AS A ROARING LION, AND A RANGING BEAR

A lion that roars, either for want of food or when it is over its prey, and a roving bear, departing from its usual haunts in search of food, are animals to be feared and avoided and, as employed in these verses, are just a few of several instances in scripture when rulers are described under the simile of wild and ferocious beasts, cf. Jer. 50. 17; 2 Tim. 4. 17.

A despicable ruler, 28. 15: The ‘roaring lion’ and ‘ranging bear’ provide a graphic illustration of the fierce character and savage conduct of a tyrannical ruler in his treatment of the poor, people with no resources to offer any resistance and so an easy and vulnerable prey for unscrupulous men. There have been men of that spirit in the past, Eccles. 4. 1; Ezek. 22. 25. However, the most exact likeness to these two beasts awaits a ruler of a future day, the last gentile despot, the beast John saw rise up out of the sea whose ‘feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion’, Rev. 13. 1, 2. Tyrants, like roaring lions, oppress the poor, but the Lord Jesus, ‘the Lion of the tribe of Judah’, will deliver the poor, Ps. 72. 2, 4, 12, 13. We are exhorted to ‘remember the poor’, Gal. 2. 10. In our attitude towards them do we display features of a roaring lion or the character of the Lion of Judah? cf. Rehoboam, 2 Chron. 10. 6-15.

A dangerous rage, 19. 12: The roar of a lion produces fear in the hearts of those who hear it, Amos 3. 8. The wrath of a king should have a similar effect, for ‘he is the minister of God, to exe­cute wrath upon him that doeth evil’, Rom. 13. 4. Contrast his ‘wrath’ with his ‘favour’ which is as dew upon the grass. The contrast is well illustrated in a comparison of Pharaoh’s treat­ment of the butler and the baker, Gen. 40. 21, 22.

A due reverence, 20. 2: ‘Rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power?’ Rom. 13. 3. The fear the king should inspire in men is like the roaring of a lion threatening danger and just as it is folly to rouse a lion, so it is folly to stir up and provoke a king. In either case, the person endangers his own life as Adonijah and Shimei found, 1 Kings 2. 23, 42-46. The way to avoid the king’s wrath is to be subject to him, Rom. 13. 5; Ps. 2. 6, 12.