Retreat from Nothing

a lion, mighty among beasts,
who retreats before nothing… — Proverbs 30:30

We continue with devotional thoughts from the Book of Proverbs every Friday. One of the 11 books in the Torah known as the Ketuvim, Hebrew for “writings,” Proverbs is part of the “wisdom tradition,” which also includes Job and Ecclesiastes.

We live in turbulent times. We all feel it. It seems that uncertainty and instability has become the norm. More than ever, we need to remember that God is on the throne. He was on the throne before our current problems arose, and He’ll be there when they fade into history.

The Lion Retreats from Nothing

A great Hasidic rabbi, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, used to say, “The whole world is a narrow bridge. But the main thing is to have no fear at all.” Rabbi Nachman might as well have been describing the lion in Proverbs: “mighty among beasts, who retreats before nothing.”

Throughout the Bible, the lion is both a symbol of God (Amos 3:8) and of the kingdom of David (Genesis 49:9). That’s why today the lion is also the symbol of the city of Jerusalem, the seat of David’s kingdom and the site of God’s Holy Temple.

One of the notable characteristics of the lion that makes it different from most other large cats is that the lion does not live a solitary life. It stays with its pride, its family, to protect it from attack.

So even as the people of Israel continues to be threatened by anti-Semitism, we put our trust in the lion, our Father in heaven who protects us. And like the lion, we will never retreat in fear.

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