Bible Strands
Proverbs 28:15
Like a roaring lion or a charging bear is a wicked ruler over a helpless people.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The book of Proverbs addresses a general audience with instructional wisdom, placing this warning between adjacent verses that contrast the blessed life of reverence with the trouble of a hardened heart. The words — נֹהֵם (No.hem) = roaring and שׁוֹקֵק (sho.Kek) = rushing describe the violent, unstoppable advance of the ruler’s oppression. The thread — The roaring lion motif appears in 1 Peter 5:8 as a warning for spiritual vigilance, while Exodus 1:22 and Matthew 2:16 record royal commands to kill infants without using predatory animal imagery. Why it lands — The text states that a wicked ruler endangers a vulnerable population like a wild beast, demanding readers identify the concrete danger of tyrannical authority and choose reverence over complicity.
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
As a roaring lion, and a ranging bear; so is a wicked ruler over the poor people.
Cross-references
- 1 Peter 5:8 Be sober-minded and alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
- Matthew 2:16 When Herod saw that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was filled with rage. Sending orders, he put to death all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, according to the time he had learned from the Magi.
- Exodus 1:22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people: “Every son born to the Hebrews you must throw into the Nile, but every daughter you may allow to live.”
- Proverbs 19:12 A king’s rage is like the roar of a lion, but his favor is like dew on the grass.
- Proverbs 20:2 The terror of a king is like the roar of a lion; whoever provokes him forfeits his own life.
- Exodus 1:14 and made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar, and with all kinds of work in the fields. Every service they imposed was harsh.
- 1 Samuel 22:17 Then the king ordered the guards at his side, “Turn and kill the priests of the LORD, because they too sided with David. For they knew he was fleeing, but they did not tell me.” But the king’s servants would not lift a hand to strike the priests of the LORD.
- 2 Kings 21:16 Moreover, Manasseh shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end, in addition to the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, doing evil in the sight of the LORD.
- 2 Kings 2:24 Then he turned around, looked at them, and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Suddenly two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.
- 2 Kings 15:16 At that time Menahem, starting from Tirzah, attacked Tiphsah and everyone in its vicinity, because they would not open their gates. So he attacked Tiphsah and ripped open all the pregnant women.