The bible speaks of a people ‘leaping up like a king of beasts.’ Photo by IStock
By Aviya Kushner
June 17, 2025
Israel’s attack on Iran has been described as a “surprise attack” — but close watchers of the Chidon HaTanach, or the annual International Bible Competition, held May 1, may have had an early hint that something dramatic was on the horizon because of a verse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu highlighted there.
“What is the verse in the Tanach that most fits with an existential war? That’s our war — a war of existence,” Netanyahu said at the awards ceremony. “Maybe it’s from the Book of Numbers. I think so. A people that rises like a lion, leaps up like the king of beasts.”
The specific verse is Numbers 23:24. Netanyahu quoted the first part, which Robert Alter translates as: “Look, a people like a lion arises, like the king of beasts, rears up.”
At the time, Netanyahu seemed to be referring to the ongoing Hamas war — not anything new. Now, journalists are revisiting video clips of Netanyahu’s speech.
Every Israeli military operation has a name, and the Iran attack is now called Am K’lavi, or “a people like a lion” — the exact wording Netanyahu used six weeks ago. English language publications now refer to the operation as “Rising Lion.”
But what does that lion phrase mean, exactly?
Alter comments that the image of “the rising, bloodthirsty lion is a stock metaphor for martial prowess in biblical and other Near Eastern poetry.”
Like many commentators, over many centuries, Alter notes that this verse has two synonyms for “lion” — he adds that time has erased their differences.
The “biblical Hebrew,” Alter writes, “has five synonyms for lion (whatever distinctions there may have been among them have been lost with the passage of time), whereas English, alas, has none.”
As the operation began, Netanyahu scrawled the lion verse he highlighted in the Chidon HaTanach on a piece of paper and put it between the stones at the Kotel.
That paper version has been making its way through social media and WhatsApp chats. Op-eds in Israeli newspapers have analyzed this verse and its possible political relevance.
It’s worth looking back at the Book of Numbers for the entire dramatic episode in which this verse appears. For centuries, Torah commentators have been intrigued by all of it.
Chapter 22 begins with the Israelites continuing their journey and camping in “the steppes of Moab,” as Alter describes it, across the Jordan River from Jericho. Moab, according to the Book of Numbers, hated the Israelites and was afraid of them. So Balak, the king of Moab at the time, asked Balaam to curse the Israelites for him.
“Come then, put a curse upon this people for me, since they are too numerous for me; perhaps I can defeat them and drive them out of the land,” Balak says in the 1985 Jewish Publication Society translation. “For I know that he whom you bless is blessed indeed, and he whom you curse is cursed.”
But God himself intervenes.
He tells Balaam not to go with Balak’s dignitaries on the mission. “You must not curse that people,” God tells him, “for they are blessed.”
Balaam says that he can only repeat what God put in his mouth. And then come many phrases that are often quoted in Israel as descriptions of the Jewish people — such as “there is a people that dwells apart.”
This apartness, and perhaps loneliness, is something many in the Diaspora have also invoked, and it seems especially relevant now.
But while Netanyahu quoted half a verse, the full verse is worth looking at closely; here it is in the JPS translation:
Lo, a people that rises like a lion,
Leaps up like a king of beasts,
Rests not till it has feasted on prey
And drunk the blood of the slain.
The ending of that verse is shocking. “Israel is envisaged now not merely as vast but as a fiercely indomitable warrior people,” Alter writes.”Balak now has not just been led off the road into the field but feels his leg crushed against the wall.”
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Perhaps this image of a “fiercely indomitable warrior people” is what captivated Netanyahu. But it’s important to note that for centuries, commentators have understood this verse figuratively — not literally.
Rashi, the great 11th century commentator, says that those who arise from their slumber to say Shacharit, or morning prayers, are brave like lions to snatch mitzvot. Namely, “to wear a tallit, to read the Sh’ma, and to lay tefillin.”
This interpretation of the verse is entirely non-military.
Nachmanides, the 13th century commentator, is interested in the verse’s synonyms for lion, just as Alter would be 800 years later. He comments that the first “lion” is a cub, and the second is a lion, who will not live in his land.
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But Rashi and Ramban lived centuries ago. Far more recently, this verse was highlighted by Rabbi Chevron Shiloh in a 2024 editorial for Israel’s Channel 7 about Haredi enlistment in the army.
Rabbi Shiloh notes that according to the pshat, the literal meaning, this verse is about military might. And according to the drash, or the commentaries, it’s about keeping the mitzvot.
“Our Haredi brothers, we need you,” Rabbi Shiloh wrote. “If you don’t know that now you must join the war effort, the sword will reach all the way” to the beit midrash.
Rabbi Shiloh writes that military service is a must, and that a short period of service does not mean that one cannot also have an illustrious Torah study career. Rabbi Shiloh comments further that the previous strategy that military leaders promoted of a “small, smart army” — is no longer possible. And between all the familiar Torah verses he quoted, he said something pointed about the reason for that strategy: “To our sorrow, for some of them this was because they did not have faith in the fighting ability of the religious community, and thought they would not join the army.”
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As some religious leaders threaten to topple the government over compulsory military service for Haredim, there are still voices within the Israeli religious community insisting that the Torah commands military service — and incredibly, they use the same verse Netanyahu chose to make their case.
Perhaps the “like a lion” phrase can also be seen as a nod to the ultra-Orthodox community, which supports Netanyahu — recognizing that this verse was understood by the great Rashi as referring to keeping mitzvot.
But the lion imagery is also clearly an attempt to strengthen a war-weary Israel as it fights against a state, not a terror organization. Many commentators call Iran “the head of the snake.”
So maybe it’s not surprising to see animal imagery on all sides.
“Like a lion” has a literal meaning, and much-discussed metaphorical meanings — and who knows? Maybe Netanyahu is invoking them all as he strives to stay in power in a highly dangerous time.
