And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.
He ... cursed them in the name of the Lord. Not in a fit of irritation, or from an impulse of vindictive resentment, but as the minister of God, solemnly in His name pre-intimated the awful fate which, as a providential judgment, was about to overtake these idolaters.
There came forth two she-bears. They belonged to the Ursus Syriacus, the Palestine representative of the Ursus Arctos of north Europe. It was found by Hemprich and Ehrenberg on one of the summits of Lebanon; and according to Dr. Thomson ('Land and Book'), it is still found on the high mountains of that part of the country. The appalling judgment that befell them was God's interference to uphold His newly invested prophet.