Verse 11
After Nineveh’s destruction the people who remained would taunt the Assyrians by comparing Nineveh to a lion’s den and nearby feeding grounds. They would also compare its inhabitants to lions. Assyria’s leaders were lion-like and its youths like young lions in that they had plundered and preyed on others. But their once secure haunts were now desolate.
"Assyrian kings prided themselves in their ability to kill lions in lion hunts. And the kings likened their own ferocity and fearlessness to that of lions. For example, Sennacherib boasted of his military fury by saying, ’Like a lion I raged.’ Lions were frequently pictured in Assyrian reliefs and decorations." [Note: Johnson, p. 1501. See also Gordon H. Johnston, "Nahum’s Rhetorical Allusions to the Neo-Assyrian Lion Motif," Bibliotheca Sacra 158:631 (July-September 2001):287-307.]
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