And I looked, and behold, a creature like a lion was aroused out of the forest, roaring: Compare Dan 7.3-4. The connector And is better rendered “So.” For I looked, and behold, see the comments on 2Esdras 11.2. Ezra did not see an actual lion, but an animal that looked like a lion. Aroused out of the forest means something had aroused this animal to come from the forest. The first half of this verse may be translated “So I looked, and I saw something [or, an animal] that looked like a lion. Something had aroused [or, provoked] it, and it was coming out of a forest [or, the bush], roaring.”

And I heard how he uttered a man’s voice to the eagle, and spoke, saying: When the eagle spoke in verses 8-9, it did not speak in a human voice. Here the author makes a point of the fact that the lion spoke in a human voice, which serves to put the eagle and the lion in two different categories, identifying the lion with humanity. In fact, the lion represents the Messiah, as 2 Esd 12.31-34 makes explicit. From 2 Esd 6.39 we may conclude that the author identifies humanity with the ordered creation, as opposed to chaos. A man’s voice here probably refers to “a human voice,” not to “human language” (Good News Bible). The verbs uttered, spoke, and saying are repetitious.

Here is an alternative model for this verse:

• So I looked, and I saw an animal like a lion. Something had woken it, and it was coming out of a forest, roaring. It spoke to the eagle with a human voice, and said….

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 1-2 Esdras. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2019. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.