1 Peter 5:8

Be sober, be vigilant The two words are found in a like juxtaposition in 1 Thessalonians 5:6. The tense used here implies an immediate act, as though he said, "Rouse yourselves to sobriety and watchfulness," rather than a continuous state. The first word has the strict meaning of abstinence from that which inebriates. See note on chap. 1 Peter 4:7.

because your adversary the devil The word for "adversary" is the same as that used in Matthew 5:25, and carries with it the sense of a plaintiff or accuser in a trial before a judge. The Greek word for "devil" (διάβολος), uniformly used in the LXX. for the Hebrew "Satan," expresses the same thought, with the implied addition that the charge is false and calumnious. The comparison with the lion has its starting-point, perhaps, in Isaiah 38:13, where, however, it is used of God as visiting men with pain and sickness; or Psalms 22:21, where its use is more closely parallel with the present passage. The use of the same verb for "roaring" in the LXX. of Psalms 22:13 confirms the inference that that Psalm the first words of which, it will be remembered, had been uttered by our Lord upon the cross was present to St Peter's mind. The word for "devour," literally, gulp down or swallow, implies the thought of total destruction. It is probable, wide and general as the words are in themselves, that the special form of attack of which the Apostle thought was that of the persecution then raging, and of which, though human agents were prominent in it, Satan was regarded as the real instigator. Comp. 2 Timothy 4:17. When Christ is named as "the Lion of the tribe of Judah" (Revelation 5:5) we may probably see the suggested thought that in the conflict which His followers have to wage they have with them One who is stronger than their adversary.