Bible Strands
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.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Jeremiah addresses Judah as a herald of an incoming northern invasion. The oracle pronounces immediate national collapse before the people can secure refuge.
The words — The text employs אַרְיֵה (aryeh, "lion") and מַשְׁחִית (mashchit, "destroyer") to characterize the invading force. These terms frame the coming judgment as a systematic predatory assault.
The thread — The description of ruined cities and desolate land appears in Isaiah 1:7, Isaiah 6:11, and Jeremiah 2:15. The prophetic tradition consistently links covenant failure to physical devastation.
Why it lands — The verse demands acknowledgment that military defeat is the direct outcome of divine judgment. It requires readers to confront unmitigated consequences without delaying response.
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 lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way; he is gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate; and thy cities shall be laid waste, without an inhabitant.
Cross-references
- 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 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,
- 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.
- Jeremiah 5:6 Therefore a lion from the forest will strike them down, a wolf from the desert will ravage them. A leopard will lie in wait near their cities, and everyone who ventures out will be torn to pieces. For their rebellious acts are many, and their unfaithful deeds are numerous.
- Ezekiel 26:7 For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Behold, I will bring against Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses and chariots, with cavalry and a great company of troops.
- Jeremiah 25:9 behold, I will summon all the families of the north, declares the LORD, and I will send for My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, whom I will bring against this land, against its residents, and against all the surrounding nations. So I will devote them to destruction and make them an object of horror and contempt, an everlasting desolation.
- 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.”
- Daniel 7:4 The first beast was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man and given the mind of a man.
- 2 Kings 24:1 During Jehoiakim’s reign, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded. So Jehoiakim became his vassal for three years, until he turned and rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar.
- Isaiah 5:9 I heard the LORD of Hosts declare: “Surely many houses will become desolate, great mansions left unoccupied.