As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. "For," as our Savior expressed it in a like parabolical manner, "wheresoever the carcass is there shall the eagles be gathered together," Matthew 24:28. The images are taken from the different methods of hunting and taking wild beasts, which were anciently in use. The terror was a line strung with feathers of all colors which fluttering in the air scared and frightened the beasts into the toils, or into the pit which was prepared for them. Nec est mirum, cum maximos ferarum greges linea pennis distincta contineat, et in insidias agat, ab ipso effectu dicta formido. Seneca de Ira, 2:12. The pit or pitfall, fovea; digged deep in the ground, and covered over with green boughs, turf, etc., in order to deceive them, that they might fall into it unawares. The snare, or toils, indago; a series of nets, inclosing at first a great space of ground, in which the wild beasts were known to be; and then drawn in by degrees into a narrower compass, till they were at last closely shut up, and entangled in them. - L.
For מכול mikkol, a MS. reads מפני mippeney, as it is in Jeremiah 48:44, and so the Vulgate and Chaldee. But perhaps it is only, like the latter, a Hebraism, and means no more than the simple preposition מ mem. See Psalms 102:6. For it does not appear that the terror was intended to scare the wild beasts by its noise. The paronomasia is very remarkable; פחד pachad, פחת pachath, פך pach: and that it was a common proverbial form, appears from Jeremiah's repeating it in the same words, Jeremiah 48:43, Jeremiah 48:44.
Amos 5:19As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him - They shall go from one evil to another. He who escapes from the lion's mouth shall fall into the bear's paws: -
Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim.
The Israelites, under their king Menahem, wishing to avoid a civil war, called in Pul, king of Assyria, to help them. This led to a series of evils inflicted by the Syrian and Assyrian kings, till at last Israel was ravaged by Shalmaneser, and carried into captivity. Thus, in avoiding one evil they fell into another still more grievous.
Leaned his hands on a wall, and a serpent bit him - Snakes and venomous animals are fond of taking up their lodging in walls of houses, where they can either find or make holes; and it is dangerous to sit near them or lean against them. In the East Indies they keep the faithful mongose, a species of ichneumon, in their houses, for the purpose of destroying the snakes that infest them.