'Cubs' in the Bible

and say,‘What was your mother [Jerusalem and Judah]?A lioness among lions!She lay down among young lions,She reared her cubs.

‘When she [the royal mother-city] brought up [Jehoahaz] one of her cubs,He became a [young] lion,And he learned to catch and tear the prey;He devoured men.

‘When she saw, as she waited,That her hope was lost,She took another of her cubsAnd made him a young lion.

Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish (southern Spain), with all its young lions (villages) will say to you, ‘Have you come to take spoil? Have you assembled your hordes [of fighting men] to seize plunder, to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take great spoil?’”’

I will encounter them like a bear robbed of her cubs,And I will tear open their chests;There I will also devour them like a lioness,As a wild beast would tear them.