishment of the synagogue ark, the mantle covering the scroll of the Torah, etc.
The Lion of the Divine Chariot is one of the four figures of Ezekiel's merkavah (divine chariot) which consisted of a human being, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. Different opinions are expressed in the Talmud as to the permissibility of reproducing these figures, but the general consensus is that the only reproductions wholly forbidden are either the four together or the complete human form (see Art ).
On the other hand, almost complete freedom was accorded in the reproduction of the lion, possibly both because of its national association as described above and because of the figures of lions upon the laver in Solomon's Temple (I Kings 7:29) and especially in the steps leading to his throne and on its sides (ibid. 10:20).
Jacob b. Asher opens his Tur Oraḥ Ḥayyim with the above-quoted passage of Judah b. Tema, and the four animals mentioned in it have often been made the subject of paintings. The word lion is often employed figuratively in a laudatory sense, mostly referring to an outstanding scholar. Thus Joshua b. Hananiah refused to controvert the ruling of Eliezer b. Hyrcanus after the latter's death because "one does not answer a lion after its death" (Git. 83a).
Ḥiyya is called "the lion of the brotherhood" (Shab. 111a); a scholar, the son of a scholar, is called "a lion, son of a lion," while one of no such distinguished parentage is called "the lion the son of a jackal" (BM 84b); and Simeon b. Lakish expressed his admiration for the learning of Kahana, who had come to Ereẓ Israel from Babylon, in the words "a lion has come up from Babylon" (BK 117a).
In one instance, however, it is used in a pejorative sense. Proselytes to Judaism who convert for selfish personal motives are called, in contradistinction to gerei ẓedek, righteous proselytes, "the converts of lions" (e.g., Kid. 75b), the allusion being to the Samaritans who adopted the worship of YHWH only because of their fear of lions (II Kings 17:25–28).
bahmer wrote:
We often hear Jesus referred to as the Lamb of God... (show quote)
May 13, 2020 09:21:59 #
Zemirah wrote:
Additional information, bahmer, to compliment what... (show quote)
Very interesting there Zemirah I never knew all that about the jewish people and the references to lions and also the reference to our savior as a lion in all of those cases. Thanks for the elaboration.👍👍👍👍👍
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