Bible Strands
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?
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet Nahum addresses Nineveh at the moment of its sudden collapse, posing a rhetorical question about the city's former military dominance. The text marks the abrupt end of an era when the ruling class operated with absolute impunity.
The words — The Hebrew word מְע֣וֹן (me'ôn) literally denotes a "dwelling place" or "lair," while כְּפִרִ֑ים (kəpîrîm) specifies "young lions." These terms anchor the metaphor in the concrete geography of a predator's hunting territory.
The thread — This predatory imagery aligns with Isaiah 5:29 and Jeremiah 2:15, where lion sounds and actions symbolize oppressive force and impending judgment. Genesis 49:9 similarly employs the lion metaphor to describe royal authority and conquest.
Why it lands — The verse demands acknowledgment that temporary dominance provides no lasting security when judgment arrives. It requires the reader to confront the fragility of unchecked power and the certainty of its reversal.
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
Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the feedingplace of the young lions, where the lion, even the old lion, walked, and the lion’s whelp, and none made them afraid?
Cross-references
- 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 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.
- Genesis 49:9 Judah is a young lion—my son, you return from the prey. Like a lion he crouches and lies down; like a lioness, who dares to rouse him?
- Job 4:10 The lion may roar, and the fierce lion may growl, yet the teeth of the young lions are broken.
- Isaiah 31:4 For this is what the LORD has said to me: “Like a lion roaring or a young lion over its prey—and though a band of shepherds is called out against it, it is not terrified by their shouting or subdued by their clamor—so the LORD of Hosts will come down to do battle on Mount Zion and its heights.
- 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.”
- Jeremiah 50:44 Behold, one will come up like a lion from the thickets of the Jordan to the watered pasture. For in an instant I will chase Babylon from her land. Who is the chosen one I will appoint for this? For who is like Me, and who can challenge Me? What shepherd can stand against Me?”
- Ezekiel 19:2 and say: ‘What was your mother? A lioness among the lions! She lay down among the young lions; she reared her cubs.
- Nahum 3:1 Woe to the city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, never without prey.