a lion (from his destructive blows) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
perisheth
אֹבֵ֣ד'o.Ved
H6
properly · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
lack
מִבְּלִיmi.be.li-
H1097
properly · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
prey
טָ֑רֶףTa.ref
H2964
something torn · noun, common masculine singular absolute
lion’s
לָ֝בִ֗יאla.Vi'
H3833
to roar · noun, common masculine singular absolute
whelps
וּבְנֵ֥יu.ve.Nei
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · conjunction + noun, common masculine plural construct
abroad
יִתְפָּרָֽדוּyit.pa.Ra.du
H6504
to break through · verb, hithpael imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 34:10 The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing.
Genesis 49:9 Judah is a lion’s whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse…
Numbers 23:24 Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion: he shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, and d…
Numbers 24:9 He couched, he lay down as a lion, and as a great lion: who shall stir him up? Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curse…
Job 1:19 And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they…
Job 8:3-4 Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice?
Job 27:14-15 If his children be multiplied, it is for the sword: and his offspring shall not be satisfied with bread.
Job 38:39 Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion? or fill the appetite of the young lions,
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 4:7-11
Eliphaz here advances another argument to prove Job a hypocrite, and will have not only his impatience under his afflictions to be evidence against him but even his afflictions themselves, being so very great and extraordinary, and there being no prospect at all of his deliverance out of them. To strengthen his argument he here lays down these two principles, which seem plausible enough: -
I. That good men were never thus ruined. For the proof of this he appeals to Job's own observation (Job 4:7): "Remember, I pray thee; recollect all that thou hast seen, heard, or read, and give me an instance of any one that was innocent and righteous, and yet perished as thou dost, and was cut off as tho…
lion--that is, wicked men, upon whom Eliphaz wished to show that calamities come in spite of their various resources, just as destruction comes on the lion in spite of his strength (Psa 58:6; Ti2 4:17). Five different Hebrew terms here occur for "lion." The raging of the lion (the tearer), and the roaring of the bellowing lion and the teeth of the young lions, not whelps, but grown up enough to hunt for prey. The strong lion, the whelps of the lioness (not the stout lion, as in English Version) [BARNES and UMBREIT]. The various phases of wickedness are expressed by this variety of terms: obliquely, Job, his wife, and children, may be hinted at by the lion, lioness, and whelps. The one verb,…
The old lion perisheth for lack of prey,.... Or rather "the stout" and "strong lion" (e), that is most able to take the prey, and most skilful at it, yet such shall perish for want of it; not so much for want of finding it, or of power to seize it, as of keeping it when got, it being taken away from him; signifying, that God oftentimes in his providence takes away from cruel oppressors what they have got by oppression, and so they are brought into starving and famishing circumstances. The Septuagint render the word by "myrmecoleon", or the "ant lion", which Isidore (f) thus describes;"it is a little animal, very troublesome to ants, which hides itself in the dust, and kills the ants as they…
The Church Fathers
"Myrmicoleon perished because it has no prey; Because in the last day the devil will not be able to seduce them to devour them, for the good will be separated from the wicked. Eliphaz is mistaken in applying to Job the prophetic words which must be understood as the devil. This one must be so called (ant-lion), or because the features of these two beasts are in him this animal steals and secretly removes the wheat, and prevents it from producing, destroying its germ; either because the demon is the master of the miser and those who hoard; and lastly, because it torments the righteous, who, like ants, gather in summer the provisions of winter; but he can not devour them, for then the good will be separated from the wicked. "And the lion's cubs have been scattered. The princes who came from the alliance of this city with the devil had formed a league that had been dispelled, or else they destroyed one another, according to this saying: "One nation will rise against another nation ( 2). "
The tiger perisheth for lack of prey, and the stout lions' whelps are scattered abroad. For whom does he denote by the name of 'tiger' but blessed Job, marked with the stamp of changeableness or covered with the spots of dissimulation? For every dissembler, in that he desires to appear righteous, can never shew himself pure in all things; for while he assumes some virtues in hypocrisy, and secretly gives way to vicious habits, some concealed vices speedily break out upon the surface, and exhibit the hide of overlaid hypocrisy, like a coat for sight, varied with their admixture, so that it is very often a marvel how one, who is seen to be master of such great virtues, should be at the same time stained with such damnable deeds. But truly every hypocrite is a tiger, in that while he derives a pure colour from pretence, it is striped with the intermediate blackness of vicious habits. For it often happens that while he is extolled for pureness of chastity, he renders himself foul by the stain of avarice. Often while he makes a fair shew by the good quality of bountifulness, he is stained with spots of lust. Often while he is clad in the bright array of bountifulness and chastity, he is blackened by ferociousness in cruelty, as if from a zealous sense of justice. Often he is arrayed in bounty, chastity, pitifulness, in a fair outside, but is marked with the interspersed darkness of pride. And thus it comes to pass, that whereas by the intermixture of vicious habits, the hypocrite does not present an unstained appearance in himself, the tiger, as it were, cannot be of one colour. And this same 'tiger' seizes the prey, in that he usurps to himself the glory of human applause. For he, that is lifted up by usurped praise, is as it were glutted with the prey. And it is well that the applause that hypocrites have is called 'prey.' For it is nought else than a prey, when the things of another are taken away by violence. Now every hypocrite, in that by counterfeiting the life of righteousness he seizes for himself the praise that belongs to the righteous, does in truth carry off what is another's. Thus Eliphaz, who knew that blessed Job had walked in ways worthy to be praised in the period of his wellbeing, concluded from the stroke that came after that he had maintained these in hypocrisy, saying, The tiger perisheth for lack of prey. As if he had said plainly, 'The…
Dictionary and topics
Lions — The most powerful of all carnivorous animals. Although not now found in Palestine, they must have been in ancient times very numerous there. They had their lairs in the forests (Jer. 5:6; 12:8; Amos…
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
6 Is not thy piety thy confidence,
Thy Hope? And the uprightness of thy ways?
7 Think now: who ever perished, being innocent?!
And where have the righteous been cut off?!
8 As often as I saw, those who ploughed evil
And sowed sorrow, - they reaped the same.
9 By the breath of Eloah they perished,
By the breath of His anger they vanished away.
10 The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the shachal,
And the teeth of the young lions, are rooted out.
11 The lion wanders about for want of prey,
And the lioness' whelps are scattered.
In Job 4:6 all recent expositors take the last waw as waw apodosis: And thy hope, is not even this the integrity of thy way? According to our punctuation, there is…
They vanish in a blast of his anger: Eliphaz understood the wind of 1:19 as divine judgment (cp. Isa 40:7; Hos 13:15).
Rashi on Job 4:11
A lion perishes without prey The princes perished like a lion who perishes without food; so did their strength to commit violence dissipate. The word אֹבֵד is not an expression of a man who loses something, but [of a man who has] himself become lost, like (Ps. 119.176), “I have gone astray like a lost (אבד) sheep.” and like (ibid. 31:13), “I was like a lost (אבד) vessel.”
and the young of the lion will scatter He is speaking of the Generation of the Dispersion, who were scattered from there [Babel] over the face of the entire earth.
ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION. The tiger perisheth for lack of prey, and the lions' whelps are scattered abroad. By the title of a 'tiger' he again represents him, whom he formerly designated by the name of a 'lion.' For Satan both for his cruelty is called 'a lion,' and for the variousness of his manifold cunning he is not unsuitably designated 'a tiger.' For one while he presents himself to man's senses lost as he is, one while he exhibits himself as an Angel of light, Now by caressing he works upon the minds of the foolish sort, now by striking terror he forces them to commit sin. At one time he labours to win men to evil ways without disguise, at another time he cloaks himself in his promptings under the garb of virtue. This beast, then, which is so variously spotted, is rightly called 'a tiger,' being with the LXX called an 'Ant-lion,' as we have said above. Which same creature, as we have before shewn, hiding itself in the dust kills the ants carrying their corn, in that the Apostate Angel, being cast out of heaven upon the earth, in the very pathway of their practice besets the minds of the righteous, providing for themselves the provender of good works, and whilst he overcomes them by his snares, he as it were kills by surprise the ants carrying their grains. And he is rightly called 'Ant-lion,' i.e. 'a lion and ant.' For as we have said, to the ants he is 'a lion,' but to the birds of the air, 'an ant,' in that our old enemy, as he is strong to encounter those that yield to him, is weak against such as resist him. For if consent be yielded to his persuasions, like a lion he can never be sustained, but if resistance be offered, like an ant he is ground in the dust. Therefore to some he is 'a lion,' to others 'an ant,' in that carnal minds sustain his cruel assaults with difficulty, but spiritual minds trample upon his weakness with virtue's foot. Heretics then, because they are full of pride by pretension to sanctity, say as it were in exultation, The Ant-lion, or probably, the tiger perisheth for lack of prey. As though the words were plainly expressed, 'The old foe has no prey in us, in that, as far as regards our purposes, he already lies defeated.' Now it is for this reason that he is again mentioned under the title of 'an Ant lion,' or of 'a tiger,' who had been already set forth by the 'roaring of the lion broken,' because whatever is said in…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).