Bible Strands
Jeremiah 2:15
The young lions have roared at him; they have sounded their voices. They have laid waste his land; his cities lie in ruins, without inhabitant.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Jeremiah addresses Judah and Jerusalem regarding their covenant abandonment and the ensuing national collapse. The prophet delivers this warning during a period of impending military invasion and political instability.
The words — The text emphasizes כְפִרִים (khefiRim, "young lions") and לְשַמָּה (leShammah, "into a waste"). These terms specify that the invading forces systematically strip the territory of its population and leave it completely desolate.
The thread — The motif of predatory nations desolating the land recurs in Jeremiah 4:7 and Jeremiah 50:17, alongside Isaiah 1:7. Each passage maps the same sequence of foreign aggression preceding urban and agricultural ruin.
Why it lands — The verse requires the reader to acknowledge that spiritual apostasy produces concrete historical devastation. It demands acceptance that covenant violation triggers irreversible geopolitical consequences.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
The young lions roared upon him, and yelled, and they made his land waste: his cities are burned without inhabitant.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 4:7 A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations has set out. He has left his lair to lay waste your land. Your cities will be reduced to ruins and lie uninhabited.
- Jeremiah 50:17 Israel is a scattered flock, chased away by lions. The first to devour him was the king of Assyria; the last to crush his bones was Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.”
- Isaiah 1:7 Your land is desolate; your cities are burned with fire. Foreigners devour your fields before you—a desolation demolished by strangers.
- Isaiah 5:29 Their roaring is like that of a lion; they roar like young lions. They growl and seize their prey; they carry it away, and no one can rescue it.
- Jeremiah 9:11 “And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”
- Judges 14:5 Then Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother and came to the vineyards of Timnah. Suddenly a young lion came roaring at him,
- Job 4:10 The lion may roar, and the fierce lion may growl, yet the teeth of the young lions are broken.
- Psalms 57:4 My soul is among the lions; I lie down with ravenous beasts—with men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.
- Isaiah 5:9 I heard the LORD of Hosts declare: “Surely many houses will become desolate, great mansions left unoccupied.
- Isaiah 6:11 Then I asked: “How long, O Lord?” And He replied: “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left unoccupied and the land is desolate and ravaged,