What is this? Is it a description from one of those gory wildlife TV shows? No it is a verse from the Bible, a paradigm verse. The verse is Micah 5:8. It is a short, potent paradigm describing the manner in which modern Israel would engage its nasty neighbors.

If your favorite parts of the Bible consist solely of flowery platitudes, of placid, pleasant sayings, I suggest you read no further, because you will not like what is to follow.

"The remnant of Jacob will be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, like a lion among the beasts of the forest, like a young lion among flocks of sheep, which mauls and mangles as it goes, and no one can rescue." (Micah 5:8 NIV)

Another translation starts this verse out "the few people left from Jacob." With the benefit of historical retrospective, we know that the modern nation of Israel was founded in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust. Six million Jews perished, and the remnant came into their own nation shortly thereafter. It became their own place of refuge from the perils of a hostile world.

For centuries, the Jewish people had been the victim. They were the ones who had been mauled and mangled, mistreated in every nation. Powerless, helpless, they had rarely resisted, even when faced with the most awful scourge ever seen by mankind.

Even at that critical time, the world refused them entry into their own promised land. At the time when Hitler's forces were rounding up Jews from all of Europe, at the time when the place of refuge was most needed, the door was closed. Great Britain, which had the mandate for control of Palestine, almost completely shut off immigration to Jews who were desperate to flee Europe.

After the war, after the holocaust, only a remnant of the world's Jews remained to found the new nation of Israel. But even in that place, they have not had any respite from savage attacks aimed at their destruction. The Arabs picked up where the Germans left off.

Even so, that new nation would formulate a dramatic shift in response to those intent on Jew killing. According to God Himself, that new nation would have a new disposition. It would no longer be a helpless victim. It would be a powerful lion.

Does Israel share this vision of its own existence? No. For the five-plus decades of Israel's existence as a modern nation, it has tried, even to excess, to peacefully coexist with its neighbors. Despite the rude reception it has received from the Arabs, Israel has pursued policies that have bordered on obsessive in an attempt to get along in the neighborhood. They have resorted to ridiculous and foolhardy extremes of appeasement in the quest for peace.

These efforts have been to no avail whatsoever. The extraordinarily hostile posture of the Arab world has not abated. Though Israel has desired tranquility with its neighbors, those neighbors envision tranquility as a world without Israel. Inevitably, the level of conflict has increased at times to an intolerable level, when Israel was compelled to respond militarily. Each time, those bellicose neighbors have been badly beaten. The lion has mangled its adversaries.

And the lion is not yet finished. It will not be finished until the Middle East resembles a sheep pen with the satiated lion standing triumphantly alone amidst the silent carcasses of dead sheep. There will be peace in the Middle East, for sure, once the Muslim/Arab warmongering nations have been dealt a devastating blow.

God has determined this, not only in the Micah prophecy, but in numerous other places. He has reassigned the land to Jacob, and He Himself has taken the task of fully recovering it. The other parties who have foolishly resisted His efforts have seen their attempts come back on them each time.

Every time Israel's neighbors have risen up to eliminate Israel from the planet, God has caused Israel to prevail. One more time this will happen, with results far, far more astounding than before. The world will be thoroughly astounded, then thoroughly enraged, at the outcome when Israel is once again forced to go to war against the Arabs.

A fitting summary is found in another translation of the verse: "Their enemies will be torn to shreds, with no one to save them." (Micah 5:8b CEV)