Ariel in Fausset's Bible Dictionary

("lion of God".) 1. A brave "chief," who directed under Ezra (Ezra 8:16) the caravan from Babylon to Jerusalem. ARELI is akin (Numbers 26:17). In 2 Samuel 23:20 Winer translates for "two like-like men" two (sons) of Ariel; but Gesenius supports the KJV. 2. A symbolic name for Jerusalem (Isaiah 29:1-2), the lion of God, rendered by God invincible. For "the lion of the tribe of Judah" is on her side (Revelation 5:5). "It shall be unto Me as Ariel"; it shall emerge from its dangers invincible, Sennacherib's invasion shall recoil on himself. In Ezekiel 43:15 "the altar"; the secret of Israel's lion- like strength, her having God at peace with her through the atoning sacrifice there. Menochius guesses that the lieu (aril) was carved on it; but as the word in Hebrew of Ezekiel 43:15 (arieil) is somewhat different from that in Isaiah, perhaps in Ezekiel it menus, from an Arabic root, "the hearth of God." Ganneau has deciphered on the Moabite stone that the Ariel of David is mentioned as taken by Mesha, the Moabite king, at Ataroth, and dragged before the face of Chemosh at Kerioth. The Ariel here must mean a lion carved altar of God.