2:30 “It did no good for me to punish your people.
They did not respond to such correction.
You slaughtered your prophets
like a voracious lion.” 1
12:8 The people I call my own 2 have turned on me
like a lion 3 in the forest.
They have roared defiantly 4 at me.
So I will treat them as though I hate them. 5
1 tn Heb “Your sword devoured your prophets like a destroying lion.” However, the reference to the sword in this and many similar idioms is merely idiomatic for death by violent means.
2 tn See the note on the previous verse.
3 tn Heb “have become to me like a lion.”
4 tn Heb “have given against me with her voice.”
5 tn Or “so I will reject her.” The word “hate” is sometimes used in a figurative way to refer to being neglected, i.e., treated as though unloved. In these contexts it does not have the same emotive connotations that a typical modern reader would associate with hate. See Gen 29:31, 33 and E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 556.