And she brought up one of her young whelps …: Beginning with the conjunction And, this verse continues the picture of the natural activity of a pride of lions. One of the cubs grows to maturity and learns what it needs to survive as an adult lion. He became a young lion means the lion cub matured into an adult. Parole de Vie says “he became a young powerful lion.” New Century Version renders the first two lines of this verse as “When she brought up one of her cubs, he became a strong lion.”

And he learned to catch prey means the young lion learned how to hunt and kill other animals for food. This line may be rendered “He learned how to hunt and catch his prey [or, the animals he ate].”

This lion became so strong and fierce that he devoured men, that is, he attacked and killed human beings. There are many references to lions killing people in Biblical times (see, for example, 1 Kgs 13.24), and people were extremely afraid of lions. This line is a metaphor of the way a young man in the royal family of David controlled other people as king. He had great power over them and they became afraid of him. Because the song is a parable, there is no need to try to apply the details of this verse to the reign of Jehoahaz.

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .