lion: a rare, elevated poetic word for the lion as a picture of power and menace
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
This is one of several Hebrew words for "lion," and one of the rarest. It never appears in ordinary storytelling, where the everyday אַרְיֵה does the work; it surfaces only in high poetry, three times in all (Job, Proverbs, Isaiah). Reaching for it is a deliberate reach for a grander, more sonorous term.
In each of its three appearances the word trades on the lion as a symbol of raw strength and danger:
In Job it is the fierce beast whose power is nonetheless broken, left to starve for lack of prey.
In Proverbs it heads a short list of things "stately in stride," the mightiest of the animals, which turns back from nothing.
In Isaiah it haunts the deadly desert road to Egypt, alongside another poetic lion word.
Hebrew poets could choose from a whole shelf of lion words: the ordinary אַרְיֵה, the young כְּפִיר, the cub גּוּר, and rarer terms like שַׁחַל and לָבִיא. Job 4:10 to 11 famously stacks five of them in two lines. That pile-up is a display of the language's richness, not a field guide sorting lions by age or size, and this word is simply one more grand name for the same powerful animal.
Job 4:11Pro 30:30Isa 30:6
Disputed
Whether this word and the other rare Hebrew lion words carry distinct nuances of age, size, or sex, or are simply interchangeable poetic synonyms for "lion."
majorityThe rare terms (this word, together with the ordinary and young-lion words) are overlapping poetic synonyms, deployed for variety and parallelism rather than to grade lions by age or species.; Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Lion"; G. J. Botterweck et al., Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, on the lion vocabulary; Brent A. Strawn, What Is Stronger Than a Lion? (OBO 212, 2005)
minorityEach lion word carries a specific nuance, so that this word denotes something like the "old" or mature lion within a graded scheme.; Rashi, Commentary on Job 4:10-11; Vilna Gaon, on the lion terminology
reaches for a rare, elevated poetic term where plain "lion" is neutral, and stands as one of several distinct Hebrew lion words heaped together for effectJob 4:11Isa 30:6
Both
both name the great cat as the fearless apex predator, an image of power and threatPro 30:30
Only lion
English "lion" is the plain, everyday word, so it flattens the grand, literary flavor the Hebrew signals by choosing this rare term
the added word "old" asserts an age the Hebrew does not clearly carry; it is a traditional rendering (as in the King James Version) that most scholars regard as weakly founded
How layish differs from similar Hebrew words
אַרְיֵהthe ordinary, everyday word for lion, at home in prose narrative; this word is a rare, poetry-only term for the same animal.
a rare, elevated word for a lion, confined to wisdom and prophetic poetry, where it names the lion at its most formidable and is grouped among the strongest of beastsPro 30:30Job 4:11Isa 30:6
Both
both name the same fierce predator, the lion, and both stand for overwhelming menace whose mere presence threatens deathPsa 17:12Job 4:11
the ordinary, all-purpose Hebrew word for a lion, used freely across narrative, law, poetry, and prophecy: the lion Samson kills, the lion that mauls a disobedient prophet, the figures carved on Solomon's throneJdg 14:51Ki 13:241Ki 10:19
the common image for a deadly predator in prayer and proverb, where the enemy or the lurking danger is pictured as a lion poised to tearPsa 22:13Psa 7:2Pro 22:13
לָבִיאanother poetic lion word, traditionally taken as "lioness"; it is paired with this word in Job 4:11 and Isaiah 30:6.
In its one verse away from the paired lines, the animal itself is the point rather than anything it stands for: a proverb walks it in with the creatures of stately stride, calls it the strongest of the beasts, and says it turns back from nothing.Pro 30:30
Where the two words share a line, this is the one used of the single grown animal on its own, starving when there is nothing left to kill, while the other word brings the young into the picture.Job 4:11
Both
Both name the grown lion as a predator that lives by what it catches, and both are rare words at home in poetry rather than in a plain report of a beast on the road.Job 38:39Job 4:11
Hebrew poets set the two side by side in a single line, so a verse can look as though it names the lion twice: one perishes for want of prey while the other's young are scattered, and Isaiah sends the caravans past both on the desert road.Job 4:11Isa 30:6
English has only one ordinary name for the animal, so both come out as "lion," and translators pad one of them into "old lion" or "great lion" simply to keep the line from stuttering.Isa 30:6
This is the lion word that also has a female form, so it is the Bible's term for a lioness: the mother of Judah's princes lying down among lions with her cubs, and the lionesses for whom the lion of Nineveh strangles prey.Ezk 19:2Nam 2:12
It is the word the tribal blessings reach for when a whole people is the lion crouched over its kill: Judah whom no one dares rouse, Israel that will not lie down until it has eaten, Gad tearing what it seizes.Gen 49:9Num 23:24Deu 33:20
In the psalms and the prophets it carries the open comparison "like a lion" for an attacker nothing will stop, whether an invading army, the enemies ringed around a psalmist, or God himself coming to devour his own people.Isa 5:29Psa 57:4Hos 13:8
שַׁחַלa poetic word for lion of uncertain exact force, sometimes "fierce lion"; like this word it belongs to elevated poetry rather than prose.
The layish is the emblem of sheer might and fearlessness: Proverbs 30:30 names it "the mightiest among beasts, that turns back before nothing," the very yardstick of strength.Pro 30:30
It appears as a beast described in its own right rather than as a figure of attack, and even the mighty layish is shown "perishing for lack of prey," its whelps scattered.Job 4:11Isa 30:6
Both
Both are elevated, poetic names for the lion rather than the everyday word, and Job stacks them in the same catalogue of lion-terms: the roaring shachal of Job 4:10 is answered by the perishing layish in the very next line.Job 4:10Job 4:11
Each names the lion as a picture of fearsome, deadly danger: the layish among the perils of the parched Negev, the shachal trodden down beside the cobra.Isa 30:6Psa 91:13
The shachal is the lion of the predatory image: God "hunts me like a shachal" (Job 10:16) and comes "like a shachal" to tear Ephraim, "I will tear and go" (Hosea 5:14), or lurks like it by the road (Hosea 13:7).Job 10:16Hos 5:14Hos 13:7
It is the roarer whose voice is heard and the menace of the path: "the voice of the shachal" (Job 4:10), the sluggard's excuse that "there is a shachal in the way" (Proverbs 26:13), the beast trodden underfoot (Psalm 91:13).Job 4:10Pro 26:13Psa 91:13
כְּפִירthe young lion, often one old enough to hunt; this word names the lion generally, with no clear age nuance.
A rare, elevated word that names the lion as the strongest and most fearless of beasts, the one that turns away from nothing. It is reserved for the lion as an emblem of supreme might rather than for the animal caught in the act of hunting.Pro 30:30Isa 30:6
Both
Both name the full-grown lion defined by its dependence on prey, and Job's catalog of lion words sets them side by side, piling up synonyms for the one beast that lives or perishes by the hunt.Job 4:10Job 4:11
Names the lion by its roar and its hunt: the vigorous young predator that cries over the prey it has seized and lurks in ambush. Its defining act is noise and the chase, not a static emblem of might.Amo 3:4Psa 104:21Jdg 14:5
The stock figure for violent human enemies and rapacious rulers, applied again and again to nations and princes who tear and devour. This wide metaphorical reach across the prophets belongs to this word, not to the rare poetic term.Ezk 19:3Nam 2:13Jer 2:15
גּוּרthe lion cub or whelp, the one lion word that clearly marks age; this word names the full-grown animal.
Names the full-grown lion at its most formidable, singled out for sheer strength as the mightiest of animals, the one that turns aside for nothing.Pro 30:30
Belongs to the poetic stock of lion-names, set alongside the other words for lion to round out the picture of the predator in its prime.Job 4:11Isa 30:6
Both
Both draw on the Hebrew vocabulary of the lion, evoking the same fierce predator as an image of strength and menace.Gen 49:9Pro 30:30
Names the young cub, the animal still being reared and nursed by its mother, not the grown beast; the mother lioness raises her whelps until one of them becomes a young lion.Ezk 19:2Ezk 19:3Ezk 19:5
Is not tied to lions alone, but can name the nursing young of any creature, as when the jackals give the breast to suckle their offspring.Lam 4:3
לַיִשׁLaish; Laishah is a biblical name written exactly like לַ֫יִשׁ, the common Hebrew word grouped here.
layish in the other biblical languages
λέωνGreek“lion”the ordinary Greek word for lion, which the Greek Old Testament uses to render this and the other Hebrew lion words.
This is a rare, elevated poetic word, one of several Hebrew terms for lion, and it singles out the lion as the embodiment of raw strength, named the mightiest among beasts that turns back from nothingPro 30:30
It belongs to heightened verse where lion-names pile up for effect, standing beside other words for the beast in a landscape of dangerIsa 30:6
Both
Both name the lion as a fearsome predator defined by its hunt for prey: the lion that perishes when prey fails, and the lion that roars seeking someone to devourJob 4:111Pe 5:8
Both stand for a mortal threat a person may be delivered from: the strong beast of the wilderness, and the lion's mouth from which rescue comesIsa 30:62Ti 4:17
This is the ordinary, everyday Greek word for lion, so it carries the whole symbolic range of the New Testament: the conquering Messiah as the Lion of the tribe of JudahRev 5:5
It names the devil as a roaring lion prowling for someone to devour, the picture of a predator stalking the believer1Pe 5:8
It supplies the lion of apocalyptic vision: the second living creature with a lion's face, and the locust-creatures with teeth like a lion'sRev 4:7Rev 9:8
What scholars say about layish
The standard lexica (BDB, HALOT, Gesenius, DCH) gloss layiš simply as "lion," a rare poetic term attested only three times (Job 4:11;Prov 30:30;Isa 30:6). Its securest cognate is Arabic layṯ "lion," pointing to a Proto-Semitic *layṯ- (with Hebrew šin as the regular reflex of *ṯ); the older equation with Akkadian nēšu is now generally rejected on phonological grounds, and the native derivation from lûš "to knead" is a folk etymology. The chief interpretive question is whether the cluster of five lion words in Job 4:10-11 (ʾaryēh, šaḥal, kəp̄îr, layiš, lāḇîʾ) encodes a graded taxonomy or is poetic synonymy; the majority of modern Semitists (with Encyclopaedia Judaica and TDOT) favor synonymy, against a mainly medieval graded reading (Rashi, the Vilna Gaon). Brent Strawn's iconographic study (What Is Stronger Than a Lion?, OBO 212) situates all such uses within a stable ANE symbolism of power and threat. The word is also notable for the Septuagint's singular rendering of Job 4:11 as μυρμηκολέων ("ant-lion"), which E. Kuhry (2023) argues is a learned Alexandrian coinage drawing on Hellenistic geographers rather than a simple blunder; the identical form also serves as a Canaanite toponym (Laish/Leshem, later Dan) and a personal name.
In-depth research
This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.
Sources
HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. לַיִשׁlexicon
BDB, s.v. לַיִשׁlexicon
DCH (Clines, ed.), s.v. לַיִשׁlexicon
Brent A. Strawn, What Is Stronger Than a Lion? Leonine Image and Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (OBO 212; Fribourg/Göttingen, 2005)monograph
Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Lion"reference
Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (Botterweck, Ringgren, Fabry, eds.), on the lion vocabularytheological-dictionary
Emmanuelle Kuhry, "La fourmi-lion ou myrmicoleon: origine, transmission et avatars d'une chimère," RursuSpicae 5 (2023)journal-article