Bible Dictionaries
Ariel

Holman Bible Dictionary

(eh' rih ehl) Personal name meaning, “God's lion.” 1. Jewish leader in captivity who acted as Ezra's messenger to the Levites to send people with Ezra to Jerusalem about 458 B.C. (Ezra 8:16 ). 2 . Code name for Jerusalem in Isaiah 29:1 . Ariel apparently referred to the top of the altar on which the priests burned sacrifices. Jerusalem under Assyrian attack was like the altar. It did not burn but caused everything around it to burn. The sins of Jerusalem had led to the devastation of the rest of Judah in 701 B.C.