2nd Kings Chapter 17 verse 25 Holy Bible
And so it was, at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not Jehovah: therefore Jehovah sent lions among them, which killed some of them.
read chapter 17 in ASV
Now when first they were living there they did not give worship to the Lord. So the Lord sent lions among them, causing the death of some of them.
read chapter 17 in BBE
And so it was, at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not Jehovah; and Jehovah sent lions among them, which killed [some] of them.
read chapter 17 in DARBY
And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not the LORD: therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which slew some of them.
read chapter 17 in KJV
And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not the LORD: therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which slew some of them.
read chapter 17 in WBT
So it was, at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they didn't fear Yahweh: therefore Yahweh sent lions among them, which killed some of them.
read chapter 17 in WEB
and it cometh to pass, at the commencement of their dwelling there, they have not feared Jehovah, and Jehovah doth send among them the lions, and they are destroying among them.
read chapter 17 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 25. - And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not the Lord. They were ignorant, i.e., of Jehovah, and paid him no religious regard. They brought with them their own forms of heathenism (see vers. 30, 31). Therefore the Lord sent lions among them. Lions are not now found in Palestine, nor indeed in any part of Syria, though they are numerous in Mesopotamia; but anciently they appear to have been tolerably common in all parts of the Holy Land (see the comment on 1 Kings 13:24). We may gather from what is said here that, though new settlers had been brought into the country by the Assyrians, yet still there had been a considerable decrease in the population, which had been favorable to the lions multiplying. The new settlers, it is to be noted, were placed in the towns (ver. 24); and it is probable that many of the country districts lay waste and desolate. Still, the writer views the great increase in the number of the lions as a Divine judgment, which it may have been, though based upon a natural circumstance. Which slew some of them. (For the great boldness of the Palestinian lion, see 1 Kings 13:24; 1 Kings 20:36; Proverbs 22:13; Isaiah 31:4; Isaiah 38:13; Jeremiah 5:6, etc.)
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(25) The Lord sent (the) lions.--In the interval between the Assyrian depopulation and the re-peopling of the land, the lions indigenous to the country had multiplied naturally enough. Their ravages were understood by the colonists as a token of the wrath of the local deity on account of their neglect of his worship. The sacred writer endorses this interpretation of the incident, probably remembering Leviticus 26:22. (Comp. Exodus 23:29; Ezekiel 14:15.)Which slew.--The form of the verb implies a state of things which lasted some time. Literally, and they were killing among them.
