SEV Biblia, Chapter 2:12
El león arrebataba en abundancia para sus cachorros, y ahogaba para sus leonas, y henchía de presa sus cavernas, y de robo sus moradas.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Nahum 2:12
Verse 12. The lion did tear] This verse gives us a striking picture of the manner in which the Assyrian conquests and depredations were carried on. How many people were spoiled to enrich his whelps-his sons, princes, and nobles! How many women were stripped and slain, whose spoils went to decorate his lionesses-his queen, concubines, and mistresses. And they had even more than they could assume; their holes and dens-treasure-houses, palaces, and wardrobes-were filled with ravin, the riches which they got by the plunder of towns, families, and individuals.
This is a very fine allegory, and admirably well supported.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 12. The lion did tear in pieces enough for his whelps , etc.] The metaphor is still continued; and the kings of Assyria are compared to lions that hunt for their prey, and, having found it, tear it in pieces, and carry home a sufficiency for their whelps. It is a notion that is advanced by some writers, as Herodotus f63 , that the lioness, the strongest and boldest creature, brings forth but once in its life, and then but one; which Gellius f64 confutes by the testimonies of Homer and Aristotle; and it appears from the prophet here to be a false one, as well as from ( Ezekiel 19:2,3) thus the Assyrians made war on other nations, and pillaged and plundered them, to enlarge their dominions, provide for their posterity, and enrich their children: and strangled for his lionesses ; that is, strangled other beasts, as the lion first does, when it seizes a creature, and then tears it in pieces, and brings it to the she lion in the den with its whelps. These “lionesses” design the wives
