My heritage is unto me as a lion in the forest; it cries out against me: therefore have I hated it.
All Commentaries on Jeremiah 12:8 Go To Jeremiah 12
Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius
AD 320
As the prophet Jeremiah testifies when he speaks such things … “I have forsaken my house, I have given up my heritage into the hand of its enemies. My heritage has become to me as a lion in the forest. It has cried out against me, therefore have I hated it.” Since the inheritance is his heavenly kingdom, it is evident that he does not say that he hates the inheritance itself, but the heirs, who have been ungrateful toward him and impious. “My heritage,” he says, “has become to me as a lion,” that is, I have become prey and something to devour to my heirs, who have slaughtered me as a sheep. “It cried out against me,” that is, they have pronounced against me the sentence of death and the cross. For that which he said … that he would make a new testament to the house of Judah, shows that the old testament that was given by Moses was not perfect, but that that which was to be given by Christ would be complete. But it is plain that the house of Judah does not signify the Jews, whom he casts off, but us, who have been called by him out of the Gentiles and have by adoption, succeeded to their place, and are called children.
