Psalms 7:2
or they will shred my soul like a lion and tear me to pieces with no one to rescue me.
BSB
ASV
Lest they tear my soul like a lion, Rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver.
KJV
Lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver.
'Lest at any time he seize my soul like a lion.' This fits Saul, it does not fit Absalom. For how could he call Absalom a lion, of whom he says, 'Spare my boy Absalom'? If there he calls him a boy, and as it were a little child and one that knows nothing, how here does he proclaim him a lion? This, so far, according to the history. And there are many things that might be said, and the whole psalm can be interpreted historically in the person of Saul.
Lest he tear my soul like a lion - These words seem to answer well to Saul. As the lion is king in the forest; so was Saul king over the land. As the lion, in his fierceness, seizes at once, and tears his prey in pieces; so David expected to be seized and suddenly destroyed by Saul. He had already, in his rage, thrown his javelin at him, intending to have pierced him to the wall with it.
"Lest he tear my soul." Here is the plea of fear co-working with the plea of faith. There was one among David's foes mightier that the rest, who had both dignity, strength, and ferocity, and was, therefore, "like a lion." From this foe he urgently seeks deliverance. Perhaps this was Saul, his royal enemy; but in our own case there is one who goes about like a lion, seeking whom he may devour, concerning whom we should ever cry, "Deliver us from the Evil One."
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
1 Peter 5:8Be sober-minded and alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
leads to
Put on the full armor of God, so that you can make your stand against the devil’s schemes.
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
and do not give the devil a foothold.
“Where have you come from?” said the LORD to Satan. “From roaming through the earth,” he replied, “and walking back and forth in it.”
Therefore prepare your minds for action. Be sober-minded. Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Through
2 Timothy 4:17But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message would be fully proclaimed, and all the Gentiles would hear it. So I was delivered from the mouth of…
leads to
Be sober-minded and alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
Now I want you to know, brothers, that my circumstances have actually served to advance the gospel.
Save me from the mouth of the lion; at the horns of the wild oxen You have answered me!