Bible Strands
Jeremiah 51:38
They will roar together like young lions; they will growl like lion cubs.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The LORD speaks through Jeremiah to announce the coming desolation of Babylon, positioned between a prophecy of its ruin into a jackal haunt (Jeremiah 51:37) and a declaration that divine intervention will leave its people permanently asleep (Jeremiah 51:39).
The words — The Hebrew יִשְׁאָ֑גוּ (yish.'A.gu) translates literally as "they roar," paired with נָעֲר֖וּ (na.'a.Ru) meaning "they growl," both describing the coordinated vocalization of the young lions (כְּפִרִ֣ים, ke.fi.Rim) and cubs of lions (גוֹרֵ֥י, go.Rei) mentioned in the verse.
The thread — The text's lion imagery for coordinated attack appears in Jeremiah 2:15, where young lions roar and lay waste land, and in Job 4:10, which notes that lions may roar and growl before their teeth are broken.
Why it lands — The passage declares that Babylon's forces will act in unified violence, fulfilling the surrounding context of inevitable ruin and divine retribution. It requires the reader to recognize the certainty of the stated judgment without softening the described outcome.
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
They shall roar together like lions: they shall yell as lions’ whelps.
Cross-references
- 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.
- Judges 16:20 Then she called out, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” When Samson awoke from his sleep, he thought, “I will escape as I did before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the LORD had departed from him.
- Job 4:10 The lion may roar, and the fierce lion may growl, yet the teeth of the young lions are broken.
- Psalms 34:10 Young lions go lacking and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.
- Psalms 58:6 O God, shatter their teeth in their mouths; O LORD, tear out the fangs of the lions.
- Isaiah 35:9 No lion will be there, and no vicious beast will go up on it. Such will not be found there, but the redeemed will walk upon it.
- Nahum 2:11 Where is the lions’ lair or the feeding ground of the young lions, where the lion and lioness prowled with their cubs, with nothing to frighten them away?
- Zechariah 11:3 Listen to the wailing of the shepherds, for their glory is in ruins. Listen to the roaring of the young lions, for the thickets of the Jordan are destroyed.