Lest they tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver.
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
2. "O Lord my God, in Thee have I hoped: save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me" (ver. 1). As one to whom, already perfected, all the war and enmity of vice being overcome, there remaineth no enemy but the envious devil, he says, "Save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me (ver. 2): lest at any time he tear my soul as a lion." The Apostle says, "Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." Therefore when the Psalmist said in the plural number, "Save me from all them that persecute me:" he afterwards introduced the singular, saying, "lest at any time he tear my soul as a lion." For he does not say, lest at any time they tear: he knew what enemy and violent adversary of the perfect soul remained. "Whilst there be none to redeem, nor to save:" that is, lest he tear me, whilst Thou redeemest not, nor savest. For, if God redeem not, nor save, he tears.
Lion. In a spiritual sense this is the devil, 1 Peter v. 8. (St. Augustine)
"Let him only see the sign of the cross, or the lamp continually burning before the altar, he will flee away. Should we wonder at this? the garments alone of Paul drove him from possessed person. "(St. Chrysostom)
Will modern sectaries still ridicule these things?
While. Hebrew, "tearing, and not snatching away. "But there is a similar construction, (Lamentations v. 8.) which shows that we ought to follow the Vulgate. (Berthier)
Absalom, or any other enemy, may be this lion. (Worthington)
They threatened David with utter ruin, which he could never have escaped, without God's visible protection.
