rJoel 2 commentary

JOEL 2 COMMENTARY
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
An Army of Locusts
1 Blow the trumpet in Zion;
sound the alarm on my holy hill.
Let all who live in the land tremble,
for the day of the Lord is coming.
It is close at hand—
BARNES, "Blow ye the trumpet - The trumpet was accustomed to sound in
Zion, only for religious uses; to call together the congregations for holy meetings, to
usher in the beginnings of their months and their solemn days with festival gladness.
Now in Zion itself, the stronghold of the kingdom, the Holy City, the place which God
chose to put His Name there, which He had promised to establish, the trumpet was
to be used, only for sounds of alarm and fear. Alarm could not penetrate there,
without having pervaded the whole land. With it, the whole human hope of Judah
was gone.
Sound an alarm in My holy mountain - He repeats the warning in varied
expressions, in order the more to impress people’s hearts and to stir them to
repentance. Even “the holy mountain” of God was to echo with alarms; the holiness,
once bestowed upon it, was to be no security against the judgments of God; yea, in it
rather were those judgments to begin. So Peter saith, “The time is come, that
judgment must begin at the house of God” 1Pe_4:17. The alarm being blown in Zion,
terror was to spread to all the inhabitants of the land, who were, in fear, to repent.
The Church of Christ is foretold in prophecy under the names of “Zion” and of the
holy “mountain.” It is the “stone cut out without hands, which became a great
mountain, and filled the whole earth” Dan_2:34-35. Of it, it is said, “Come ye and let
us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob!” Isa_2:3. And
Paul says, “ye are come unto mount Zion and unto the city of the living God” Heb_
12:22. The words then are a rule for all times. The judgments predicted by Joel
represent all judgments unto the end; the conduct, prescribed on their approach, is a
pattern to the Church at all times. : “In this mountain we must wail, considering the
failure of the faithful, in which, “iniquity abounding, charity waxeth cold.” For now
(1450 a.d.) the state of the Church is so sunken, and you may see so great misery in
her from the most evil conversation of many, that one who burns with zeal for God,
and truly loveth his brethren, must say with Jeremiah, “Let mine eyes run down with
tears night and day, and let them not cease, for the virgin daughter of my people is
broken with a great breach” Jer_14:17.
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble - o: “We should be troubled when
we hear the words of God, rebuking, threatening, avenging, as Jeremiah saith, ‘my
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heart within me is broken, all my bones shake, because of the Lord and because of
the words of His holiness’ Jer_23:9. Good is the trouble which people, weighing their
sins, are shaken with fear and trembling, and repent.”
For the Day of the Lord is at hand - “The Day of the Lord” is any day in which
He avengeth sin, any day of Judgment, in the course of His Providence or at the end;
the day of Jerusalem from the Chaldees or Romans, the day of antichrist, the day of
general or particular judgment, of which James says, “The coming of the Lord
draweth nigh. Behold the Judge standeth before the door” Jam_5:8-9. : “Well is that
called “the day of the Lord,” in that, by the divine appointment, it avengeth the
wrongs done to the Lord through the disobedience of His people.”
CLARKE, "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion - This verse also shows that the
temple was still standing. All assemblies of the people were collected by the sound of
the trumpet.
The day of the Lord cometh - This phrase generally means a day of judgment
or punishment.
GILL, "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy
mountain,.... This is spoken to the priests, whose business it was to blow the
trumpets for calling solemn assemblies to meet in Zion, the temple built there, called
from thence the holy mountain of God. Here the trumpet is ordered to be blown with
a broken quivering voice, a tarantantara, to give notice of approaching danger by the
locusts, or those enemies signified by them, and to prepare for it, and return to God
by repentance;
let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; at the judgments of God coming
upon them, and the alarm of them:
for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand; the time fixed by him to
punish a wicked people, and to pour out his wrath and vengeance on them; the day of
his visitation, not in love, but in anger.
HENRY, "Here we have God contending with his own professing people for their
sins and executing upon them the judgment written in the law (Deu_28:42), The
fruit of thy land shall the locust consume, which was one of those diseases of Egypt
that God would bring upon them, Deu_28:60.
I. Here is the war proclaimed (Joe_2:1): Blow the trumpet in Zion, either to call
the invading army together, and then the trumpet sounds a charge, or rather to give
notice to Judah and Jerusalem of the approach of the judgment, that they might
prepare to meet their God in the way of his judgments and might endeavor by
prayers and tears, the church's best artillery, to put by the stroke. It was the priests'
business to sound the trumpet (Num_10:8), both as an appeal to God in the day of
their distress and a summons to the people to come together to seek his face. Note, It
is the work of ministers to give warning from the word of God of the fatal
consequences of sin, and to reveal his wrath from heaven against the ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men. And though it is not the privilege of Zion and Jerusalem to
be exempted from the judgments of God, if they provoke him, yet it is their privilege
to be warned of them, that they might make their peace with him. Even in the holy
mountain the alarm must be sounded, and then it sounds most dreadful, Amo_3:2.
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Now, shall a trumpet be blown in the city, in the holy city, and the people not be
afraid? Surely they will. Amo_3:6. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; they
shall be made to tremble by the judgment itself; let them therefore tremble at the
alarm of it.
JAMISON, "Joe_2:1-32. The coming judgment a motive to repentance. Promise
of blessings in the last days.
A more terrific judgment than that of the locusts is foretold, under imagery drawn
from that of the calamity then engrossing the afflicted nation. He therefore exhorts to
repentance, assuring the Jews of Jehovah’s pity if they would repent. Promise of the
Holy Spirit in the last days under Messiah, and the deliverance of all believers in
Him.
Blow ... trumpet — to sound an alarm of coming war (Num_10:1-10; Hos_5:8;
Amo_3:6); the office of the priests. Joe_1:15 is an anticipation of the fuller prophecy
in this chapter.
BENSON, "Joel 2:1. Blow ye the trumpet in Zion — The prophet, having in the
preceding chapter described the locusts and caterpillars as a mighty army sent by
God, in pursuance of this metaphor now exhorts the people to prepare to meet them,
in the same terms as if they were alarmed to oppose an enemy, which was always
done by the sound of the trumpet. Danger is proclaimed in this way, Ezekiel 33:3;
Ezekiel 33:5; Hosea 5:8; Amos 3:6. Natural means were wont to be used, to prevent
the devastations of locusts; pits and trenches were dug, bags were provided, and
combustible matter was prepared and set on fire: see Shaw’s Travels, 4to. p. 187. Let
all the inhabitants of the land tremble — Let them be seized with as terrible an
apprehension of this approaching judgment, as if they saw an enemy invading their
country.
K&D, "By blowing the far-sounding horn, the priests are to make known to the
people the coming of the judgment, and to gather them together in the temple to
pray. Joe_2:1. “Blow ye the trumpet upon Zion, and cause it to sound upon my holy
mountain! All the inhabitants of the land shall tremble; for the day of Jehovah
cometh, for it is near.” That this summons is addressed to the priests, is evident from
Joe_2:15, compared with Joe_2:14. On tiq‛ū shōphâr and hârı‛ū, see at Hos_5:8.
“Upon Zion,” i.e., from the top of the temple mountain. Zion is called the holy
mountain, as in Psa_2:6, because the Lord was there enthroned in His sanctuary, on
the summit of Moriah, which He claimed as His own. Râgaz, to tremble, i.e., to start
up from their careless state (Hitzig). On the expression, “for the day of Jehovah
cometh,” see Joe_1:15. By the position of ‫וֹא‬ at the head of the sentence, and that in
the perfect ‫א‬ ָ instead of the imperfect, as in Joe_1:15, the coming of the day of
Jehovah is represented as indisputably certain. The addition of kı qârōbh (for it is
near) cannot be accounted for, however, from the fact that in the spiritual intuition of
the prophet this day had already come, whereas in reality it was only drawing near
(Hengstenberg); for such a separation as this between one element of prophesying
and another is inconceivable. The explanation is simply, that the day of the Lord runs
throughout the history of the kingdom of God, so that it occurs in each particular
judgment: not, however, as fully manifested, but simply as being near or
approaching, so far as its complete fulfilment is concerned. Joel now proclaims the
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coming of the day in its full completion, on the basis of the judgment already
experienced, as the approach of a terrible army of locusts that darkens the land, at
the head of which Jehovah is riding in all the majesty of the Judge of the world. The
description is divided into three strophes thus: he first of all depicts the sight of this
army of God, as seen afar off, and its terrible appearance in general (Joe_2:2 and
Joe_2:3); then the appearance and advance of this mighty army (Joe_2:4-6); and
lastly, its irresistible power (Joe_2:7-11); and closes the first strophe with a figurative
description of the devastation caused by this terrible army, whilst in the second and
third he gives prominence to the terror which they cause among all nations, and over
all the earth.
MEYER, " A SUMMONS TO PENITENCE
Joe_1:1-20; Joe_2:1-11
We know nothing of Joel beyond this book. He was content to be God’s mouthpiece
and remain unknown. His message was one of unparalleled woe. The memory of
God’s loving kindness ought to have kept His people faithful and loyal, but since
grace and love had failed to affect them awful judgments were announced. A small
insect, the locust, was to prostrate man’s boasted power. The four kinds of locusts
here described and which doubtless devastated the country, were also symbols of the
four world-empires, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, and Rome, which were to lay waste the
Holy Land. Such judgments call for acts of repentance, such as fasting, humiliation,
and intercession. There are days in national experience when it becomes us to gird
ourselves and lament. The ministers and elders of the Church should lead the way.
Where there has been infidelity to the great Lover of souls, when the visible Church
or the individual member has turned from Christ to the wanton world, then joy
withers away, Joe_1:12, spiritual worship ceases, Joe_1:9, and there can be neither
peace nor safety until there has been repentance and return.
PETT,, "The Grounds For Seeing Chapter 1 As Referring To Real Locusts And
Chapter 2 As Referring To An Invading Army.
Clearly the arguments above support the first part of this position, and the second
part is based on the kind of language used in chapter 2. This would be a fairly strong
case if all that was in mind was a visit by flying locusts, but descriptions such as Dr
Thomson’s (see above) of the creeping army of young wingless locusts helps to
vividly explain that language. Indeed as we shall see, it brings chapter 2 alive. On the
other hand, once the metaphorical idea of an army is removed, the remainder of the
language clearly refers to the activities of insects as witnessed by Joel himself and
vividly portrayed.
The Grounds For Seeing Both Chapters As Referring To Human Armies.
This view demands a leap of the imagination from what is presented in chapter 1 to
the idea of human armies, and is usually held by those who interpret Joel in
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accordance with their own pre-conceived notions. Apart from the use of the word
‘nation’, which can be explained otherwise (compare its use in Zephaniah 2:14 where
it means different species of animals in their groupings, and the reference to different
species of creatures as a ‘people’ in Proverbs 30:25-27), there are really no grounds in
chapter 1 for considering that it speaks of a human army, and it is noteworthy that
the devastations described all adequately apply to insects like locusts, while nothing
of what we would see as characteristic of humans (killing, rape, use of the sword,
taking captives, etc.), is found anywhere in the narrative (of either chapter 1 or
chapter 2). Note how all through it is only natural things that are affected, together
with the provision of meal and wine for Temple offerings, with not a word said of any
other effects. If Joel wanted us to think that he had locusts in mind he has certainly
made a good job of it.
BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm
in My holy mountain.
A ministry morally awakening
In the first eleven verses of this chapter we have a continuation of the address of the
prophet to the priests of Judah. It was the duty of the priests to blow the trumpet for
the assembling of the congregation, for the removing of the camp, and when they
went forth to war; here the trumpet is blown to announce danger, and the
consequent need of attention to certain moral requirements.
I. That there are times when the Church is in especial need of a ministry morally
awakening. “Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain.”
Zion was the meeting-place of the people of God, and may be taken as a type of the
Church of God; here the trumpet was used only for sounds of alarm and fear. There
was need that those who dwelt in the holy mountain should be aroused to a sense of
the impending danger; we should have thought that they would have been sensitive
to the judgment of God without such an awakening cry.
1. The Church needs an awakening ministry when it is not solicitous for the moral
rectitude of the nation in which it is placed. It would appear as if Zion were
ignorant of, or as if it were indifferent to, the apostasy all around it.
2. The Church needs an awakening ministry when it is not alive to the peril of
souls it should endeavour to instruct.
3. The Church needs an awakening ministry when it reposes undue confidence in
external organisations.
II. That at such times the ministry morally awakening must be charged with the
solemn truths of advancing judgment. “For the day of the Lord cometh, and is nigh at
hand.” Thus the ministry of the trumpet announced a terrible day of approaching
judgment. The congregations of the present day are averse to these trumpet
ministries, they prefer more gentle strains of truth, and prefer to be lulled to slumber
rather than to be awakened to stern activity. The Church has need of its sons of
thunder as well as of its sons of consolation. It announced these judgments as
(1) Certain,
(2) Near,
(3) Terrible.
III. That the announcement of such truths should have a solemn effect upon those to
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whom they are addressed. “Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble.”
1. It should awaken solemn apprehension. The people would know that the
sounding of the trumpet in Zion would foretoken evil to them, and would be
deeply apprehensive of the nature and extent of the judgment to follow.
2. It should awaken deep repentance. The terrors of the Lord should persuade
men to deep repentance, and should become a forcible argument for a renewed
life.
3. It should awaken devout gratitude. While men mourn the advancing calamities
they should indeed be devoutly grateful that their advent is so clearly made
known, and that they do not come unexpected upon them.
Lessons—
1. That the Church requires to be aroused to a sense of its duty.
2. That the pulpit must give utterance to solemn and awakening truths.
3. That an earnest Church may avert a national judgment. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
Warning trumpets
The trumpet is lifted up this time in warning. Sometimes it is lifted up in festival. The
trumpet will do one of two things, the performer must tell it what to do. So with
every ministry, and every instrumentality of life and nature; it is the intelligent,
responsive, directing man that must say what is to be done with the silver lute of
spring, or the golden instrument of summer, or the cornucopia of autumn, or the
great wind of winter that makes the earth cold and bleak. The trumpet will foretell a
coming battle, or it will call to an infinite feast; the man behind it must use it
according to the occasion. It is even so with the Bible. There is no trumpet like the
Bible for warning, alarm, excitement, a great blare at midnight shaking the whole air
with tones of alarm; nor is there any instrument like the Bible for sweetness,
gentleness, tenderness, an instrument that talks music to the heart, and that assures
human fear that the time of apprehension has passed away. Warning has always been
given by the Almighty before His judgments have taken effect. Yet there has always
been some measure of suddenness about Divine judgments. The reason is that we
cannot sufficiently prepare for them. We may know they are coming, we may tell
even to a day when the judgment thunder will lift up its voice; yet when it does sound
its appeal it startles and shocks and paralyses the world. Yet, though the warning has
always been given, it has always been despised. How few people heed the voice of
warning! They call that voice sensational. Were the old preachers to return with their
old hell they would have but scant welcome to-day. They were men of the iron
mouth; they were no Chrysostoms, golden-throated and golden-lipped; they were
men who, knowing the terrors of the law, withheld them not from the knowledge of
the people, but thundered right mightily even beside the altar of the Cross. Now all
this is in many instances ruled out as theologically behind the time, as from a literary
point of view vulgar and odious, and as from a spiritual point of view detestable, and
not likely to work in man mightily in the direction of persuasion. We become familiar
with warning. No man really believes in the day of judgment. But the warnings given
us by men are often partial, and are not unfrequently falsely directed There is not a
preacher in the world who could not make a great reputation by thundering against
heterodoxy. The world loves such vacant thunder; the Church is willing to subscribe
liberally to any man who will denounce the heterodoxy of other people. What we do
want is, not to thunder warningly against mistaken speculation, but thunders
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sevenfold in loudness, to be delivered against the current iniquities of the day.
Warning is needed, but let it be of the right kind; warning is a needful element in
every ministry, but deliver it at the right door. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
The trumpet of Zion
I. What is meant by blowing the gospel trumpet? Trumpets were and are used in
martial music, and in festive song. Commissioned by the Lord, and in dependence on
God the Spirit, the ministers of Jesus Christ come forth before their people, to offer
them, in God’s name, and on His own terms, pardon and peace, life and salvation,
through Christ; or, if they reject these, to denounce to them, in His name, the
sentence of death and destruction. This is “blowing the trumpet.” Not content with
this, ministers solemnly warn the self-righteous and the unrighteous, the professor
and the hypocrite, and those who are “at ease in Zion,” of their approaching danger.
This is “sounding an alarm.” But what reception have you given to this Gospel?
II. To whom, and where, is this trumpet commanded to be blown, and this alarm to
be sounded? Had he been sent to Nineveh, or to the profane part of his own people,
we should not feel surprised, but he was sent to the princes and nobles, priests and
Levites, aged and honourable; even to his neighbours and personal friends. He was to
show to “Jacob his transgressions, and to Israel his sins.” What was the duty of Joel
is the duty of every minister of the Gospel now; and the difficulties are very nearly the
same. A minister must be faithful to his oath, his conscience, his people, and his God.
One reason for blowing the trumpet needs consideration. It is this. “The day of the
Lord cometh, it is nigh at hand.” (J. White Niblock, D. D.)
Warning ministries
The two sentences mean the same thing. To blow the trumpet is to sound an alarm.
And the scene is the mount of God’s holiness—the holy mountain where this alarm is
to be sounded.
I. What are the enemies against whorl an alarm must be sounded?
1. Ignorance.
2. Superstition.
3. Self-righteousness.
4. Conformity to the world.
5. Hypocrisy.
II. Reasons why this opportunity is taken for sounding an alarm. (The clergyman
was pleading on behalf of Sunday and national schools.) The children of the poor
need education. The children of this generation will be the fathers and mothers of the
next.
III. Offer some encouragement. If you are disposed to listen to the alarm sounded,
and endeavour to mind your ways. The first encouraging sign will be that you will
learn to know your own state. Second encouraging sign, that you confess your sins.
The next sign, your fairly setting to work, from this very hour, to see what can
possibly be done for the everlasting good of these children. A most pleasing sign
would be this, a looking up to God to do that for these little ones, which you have it
not in your power to do for them. (T. Mortimer, B. D.)
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Alarm in God’s house
I. A sacred scene. The trumpet is to sound the alarm in Zion—in God’s holy
mountain—among His people who professed His name. He was to tell them of the
awful judgments the Almighty would bring upon the land.
II. Our places of worship may be designated holy mountains.
1. Because there a holy God is worshipped. We cannot feel too much veneration
and respect for the house of God. The places where we draw near to God are
sacred spots. Holiness becometh His house.
2. Because there holy gifts are imparted. We meet together to receive blessings
from God. There He sits, waiting to bestow on us all needful grace, to dispense
His favours and to display His power. Holiness is that which we require in order
to our enjoyment of God.
3. Because there holy anticipations are realised. We leave for a time the world
and its concerns, and endeavour to attend on God without distraction, and feel
ourselves surrounded with the Deity.
III. A solemn charge. Blowing of trumpets an ancient custom in Israel (Num_
10:3-10). There was a peculiar way of blowing the trumpet when it sounded an alarm.
Ministers are to sound the trumpet of invitation, and the trumpet of encouragement.
But there are periods when we are to sound an alarm, and show God’s threatened
judgments. Concerning four things you need warning.
1. Formality in the exercises of religion. A dead and dull spirit has crept into our
churches.
2. Conformity to the world. Here is our special danger in the present day. As
Christians, we are delivered from this present evil world. Ought we then to love it,
to imbibe its spirit, and follow its maxims? How difficult the line of demarcation
between the Church and the world!
3. Deadness to the power of prayer. Prayer is necessary to our prosperity in the
Divine life; the more we are in it the more we shall thrive. But is there not a
deficiency in the manner and spirit of this exercise, both alone and in the social
meeting? God has answered prayer in every age.
4. Inactivity in the cause of Christ. Prayer without exertion is presumption. There
is a want of united effort. Union is strength, and there is more of this wanted. A
united people is likely to be a prosperous, thriving people—a comfort to the
minister, an honour to religion, and a blessing to the world. (Ebenezer Temple.)
PULPIT, "Blow ye the trumpet (margin, cornet) in Zion, and sound an alarm (or,
cause it to sound) in my holy mountain. The shophar, or far-sounding horn, and
probably the chatsoterah, the hazar or silver trumpet, were called into requisition.
The priests are urged with great vehemence, as tiqu shophar and hariu imply, to
apprise the people that the day of Jehovah's terrible judgment was near at hand, and
to prepare for it. This alarm was to be sounded from Zion, the dry or sunny hill, the
holy moun-rain. The noun qadosh like tsadiq, is applied to persons, therefore the
noun qodshe is used. It rose to an elevation of 2539 feet above the level of the
Mediterranean Sea. It was the place of the ark in David's day, and so of the visible
symbol of the Divine presence, and therefore the holy mountain, though
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subsequently Moriah was chosen as the temple-hill. Let all the inhabitants of the land
tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand. The effect here
precedes the cause, as if what is upper. most in the heart comes first to the lips; while
the abruptness may, perhaps, express the excitement and intensity of feeling. But
how could the Lord's day be said to have come (ba is perfect), and yet to be near at
hand? Hengstenberg replies that, in the intuition of the prophet, it had already come,
though in reality it was only drawing near. Keil's solution of the difficulty is more
satisfactory: every particular judgment that takes place in the history of God's
kingdom is the day of the Lord, and yet only approaching as far as the complete
fulfilment was concerned.
LANGE, "This portion of the prophecy consists of two parts. The first is contained in
Joe_2:1-11, in which the prophet explains more fully than he had before done, the
misery that was coming on the land, a harbinger of the great and terrible day of the
Lord. The second part includes Joe_2:12-17, and declares that timely repentance
would secure God’s gracious help, and therefore that the priests should earnestly deal
with the people to this end.
Joe_2:1. Blow the Trumpet in Zion. This is a call to the priests. They must give a
signal of alarm from Zion, which is to be understood not in the local sense, but as
including the whole of Jerusalem. Then comes the more precise locality, “the holy
mountain.” The design of this signal is to arouse the inhabitants of the land, and to
apprise them that an event of terrible magnitude is close at hand. The Day is the
judgment day of the Lord. There is a climax in the clauses announcing its approach,
“it is coming,” “it is near,” i. e., its coming is not an event of the far distant future, but
it will be very soon.
1. The day of the Lord (Joe_1:15; Joe_2:1; Joe_3:4-14), is a phrase used only by the
prophets. If, as some think, Obadiah is the oldest, the phrase occurs first in Oba_
1:15, and next in the above marked places in Joel. If this view of the relative ages of
these prophets be correct, we may assume that the phrase was introduced into
prophetic language by Obadiah. Certainly Joel uses it in a way to show that he
regarded the idea expressed by it as one well known to those for whom he
prophesied, though, as Ewald suggests, the expression may be here presented in its
oldest and simplest form. “As the king of a vast empire,—Ewald adds,—may for a
time so completely disappear from the view of his subjects, as to be the same as if he
had ceased to exist, and then suddenly reappear among them, in the fullness of his
power to hold a long delayed assize, so the Invisible One may put off, or seem to put
off the day when He will appear as the Supreme Judge. The idea of the “day of the
Lord” is closely connected with that of Jehovah as king, who as such has a “day” for
men,—a day in the pregnant sense of the word, a day for judgment. Jehovah as king
must and will, in due time, suddenly and miraculously judge and subdue all who are
in rebellion against Him. He will subject all things to his own holy and righteous
control, thus showing that his will is the only and absolute rule; and will rectify all
that is now disorderly in the condition of things on the earth. As Israel was then the
kingdom of Jehovah in a special sense, “the day” for Israel as God’s people, would be
the epoch of their perfect and glorious deliverance from all their enemies. This
appears in Joel 3. The “day” is that one on which Jehovah sits in judgment on all his
foes, and when Israel’s prosperity begins. Yet it is even for Israel a day of judgment,—
one that shall make it manifest whether they are faithful or not to their obligations as
God’s people. If not, even they shall be destroyed, unless timely repentance
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intervenes. This view is presented in chaps, 1–2. Thus while the ultimate result of the
judgment will be the salvation and glory of Israel, the immediate design of the day of
the Lord is the punishment of the heathen as the enemies of his people, and of the
latter as well if untrue to their covenant relation. Hence all the predicates that
describe the day, mark it as one of judgment. It is “great and very terrible” (Joe_2:11;
Joe_3:4); “dark and gloomy” (Joe_2:2; Amo_5:18; Isa_2:12). In the announcement
of this “day,” Israel is not so much consoled, as warned against self-conceit and
security,—a warning all the more earnest on account of the uncertainty of its coming.
Hence men should be always ready for it. Still, Joel does not as yet seem to know how
far the kingdoms of Israel and of Judah may be faithless to their calling as God’s
people, nor what divine judgment shall overtake them. He sees them, on the one
hand, menaced by judgments, but on the other hand, by their penitence averting
them, so that actually these judgments in their destructive power fall upon the
heathen alone, while Israel and Judah are redeemed and glorified. The éåֹíÎéְäåָä is the
ἡìÝñá ôïῦ êõñßïõ of the New Testament. Joel, however, does not use the phrase “day of the
Lord” with reference to the hope of Messiah’s coming, since we find no such hope in any
part of his prophecy.
2. The next question is this,—Considering the “day of the Lord” as one of menace to Israel,
how was it regarded by the prophet himself? We begin by saying that the “day,” as viewed by
Joel, was not marked by a series of events, but by a single, sudden, and conclusive act. And
therefore Keil applies modern speculative notions to the exposition of the phrase, when he
says, “each particular judgment by which God chastises his own people for their sins, or
destroys the enemies of his kingdom, may be regarded as a moment in the ‘day of the Lord.’ ”
If so, why should Joel connect the approach of that day with the visitation of locusts? As
already mentioned in Joel 1. the allegoric signification assigned by some to the locusts (i. e.,
hostile hosts), has arisen out of the union of two heterogeneous things. This allegoric sense
may be found in those other prophets, one of whose chief themes was the judgment to be
inflicted upon Israel by means of heathen nations—a judgment which then appears as “the
day of the Lord” for Israel. But the verbal text will not admit of this principle of
interpretation in Joel 1. The objection, however, does not hold in Joel 2, where the prophet
describes the entrance of swarms of locusts into the land as an actual event, and also
designates it as the coming of the day of the Lord. Some interpreters take the locust visitation
as a presage and a symbol of an invasion by hosts of a different kind, partly on the ground
that it is denoted as the coming of the day of the Lord, and partly from the use of the term
“northern” in Joe_2:20, which cannot be applied to the locusts. There is, however, not much
force in the first of these considerations, for while there is, in a general way, an obvious
analogy between the swarms of locusts and an invading army, much is here said about the
one that will not apply to the other. The reference to Isaiah 13. is more to the purpose, for he
quotes the very words of Joel, and describes the judgment of Babel in terms that show that he
understood the locust invasion in an allegoric sense. But though the language of the two
prophets is so similar, it does not follow that they refer to the same events, nor that their
words are to be understood in precisely the same sense.
But there are positive difficulties in the way of the allegoric interpretation of this chapter. For
example, what can be meant by “driving the locusts into the sea” (Joe_2:20)? Again, the
question arises, if Israel is threatened by an enemy, by what one? The word “northern” proves
nothing. It is strange, on this theory, that while Joel describes the judgment on Israel by some
foe, he gives us no hint even by which to identify him. There is no indication that the heathen
nations were to be the chosen instruments for this purpose. On the contrary, what they do
against Israel is exhibited as a crime which shall bring down God’s judgments on their own
head. This method of exposition also overlooks the differences in the times when the several
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prophets lived. In Joel’s days, the great empires had not yet appeared as the special
instruments of God’s judgments on his covenant people. In this character they had not yet
come within the range of the prophet’s vision. He knew, indeed, that Israel’s sins deserved,
and would receive chastisement, but he had not yet been told that the heathen nations would
be God’s agents in inflicting it. Whenever they are named, it is as being themselves the
objects of wrath, while Israel appears as a penitent and the recipient of God’s mercy.
But it may be said that while the prophet describes a real locust visitation, he sees in it, at
least to a certain extent, a type of the “day of the Lord—a day of judgment; or in other words,
what the land had already experienced might warn its inhabitants that they would have a still
more bitter experience when that “day” arrived. But the difficulty is that if we suppose one
event to be in any sense formally typical of the other, we find in the minutely detailed
account of the type much that in no way corresponds with the antitype. The darkness, the
terror, and the desolation produced by the locusts might be in themselves typical, but these
are the features on which the least emphasis is laid by the prophet.
The view which we prefer is this. The land had been desolated by locusts to an unparalleled
extent. The prophet had reason to fear that this was the harbinger of a worse calamity of the
same sort. He sees in the visitation the beginning of the day of the Lord. The locust army is
led by God himself, and hence the lively colors of that picture of it which he draws. The
plague of locusts and the day of the Lord are not to be taken as two distinct things. They
differ, not like the type and the antitype, but as the beginning and the end of the same thing.
And so he says, “the day of the Lord cometh, it is near.” He sees its approach, still he hopes
that the repentance of the people in answer to his earnest appeals, will ward off its further
effects,—that Israel, warned and taught by the earlier and merely relative judgment, may
escape the final one, and that the enemies of God’s people alone shall be overwhelmed by it.
The day of the Lord in the highest sense of the words, did not, indeed, come with the
calamity by which Israel was then chastised, but each preliminary judgment was really the
precursor and pledge of the absolute and final one. All that we can affirm is that the prophet
saw in this locust visitation not merely a natural phenomenon, but the finger of God. In these
terrible scenes he hears the voice of the Living God calling his people to repentance. As
God’s messenger he reechoes the earnest appeal, knowing that ere long He will come to
judge his people, though the exact time of his coming none can tell.
CALVIN, "This chapter contains serious exhortations, mixed with threatening; but
the Prophet threatens for the purpose of correcting the indifference of the people,
whom we have seen to have been very tardy to consider God’ judgments. Now the
reason why I wished to join together these eleven verses was, because the design of
the Prophet in them is no other than to stir up by fear the minds of the people. The
object of the narrative then is, to make the people sensible, that it was now no time
for taking rest; for the Lord, having long tolerated their wickedness, was now
resolved to pour upon them in full torrent his whole fiery. This is the sum of the
whole. Let us now come to the words.
Sound the trumpet, he says, in Zion; cry out in my holy mountain; let all the
inhabitants of the earth tremble. The Prophet begins with an exhortation. We know,
indeed that he alludes to the usual custom sanctioned by the law; for as on festivals
trumpets were sounded to call the people, so also it was done when anything
extraordinary happened. Hence the Prophet addresses not each individually; but as
all had done wickedly, from the least to the greatest, he bids the whole assembly to be
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called, that they might in common own themselves to be guilty before God, and
deprecate his vengeance. It is the same as though the Prophet had said that there was
no one among the people who could exempt himself from blame, for iniquity had
prevailed through the whole body. But this passage shows that when any judgment of
God is impending, and tokens of it appear, this remedy ought to be used, namely,
that all must publicly assemble and confess themselves worthy of punishments and
at the same time flee to the mercy of God. This, we know, was, as I have already said,
formerly enjoined on the people; and this practice has not been abolished by the
gospel. And it hence appears how much we have departed from the right and lawful
order of things; for at this day it would be new and unusual to proclaim a fast. How
so? Because the greater part are become hardened; and as they know not commonly
what repentance is, so they understand not what the profession of repentance means;
for they understand not what sin is, what the wrath of God is, what grace is. It is then
no wonder that they are so secure, and that when praying for pardon is mentioned, it
is a thing wholly unknown at this day. But though people in general are thus stupid,
it is yet our duty to learn from the Prophets what has always been the actual mode of
proceeding among the people of God, and to labor as much as we can, that this may
be known, so that when there shall come an occasion for a public repentance, even
the most ignorant may understand that this practice has ever prevailed in the Church
of God, and that it did not prevail through inconsiderate zeal of men, but through the
will of God himself.
But he bids the inhabitants of the land to tremble. By these words he intimates, that
we are not to trifle with God by vain ceremonies but to deal with him in earnest.
When therefore, the trumpets sound, our hearts ought to tremble; and thus the
reality is to be connected with the outward signs. And this ought to be carefully
noticed; for the world is ever disposed to have an eye to some outward service, and
thinks that a satisfaction is given to God, when some external rite is observed. But we
do nothing but mock God, when we present him with ceremonies, while there is no
corresponding sincere feeling in the heart; and this is what we shall find handled in
another place.
The Prophet now adds threatening, that he might stir up the minds of the people: For
coming, he says,is the day of Jehovah for nigh it is. By these words he first intimates
that we are not to wait until God strikes us, but that as soon as he shows signs of his
wrath, we ought to anticipate his judgment. When God then warns us of his
displeasure, we ought instantly to solicit pardon: nigh, he says, is the day of Jehovah.
What follows has a regard to the end which we have mentioned; for the Prophet
paints the terrible judgment of God with the view of rousing minds wholly stupid and
indifferent.
COFFMAN, "This chapter begins with the announcement that "the day of Jehovah
cometh," and the summons of all of the people to a solemn convocation in the
presence of God (Joel 2:1-3). There is a strong eschatological overtone in Joel 2:1, a
note which is echoed again and again in the chapter. "The eschatological warning
already sounded in Joel 1:15 is several times repeated (Joel 2:1,2,10,11)."[1] "A more
terrific judgment than that of the locusts is foretold, under imagery drawn from that
of the calamity then engrossing the afflicted nation."[2] Next comes a description of
the threatened judgment, "in metaphors more distinctly military in nature,"[3] (Joel
2:4-11). A solemn appeal for genuine heart-felt repentance is then made, based upon
the premise that, "Who knoweth whether he (God) will repent, and leave a blessing
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behind him?" (Joel 2:12-14). The call for a solemn assembly is repeated (Joel
2:15-17); a reaffirmation of God's care for his people and a promise of his blessing are
given (Joel 2:15-20); a continued affirmation of the favored status of Israel as God's
chosen people appears (Joel 2:21-27); and, finally, the chapter has, "a promise of the
Holy Spirit in the last days under the Messiah, and the deliverance of all believers in
Him,"[4] (Joel 2:28-32). This last paragraph is written as a separate chapter in the
Hebrew Bible, giving four chapters instead of three in that version of Joel.
Joel 2:1
"Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain; let all the
inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of Jehovah cometh, for it is nigh at hand.
"Blow ye the trumpet in Zion ..." This verse interprets the awful calamity that had
come upon the people, "as a warning of `the day of Jehovah' which was to come, the
dawn of which was already breaking."[5] The blowing of the trumpet was used in the
early history of Israel to call the people to the door of the tent of meeting (the
tabernacle) during the wilderness wanderings, as a signal to start their journey from
one station to another, or as means of calling the people together for a great
assembly. This "horn blowing" therefore became a symbol connected with such
occasions in all the subsequent history of Israel, and at times long after there was any
possibility that "all the inhabitants of the land" would actually be able literally to hear
the sound of a trumpet blown in Jerusalem. The N.T. writers extended the imagery of
this "blowing of the trumpet" in a number of references to the final judgment, a usage
that goes back to Christ himself who said, "And he shall send forth his angels with a
great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four
winds, from one end of heaven to the other" (Matthew 24:31). (See 1 Corinthians
15:52; 1 Thessalonians 4:16; and Hebrews 12:19). In the light of this, how
unreasonable are the interpretations which insist that because of Joel's using this
figure, the entire nation of the Jews was only a small community when he wrote, and
actually living within earshot of Jerusalem! This is one of those "interpretations"
relied upon heavily as evidence of a late post-exilic date.
"Sound an alarm in my holy mountain ..." The holy mountain here is the same as
Zion, both being poetic references to the high hill (2,539 feet above sea level)[6] in
Jerusalem upon which the temple was built. It was also called Mount Moriah and is
the same as the mountain where Abraham offered up Isaac, and where David
returned the ark of the covenant from Obed-Edom, and where the cross of the Son of
God was lifted up. As Deane said, "This mountain was the visible symbol of the divine
presence";[7] and therefore the spiritual impact of this blowing of the trumpet (or
ram's horn) had the effect of a summons for the people to stand in the presence of
the Lord.
"Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble ..." Perhaps those whose place of
residence made it possible for them would also have actually assembled in the city of
Jerusalem.
"For the day of Jehovah cometh, for it is nigh at hand ..." (For discussion of "the day
13

of Jehovah," see under Joel 1:15.) To the prophets of the O.T., and even the N.T. for
that matter, "the day of the Lord" is always "at hand," the same being profoundly
true, if the expression be understood as signaling the impending judgment of God
upon the grossly wicked, or if it is taken as a reference to that great and final day,
when Almighty God shall rise in righteous wrath and throw evil out of his universe.
The first is always an earnest of the second. No greater misunderstanding of the
Sacred Scriptures is current in the world today than the notion that Christ himself,
and all of his apostles, thought that "the end of the world" was just around the
corner. Christ indeed mentioned "the end of the world" in Matthew 28:10, but he
certainly did not indicate that that event was impending or immediate. The "day of
the Lord" and the "day of judgment," in its last and final manifestation will indeed
evidently occur at the end of the world; but the widespread assumption that every
N.T. reference to such things as "the day of the Lord," "the day of judgment, or the
coming of Christ (in judgment) is a certain reference to the end of time is absolutely
incorrect. Many cities, nations and peoples have already experienced "the day of the
Lord," as did Tyre, Sidon, Sodom, Gomorrah, Nineveh, Babylon, Jerusalem and
Rome; and doubtless many others will also yet pass through similar "judgments"
before the actual "end of time" is reached.
COKE, "Joel 2:1. Blow ye the trumpet, &c.— The prophet in the preceding chapter
describes the locusts as the army of God; and now, in pursuance of the same
metaphor, exhorts the people to prepare to meet them, in the same terms as if they
were alarmed to oppose an enemy, which was always done by the sound of the
trumpet. The trumpet in Zephaniah is the same which sounds in Joel; and therefore
both proclaim the same event;—the destruction of Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar.
See Zephaniah 2:1-2. The same famine, drought, and destruction from the Almighty,
are foretold by Jeremiah: and indeed the destruction of Jerusalem, and the
subsequent captivity under Nebuchadnezzar, are mentioned by all the prophets who
lived from the days of Uzziah to those of Zedekiah; in the eleventh year of whose
reign the city was besieged. See Sharpe's Second Argument.
2 a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and blackness.
Like dawn spreading across the mountains
a large and mighty army comes,
such as never was in ancient times
nor ever will be in ages to come.
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BARNES, "A day of darkness and of gloominess - o: “A day full of miseries;
wherefore he accumulates so many names of terrors. There was inner darkness in the
heart, and the darkness of tribulation without. They hid themselves in dark places.
There was the cloud between God and them; so that they were not protected nor
heard by Him, of which Jeremiah saith, “Thou hast covered Thyself with a cloud, that
our prayers should not pass through” Lam_3:44. There was the whirlwind of tempest
within and without, taking away all rest, tranquility and peace. Whence Jeremiah
hath, “A whirlwind of the Lord is gone forth injury, it shall fall grievously upon the
head of the wicked. The anger of the Lord shall not return, until He have executed it”
Jer_23:19. “The Day of the Lord too shall come as a thief in the night” 1Th_5:2.
“Clouds and darkness are round about Him” Psa_97:2.
A day of clouds and of thick darkness - The locusts are but the faint shadow
of the coming evils, yet as the first harbingers of God’s successive judgments, the
imagery, even in tills picture is probably taken from them. At least there is nothing in
which writers, of every character, are so agreed, as in speaking of locusts as clouds
darkening the sun. : “These creatures do not come in legions, but in whole clouds, 5
or 6 leagues in length and 2 or 3 in breadth. All the air is full and darkened when they
fly. Though the sun shine ever so bright, it is no brighter than when most clouded.” :
“In Senegal we have seen a vast multitude of locusts shadowing the air, for they come
almost every three years, and darken the sky.” : “About 8 o’clock there arose above us
a thick cloud, which darkened the air, depriving us of the rays of the sun. Every one
was astonished at so sudden a change in the air, which is so seldom clouded at this
season; but we soon saw that it was owing to a cloud of locusts. It was about 20 or 30
toises from the ground (120-180 feet) and covered several leagues of the country,
when it discharged a shower of locusts, who fed there while they rested, and then
resumed their flight. This cloud was brought by a pretty strong wind, it was all the
morning passing the neighborhood, and the same wind, it was thought, precipitated
it in the sea.” : “They take off from the place the light of day, and a sort of eclipse is
formed.” : “In the middle of April their numbers were so vastly increased, that in the
heat of the day they formed themselves into large bodies, appeared like a succession
of clouds and darkened the sun.” : “On looking up we perceived an immense cloud,
here and there semi-transparent, in other parts quite black, that spread itself all over
the sky, and at intervals shadowed the sun.”
The most unimaginative writers have said the same ; “When they first appear, a
thick dark cloud is seen very high in the air, which, as it passes, obscures the sun.
Their swarms were so astonishing in all the steppes over which we passed in this part
of our journey (the Crimea,) that the whole face of nature might have been described
as concealed by a living veil.” : “When these clouds of locusts take their flight to
surmount some obstacle, or traverse more rapidly a desert soil, one may say, to the
letter, that the heaven is darkened by them.”
As the morning spread upon the mountains - Some have thought this too to
allude to the appearance which the inhabitants of Abyssinia too well knew, as
preceding the coming of the locusts (see the note at Joe_2:6). A sombre yellow light
is cast on the ground, from the reflection, it was thought, of their yellow wings. But
that appearance itself seems to be unique to that country, or perhaps to certain
flights of locusts. The image naturally describes, the suddenness, universality of the
darkness, when people looked for light. As the mountain-tops first catch the
gladdening rays of the sun, ere yet it riseth on the plains, and the light spreads from
height to height, until the whole earth is arrayed in light, so wide and universal shall
the outspreading be, but it shall be of darkness, not of light; the light itself shall be
turned into darkness.
A great people and a strong - The imagery throughout these verses is taken
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from the flight and inroad of locusts. The allegory is so complete, that the prophet
compares them to those things which are, in part, intended under them, warriors,
horses and instruments of war; and this, the more, because neither locusts, nor
armies are exclusively intended. The object of the allegory is to describe the order
and course of the divine judgments; how they are terrific, irresistible, universal,
overwhelming, penetrating everywhere, overspreading all things, excluded by
nothing. The locusts are the more striking symbol of this, through their minuteness
and their number. They are little miniatures of a wellordered army, unhindered by
what would be physical obstacles to larger creatures, moving in order inimitable even
by man, and, from their number, desolating to the uttermost. “What more countless
or mightier than the locusts,” asks Jerome, who had seen their inroads, “which
human industry cannot resist?” “It is a thing invincible,” says Cyril, “their invasion is
altogether irresistible, and suffices utterly to destroy all in the fields.” Yet each of
these creatures is small, so that they would be powerless and contemptible, except in
the Hands of Him, who brings them in numbers which can be wielded only by the
Creator. Wonderful image of the judgments of God, who marshals and combines in
one, causes each unavailing in itself but working together the full completion of His
inscrutable Will.
There hath not been ever the like - The courses of sin and of punishment are
ever recommencing anew in some part of the world and of the Church. The whole
order of each, sin and punishment, will culminate once only, in the Day of Judgment.
Then only will these words have their complete fulfillment. The Day of Judgment
alone is that Day of terror and of woe, such as never has been before, and shall never
be again. For there will be no new day or time of terror. Eternal punishment will only
be the continuation of the sentence adjudged then. But, in time and in the course of
God’s Providential government, the sins of each soul or people or Church draw down
visitations, which are God’s final judgments there. Such to the Jewish people, before
the captivity, was the destruction of the temple, the taking of Jerusalem by
Nebuchadnezzar, and that captivity itself. The Jewish polity was never again restored
as before.
Such, to the new polity after the captivity, was the destruction by the Romans.
Eighteen hundred years have seen nothing like it. The Vandals and then the Muslims
swept over the Churches of North Africa, each destructive in its own way. twelve
centuries have witnessed one unbroken desolation of the Church in Africa. In
Constantinople, and Asia Minor, Palestine, Persia, Churches of the Redeemer became
the mosques of the false prophet. Centuries have flowed by, “yet we see not our signs,
neither is there any among us, that knoweth how long” Psa_74:9. Wealthy, busy,
restless, intellectual, degraded, London, sender forth of missionaries, but, save in
China, the largest pagan city in the world; converter of the isles of the sea, but thyself
unconverted; fullest of riches and of misery, of civilization and of savage life, of
refinements and debasement; heart, whose pulses are felt in every continent, but
thyself diseased and feeble, wilt thou, in this thy day, anticipate by thy conversion the
Day of the Lord, or will It come upon thee, “as hath never been the like, nor shall be,
for the years of many generations?” Shalt thou win thy lost ones to Christ, or be
thyself the birthplace or abode of antichrist? “O Lord God, Thou knowest.”
Yet the words have fulfillments short of the end. Even of successive chastisements
upon the same people, each may have some aggravation unique to itself, so that of
each, in turn, it may be said, in that respect, that no former visitation had been like it,
none afterward should resemble it. Thus the Chaldaeans were chief in fierceness,
Antiochus Epiphanes in his madness against God, the Romans in the completeness
of the desolation. The fourth beast which Daniel saw “was dreadful and terrible and
strong exceedingly, and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it” Dan_
7:7-19. The persecutions of the Roman Emperors were in extent and cruelty far
16

beyond any before them. They shall be as nothing, in comparison to the
deceivableness and oppression of antichrist. The prophet, however, does not say that
there should be absolutely none like it, but only not “for the years of many
genertions.” The words “unto generation and generation” elsewhere mean “forever;”
here the word “years” may limit them to length of time. God, after some signal
visitation, leaves a soul or a people to the silent workings of His grace or of His
Providence. The marked interpositions of His Providence, are like His extraordinary
miracles, rare; else, like the ordinary miracles of His daily operations, they would
cease to be interpositions.
CLARKE, "A day of darkness, etc - The depredations of the locusts are
described from the second to the eleventh verse, and their destruction in the
twentieth. Dr. Shaw, who saw locusts in Barbary in 1724 and 1725, thus describes
them: -
“I never observed the mantes, bald locusts, to be gregarious. But the locusts,
properly so called, which are so frequently mentioned by sacred as well as profane
writers, are sometimes so beyond expression. Those which I saw in 1724 and 1725
were much bigger than our common grasshopper; and had brown spotted wings,
with legs and bodies of a bright yellow. Their first appearance was toward the latter
end of March, the wind having been for some time south. In the middle of April their
numbers were so vastly increased that, in the heat of the day, they formed themselves
into large and numerous swarms; flew in the air like a succession of clouds; and, as
the prophet Joel expresses it, (Joe_2:10) they darkened the sun. When the wind blew
briskly, so that these swarms were crowded by others, or thrown one upon another,
we had a lively idea of that comparison of the psalmist, (Psa_109:23), of being
‘tossed up and down as the locust.’ In the month of May, when the ovaries of those
insects were ripe and turgid, each of these swarms began gradually to disappear; and
retired into the Mettijiah, and other adjacent plains, where they deposited their eggs.
These were no sooner hatched in June, than each of these broods collected itself into
a compact body of a furlong or more in square; and, marching immediately forward
in the direction of the sea, they let nothing escape them; eating up every thing that
was green and juicy, not only the lesser kinds of vegetables, but the vine likewise; the
fig tree, the pomegranate, the palm, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field,
Joe_1:12; in doing which they kept their ranks like men of war; climbing over, as they
advanced, every tree or wall that was in their way. Nay, they entered into our very
houses and bedchambers, like so many thieves. The inhabitants, to stop their
progress, made a variety of pits and trenches all over their fields and gardens, which
they filled with water; or else they heaped up in them heath, stubble, and such like
combustible matter, which were severally set on fire upon the approach of the
locusts. But this was all to no purpose, for the trenches were quickly filled up, and the
fires extinguished, by infinite swarms succeeding one another; while the front was
regardless of danger, and the rear pressed on so close, that a retreat was altogether
impossible. A day or two after one of these broods was in motion, others were already
hatched to march and glean after them; gnawing off the very bark, and the young
branches, of such trees as had before escaped with the loss only of their fruit and
foliage. So justly have they been compared by the prophet Joel (Joe_2:3) to a great
army; who further observes, that ‘the land is as the garden of Eden before them and
behind them a desolate wilderness.’
“Having lived near a month in this manner (like a µυριοστοµον ξιφος, or sword with
ten thousand edges, to which they have been compared), upon the ruin and
destruction of every vegetable substance which came in their way, they arrived at
17

their full growth, and threw old their nympha state by casting their outward skin. To
prepare themselves for this change, they clung by their hinder feet to some bush,
twig, or corner of a stone; and immediately, by using an undulating motion, their
heads would first break out, and then the rest of their bodies. The whole
transformation was performed in seven or eight minutes, after which they lay for a
short time in a torpid and seemingly languishing condition; but as soon ad the sun
and air had hardened their wings, by drying up the moisture which remained upon
them, after casting their sloughs, they reassumed their former voracity, with an
addition both of strength and agility. Yet they did not continue long in this state
before they were entirely dispersed, as their parents were before, after they had laid
their eggs; and as the direction of the marches and flights of them both was always to
the northward, and not having strength, as they have sometimes had, to reach the
opposite shores of Italy France, or Spain, it is probable they perished in the sea, a
grave which, according to these people, they have in common with other winged
creatures.” - Travels, 4to. edition pp. 187, 188.
A day of darkness - They sometimes obscure the sun. And Thuanus observes of
an immense crowd, that “they darkened the sun at mid-day.”
As the morning spread upon the mountains - They appeared suddenly: as
the sun, in rising behind the mountains, shoots his rays over them. Adanson, in his
voyage to Senegal, says: “Suddenly there came over our heads a thick cloud which
darkened the air, and deprived us or the rays of the sun. We soon found that it was
owing to a cloud of locusts.” Some clouds of them are said to have darkened the sun
for a mile, and others for the space of twelve miles! See the note on Joe_2:10 (note).
GILL, "A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick
darkness,.... Alluding to the gloomy and thick darkness caused by the locusts, which
sometimes come in prodigious numbers, like thick clouds, and darken the air; so the
land of Egypt was darkened by them, Exo_10:15; historians and travellers relate, as
Bochart (f) has shown, that these creatures will fly like a cloud, and darken the
heavens at noonday, cover the sun, and hinder the rays of it from touching the earth;
though all these phrases may be expressive of great afflictions and calamities, which
are often in Scripture signified by darkness, as prosperity is by light; see Isa_8:22;
as the morning spread upon the mountains; as the morning light, when it first
appears, diffuses itself in a moment throughout the earth, and is first seen on the
tops of the mountains (g); so these locusts, and this calamity threatened, should
suddenly and at once come, and be spread over the whole land; and which could no
more be resisted than the morning light. The Vulgate Latin version renders it, in
connection with the next clause, "as the morning spread upon the mountains, a
people much and mighty"; but the accents will not admit of it; though it may seem a
little improper that the same thing should be as a dark day, and: the morning light;
wherefore Cocceius understands the whole of the day of Christ, which was light to
many nations, and darkness to the wicked Jews:
a great people and a strong; numerous and mighty, many in number, mighty in
strength; so the locusts are represented as a nation and people for might and
multitude, Joe_1:6; an emblem of the Chaldeans and Babylonians, who were a large
and powerful people:
there hath not been ever the like, neither shall any more after it,
18

even to the years of many generations; that is, in the land of Judea; otherwise
there might have been the like before in other places, as in Egypt, and since in other
countries. Jarchi, Aben Ezra, and Kimchi, account for it thus; that it was never
known, before or since, that four kinds of locusts came together; as for the plague of
Egypt, there was but one sort of them, they say; but it is best to understand it of the
like not having been in the same country: and such a numerous and powerful army as
that of the Chaldeans had not been in Judea, and made such havoc and desolation as
that did; nor would any hereafter, for many generations, even until the Romans came
and took away their place and nation.
HENRY, "Here is the army drawn up in array (Joe_2:2): They are a great people,
and a strong. Any one sees the vast numbers that there shall be of locusts and
caterpillars, destroying the land, will say (as we are all apt to be most affected with
what is present), “Surely, never was the like before, nor ever will be the like again.”
Note, Extraordinary judgments are rare things, and seldom happen, which is an
instance of God's patience. When God had drowned the world once he promised
never to do it again. The army is here describe to be, 1. Very bold and daring: They
are as horses, as war-horses, that rush into the battle and are not affrighted (Job_
39:22); and as horsemen, carried on with martial fire and fury, so they shall run,
Joe_2:4. Some of the ancients have observed that the head of a locust is very like, in
shape, to the head of a horse. 2. Very loud and noisy - like the noise of chariots, of
many chariots, when driven furiously over rough ground, on the tops of the
mountains, Joe_2:5. Hence is borrowed part of the description of the locusts which
St. John saw rise out of the bottomless pit. Rev_9:7, Rev_9:9, The shapes of the
locusts were like unto horses prepared to the battle; and the sound of their wings
was as the sound of chariots, of many horses running to the battle. Historians tell us
that the noise made by swarms of locusts in those countries that are infested with
them has sometimes been heard six miles off. The noise is likewise compared to that
of a roaring fire; it is like the noise of a flame that devours the stubble, which noise
is the more terrible because that which it is the indication of is devouring. Note,
When God's judgments are abroad they make a great noise; and it is necessary for the
awakening of a secure and stupid world that they should do so. (3.) They are very
regular, and keep ranks in their march; though numerous and greedy of spoil, yet
they are as a strong people set in battle array (Joe_2:5.): They shall march every
one on his ways, straight forward, as if they had been trained up by the discipline of
war to keep their post and observe their right-hand man. They shall not break their
ranks, nor one thrust another, Joe_2:7, Joe_2:8. Their number and swiftness shall
breed no confusion. See how God can make creatures to act by rule that have no
reason to act by, when he designs to serve his own purposes by them. And see how
necessary it is that those who are employed in any service for God should observe
order, and keep ranks, should diligently go on in their own work and stand in one
another's way. 4. They are very swift; they run like horsemen (Joe_2:4), run like
mighty men (Joe_2:7); they run to and fro in the city, and run upon the wall, Joe_
2:9. When God sends forth his command on earth his word runs very swiftly, Psa_
147:15. Angels have wings, and so have locusts, when God makes use of them.
JAMISON, "darkness ... gloominess ... clouds ... thick darkness —
accumulation of synonyms, to intensify the picture of calamity (Isa_8:22).
Appropriate here, as the swarms of locusts intercepting the sunlight suggested
darkness as a fit image of the coming visitation.
as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people — Substitute a
comma for a colon after mountains: As the morning light spreads itself over the
mountains, so a people numerous [Maurer] and strong shall spread themselves. The
19

suddenness of the rising of the morning light, which gilds the mountain tops first, is
less probably thought by others to be the point of comparison to the sudden inroad of
the foe. Maurer refers it to the yellow splendor which arises from the reflection of the
sunlight on the wings of the immense hosts of locusts as they approach. This is likely;
understanding, however, that the locusts are only the symbols of human foes. The
immense Assyrian host of invaders under Sennacherib (compare Isa_37:36)
destroyed by God (Joe_2:18, Joe_2:20, Joe_2:21), may be the primary objects of the
prophecy; but ultimately the last antichristian confederacy, destroyed by special
divine interposition, is meant (see on Joe_3:2).
there hath not been ever the like — (Compare Joe_1:2; Exo_10:14).
K&D, "“A day of darkness and obscurity, a day of clouds and cloudy night: like
morning dawn spread over the mountains, a people great and strong: there has not
been the like from all eternity, nor will there be after it even to the years of
generation and generation. Joe_2:3. Before it burneth fire, and behind it flameth
flame: the land before it as the garden of Eden, and behind it like a desolate
wilderness; and even that which escaped did not remain to it.” With four words,
expressing the idea of darkness and obscurity, the day of Jehovah is described as a
day of the manifestation of judgment. The words ‫ל‬ ֶ‫פ‬ ָ‫ר‬ ֲ‫ע‬ַ‫ו‬ ‫ן‬ָ‫נ‬ ָ‫ע‬ ְ‫ך‬ ֶ‫ּשׁ‬‫ח‬ are applied in Deu_4:11
to the cloudy darkness in which Mount Sinai was enveloped, when Jehovah came
down upon it in the fire; and in Exo_10:22, the darkness which fell upon Egypt as the
ninth plague is called ‫ה‬ ָ‫ל‬ ֵ‫פ‬ ֲ‫.א‬ ‫וגו‬ ‫ר‬ ַ‫ח‬ ַ‫שׁ‬ ְⅴ does not belong to what precedes, nor does it
mean blackness or twilight (as Ewald and some Rabbins suppose), but “the morning
dawn.” The subject to pârus (spread) is neither yōm (day), which precedes it, nor ‛am
(people), which follows; for neither of these yields a suitable thought at all. The
subject is left indefinite: “like morning dawn is it spread over the mountains.” The
prophet's meaning is evident enough from what follows. He clearly refers to the
bright glimmer or splendour which is seen in the sky as a swarm of locusts
approaches, from the reflection of the sun's rays from their wings.
(Note: The following is the account given by the Portuguese monk Francis
Alvarez, in his Journey through Abyssinia (Oedmann, Vermischte Sammlungen,
vi. p. 75): “The day before the arrival of the locusts we could infer that they were
coming, from a yellow reflection in the sky, proceeding from their yellow wings.
As soon as this light appeared, no one had the slightest doubt that an enormous
swarm of locusts was approaching.” He also says, that during his stay in the town
of Barua he himself saw this phenomenon, and that so vividly, that even the earth
had a yellow colour from the reflection. The next day a swarm of locusts came.)
With ‫צוּם‬ ָ‫ע‬ְ‫ו‬ ‫ב‬ ַ‫ר‬ ‫ם‬ ַ‫ע‬ (a people great and strong) we must consider the verb ‫א‬ ָ (cometh) in
Exo_10:1 as still retaining its force. Yōm (day) and ‛âm (people) have the same
predicate, because the army of locusts carries away the day, and makes it into a day
of cloudy darkness. The darkening of the earth is mentioned in connection with the
Egyptian plague of locusts in Exo_10:15, and is confirmed by many witnesses (see the
comm. on Ex. l.c.). The fire and the flame which go both before and behind the great
and strong people, viz., the locusts, cannot be understood as referring to the brilliant
light kindled as it were by the morning dawn, which proceeds from the fiery armies
of the vengeance of God, i.e., the locusts (Umbreit), nor merely to the burning heat of
the drought by which everything is consumed (Joe_1:19); but this burning heat is
heightened here into devouring flames of fire, which accompany the appearing of
God as He comes to judgment at the head of His army, after the analogy of the fiery
phenomena connected with the previous manifestations of God, both in Egypt, where
20

a terrible hail fell upon the land before the plague of locusts, accompanied by thunder
and balls of fire (Exo_9:23-24), and also at Sinai, upon which the Lord came down
amidst thunder and lightning, and spoke to the people out of the fire (Exo_19:16-18;
Deu_4:11-12). The land, which had previously resembled the garden of paradise
(Gen_2:8), was changed in consequence into a desolate wilderness. ‫ה‬ ָ‫יט‬ ֵ‫ל‬ ְ does not
mean escape or deliverance, either here or in Oba_1:17, but simply that which has
run away or escaped. Here it signifies that part of the land which has escaped the
devastation; for it is quite contrary to the usage of the language to refer ‫ּו‬‫ל‬, as most
commentators do, to the swarm of locusts, from which there is no escape, no
deliverance (cf. 2Sa_15:14; Jdg_21:17; Ezr_9:13, in all of which ְ‫ל‬ refers to the
subject, to which the thing that escaped was assigned). Consequently ‫ּו‬‫ל‬ can only refer
to ‫ץ‬ ֶ‫ר‬ፎ ָ‫.ה‬ The perfect ‫ה‬ ָ‫ת‬ְ‫י‬ ָ‫ה‬ stands related to ‫יו‬ ָ‫ר‬ ֲ‫ח‬ፍ, according to which the swarm of
locusts had already completed the devastation.
PULPIT, "A day of darkness and of glooming, a day of clouds and of thick darkness.
It was, indeed, a day of Divine judgment, a day of sore distress. Besides the common
terms for "darkness" and "cloud," there are two other terms, àÂôÅìÈä , thick and
dense darkness, such as ensues after sunset; the root àÈôÇì , though not used in the
Hebrew, is cognate with the Arabic afala, properly, to "set as the sun:" compare
naphal, nabhal, abhal; while òÀøÈôÆì is blended from the triliterals òÈøÄéó , a
cloud, and àÈôÇì , to be dark (compare ο ρφνός and ο ρφνή ), darkness of donas,
thick clouds.
(1) Some understand this darkness literally, as in the description of the plague of
locusts in Egypt it is written, "They covered the face of the whole earth, so that the
land was darkened."
(2) Others understand it figuratively, as light denotes prosperity, and darkness
adversity. Thus Kimchi says, "Affliction is likened to darkness, as joy is likened to
light." At the same time, he mentions the literal exposition: "Or," he says, "through
the multitude of the locusts the land is darkened;" and refers to Exo_10:15, "For they
covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened."
As the morning spread upon the mountains.
(1) Some explain this of the locust-army stretching far like the morning light, as it
breaks over the hills. Thus Pococke, "If shachar be rendered, as most generally, the
morning, and the light thereof meant, then the meaning thereof seems to express the
sudden coming and the widespreading of the thing spoken of, so as not to be
hindered, in that resembling the morning light, which in a moment discovers itself
on the tops of the mountains (on which it first appeareth), though at never so great a
distance one from another." The wide and quick diffusion of this plague, like that of
the morning light, is the thing meant. But
(2) Keil understands shachar of the yellow light which proceeds from swarms of
locusts as they approach, and translates, "Like morning dawn spread over the
mountains is it" (i.e. the glimmer on their wings). "The prophet's meaning," he adds,
"is evident enough from what follows. He clearly refers to the bright glimmer, or
21

splendour, which is seen in the sky as a swarm of locusts approaches, from the
reflection of the sun's rays from their wings." Thus the subject is neither yom nor ‛,
which the Vulgate, contrary to the accents, joins to it.
(3) Others. again, connect the expression closely with the "darkness" preceding, and
translate, "Like the morning twilight spread upon the mountains," that is, before it
descends into the valleys. Rather, as Wunsche, "Like the gray of the morning," etc.
(comp. Exo_10:15 and ùçåã and ùéçåø ). Exposition
(1) is confirmed by Rashi, who says, "The locusts and the palmer-worms are spread
over the mountains, as the morning dawn is spread through (in) an the world."
Similarly Aben Ezra, "Like the dawn which is diffused in an instant." Kimchi's
comment is fuller, but to the same effect: "As the morning dawn which is spread over
the mountains as in an instant, for there is called the beginning of the sun in his
going forth, because of their height; so then the locusts are spread and extended over
the land in an instant." With this exposition of the clause we may compare Virgil's—
"Postera vix summos spargebat lumine montes Orta dies."
"The following daybreak had scarce begun to sow the mountain-tops with light."
There hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years
of many generations. This is a hyperbolic mode of speech, to denote the
extraordinary and unusual severity of the disaster. The Hebrew commentators are at
pains to reconcile what appears to them a discrepancy. They say, "It was never
known before or since that four kinds of locusts came to-together;" as for the plague
of Egypt;there was but one sort of them, they say. The correct explanation is that the
like had not been in the same country, that is, the land of Judaea, though elsewhere
there might have been the like, as in Egypt before, or in other countries since.
CALVIN, "And then he says, A day of darkness and of thick darkness, a day of clouds
and of obscurity, as the dawn which expands over the mountains. By calling it a dark
and gloomy day, he wished to show that there would be no hope of deliverance; for,
according to the common usage of Scripture, we know that by light is designated a
cheerful and happy state, or the hope of deliverance from any affliction: but the
Prophet now extinguishes, as it were, every hope in this world, when he declares that
the day of Jehovah would be dark, that is, without hope of restoration. This is his
meaning. When he says afterwards, As the dawn which expands, etc. , he mentions
this to signify the celerity with which it would come; for we know how sudden is the
rising of the dawn on the mountains: the dawn spreads in a moment on the
mountains, where darkness was before. For the light penetrates not immediately
either into valleys or even into plains; but if any one looks at the summits of
mountains, he will see that the dawn rises quickly. It is then the settle as though the
Prophet said, “ day of the Lord is nigh, for the Lord can suddenly stretch forth his
hand, as the dawn spreads over the mountains.”
He then mentions its character, A people great and strong to whom there has not
been the like from the beginning, or from ages and after whom there will be no more
the like, to the years of a generation and a generation. Here the Prophet specifies the
kind of judgment that would be, of which he had generally spoken before; and he
22

shows that what he had hitherto recorded of God’ vengeance ought not to be so
understood as that God would descend openly and visibly from heaven, but that the
Assyrians would be the ministers and executioners of his vengeance. In short, the
Prophet shows here that the coming of that people ought to have been as much
dreaded as if God had put forth his hand and executed on his people the vengeance
deserved by their sins. And by these words he teaches us, that men gain nothing by
being blind to the judgments of God; for God will notwithstanding execute his works
and use the instrumentality of men; for men are the scourges by which he chastises
his own people. The Chaldeans and the Assyrians were unbelievers; yet God used
them for the purpose of correcting the Jews. This the Prophet now shows, that is,
that God was the avenger in these very Assyrians, for he employed them as the
ministers and executioners of his judgment. We see at the same time that the Prophet
describes here the terrible wrath of God to shake off from the Jews their tardiness;
for he saw that they were not moved by all his threatening, and ever laid hold on
some new flattering pretenses. This is the reason why he gives such a long
description.
ELLICOTT, "(2) The morning spread upon the mountains.—The Hebrew word here
used for morning is derived from a verb, Shachar, which has for one meaning “to be
or become black,” for the second “to break forth” as light. From this latter
signification is derived the word for morning—dawn; from the former comes the
word “blackness,” which gives the name Sihor to the Nile (Isaiah 23:3). It seems
accordingly more in harmony with the present context to take the sense of the word
in its reference to blackness, and to understand it as indicating a thick, dark, rolling
cloud settled upon the mountain top. The description following comprehends equally
the natural and political locusts.
COKE, "Joel 2:2. A day of darkness, &c.— We have in this and the following verses a
description of the locusts: their fierceness and speed, Joel 2:4.; the noise and din of
their approach, Joel 2:5.; the order and regularity of their march, Joel 2:7-8.; their
darkening the very lights of heaven by their number and flight, Joel 2:10.; the havoc
that they should occasion, Joel 2:3.; the places that they should invade, Joel 2:7; Joel
2:9.; and the consternation and distress which they should bring upon all the
inhabitants of the land, Joel 2:6; Joel 2:10. For an account of these terrible
destroyers, we refer the reader to the note on Exodus 10:4. Houbigant begins the
second verse, after the Chaldee and LXX, thus; Lo! a mighty people and a strong
spread themselves like the morning upon the mountains, there hath not been, &c.
BENSON, "Joel 2:2. A day of darkness and of gloominess — A day of great calamity
and trouble, which is often expressed in the Scripture by darkness. Or, perhaps, the
prophet’s words are to be taken here in the literal sense; for it is certain that, in the
eastern countries, locusts will sometimes, on a sudden, cover the sky like a cloud,
intercept the light of the sun, and diffuse a darkness on the tract of country over
which they are flying. “Solem obumbrant,” They darken the sun, says Pliny, Nat.
Hist. lib. 11:28. Thuanus, (lib. 34:7, p. 364, vol. 5.,) describing a calamity of this kind,
says, Laborabat eo tempore, &c. “Syria was afflicted at that time with the want of
every kind of forage and provisions, on account of such a multitude of locusts as was
never seen before in the memory of man, which, like a thick cloud, darkening the
light in mid-day, flying to and fro, devoured the fruits of the ground everywhere.”
And Adanson, in his Voyage to Senegal, p. 127, says, “Suddenly there came over our
heads a thick cloud, which darkened the air and deprived us of the rays of the sun.
We soon found that it was owing to a cloud of locusts.” And in Chandler, on Joel
2:10, Hermanus is quoted, as saying that “locusts obscure the sun for the space of a
23

mile;” and Aloysius, “for the space of twelve miles.” For a further account of them,
see note on Exodus 10:5; Exodus 10:13. As the morning spread upon the
mountains — This signifies, that the darkness occasioned by the locusts should be
very diffusive or general; that they should spread themselves everywhere, as the rays
of the morning do upon the mountains. A great people and strong — The locusts,
being represented as a great army coming to destroy, are here termed a great and
strong people: see note on chap. Joel 1:6. There hath not been ever the like, &c. —
The locusts which plagued Egypt are described after the same manner, Exodus 10:14.
The expression in both places seems to be proverbial, and intended to set forth the
extraordinary greatness of the judgment; but is not to be understood too strictly,
according to the grammatical sense of the words. Thus we read of Hezekiah, that
after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, 2 Kings 18:5; and yet
the same character is given of Josiah, 2 Kings 23:25.
COFFMAN, ""A day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness,
as a dawn spread upon the mountains; a great people and a strong; there hath not
been ever the like, neither shall be any after them, even to the years of many
generations.
It would appear that far more than any locust plague is in view here. "The locusts are
now pictured on a scale larger than life, and many commentators have understood
them here as prefiguring some invading army from the north."[8] We do not hesitate
to interpret this as a prophecy of the invasion of Israel by the Assyrians, who usually
entered Palestine from the north. Some commentators, of course, hesitate to accept
this, due to their erroneous decision that Joel was written at a time when the
Assyrian scourge had already disappeared from the earth.
"There hath not been ever the like ..." The unique terror of the Assyrians is a
historical phenomenon; even the friezes that decorated the palaces of Ashurbanipal,
and Ashurnasipal depicted the slaves and captives without skin, exposing the
muscles and tendons as articulating with the bones in such a manner as to indicate
that the Assyrians were more familiar with the human anatomy without skin, than
they were with the normal body.[9] They customarily flayed their victims, and often
did this while the unfortunates were still alive!
As has been repeatedly stressed in this series, the prophetic description of "the day of
the Lord" invariably appears in the very darkest colors. Another example is Amos
5:18ff, where the impact of that day upon men will be like that of one who flees from
a lion, but who meets a bear, and then, finally reaching what might have been
supposed as the safety of his house, he went in and leaned against the wall; and a
serpent bit him! The seven parallel presentations of the Judgment Day in the Book of
Revelation all follow this tragic and exceedingly distressing pattern.
LANGE, "Joe_2:2. The Day is one of darkness. Four terms are used to show how
intense it will be. See Exo_10:22; Deu_4:11. It will be darker than that of Egypt, and
than that of Sinai. Here the “darkness” is to be understood in a literal sense, for by
the vast swarms of locusts, the sun would be obscured (Joe_2:10, and Exo_14:15).
That the prophet had these swarms of locusts in view is evident from what follows.
ëùַׁäַø belongs to the following òַí øַá . As the early morning dawns upon the mountains, so this
24

“people” comes. “This,” says Keil, “is to be understood of the shining caused by the reflected
rays of the sun from the wings of a swarm of locusts.” [Some, says Dr. Pusey, have thought
that there is here an allusion to the appearance which, the inhabitants of Abyssinia well
know, precedes the swarm of locusts. A sombre yellow light is cast upon the ground from the
reflection, it is thought, of their yellow wings. But that appearance seems to be peculiar to
that country.—F.] The image naturally exhibits the suddenness and universality of the
darkness, when men looked for light. As to the meaning of ùַׁäַø , expositors are greatly
divided. Bauer thinks that the points of comparison are the quickness with which, and the
wide extent over which the dawn spreads itself. Credner’s view is, that as the morning light
overspreading the hills is a symbol and pledge of life and joy, so these clouds shall come
overspreading the land with darkness and misery. [Wünsche takes it in the sense of the
“morning gray,” i. e., the time when the morning is wrapped in a sort of darkish or dusky
gray; the meaning being, that the nature of this “day” will be made known, just as the gray
dawn of morning proclaims the coming day.—F.] There hath not been ever the like. The
phrase seems to have been borrowed from Exo_10:14,—a passage on which the prophet, in a
general way, seems to have had his eye,—where the same thing is said of the plague of locusts
sent upon Egypt.
3 Before them fire devours,
behind them a flame blazes.
Before them the land is like the garden of Eden,
behind them, a desert waste—
nothing escapes them.
BARNES, "A fire devoureth before them ... - Travelers, of different nations
and characters, and in different lands, some unacquainted with the Bible words, have
agreed to describe under this image the ravages of locusts. : “They scorch many
things with their touch.” : “Whatever of herb or leaf they gnaw, is, as it were,
scorched by fire.” : “Wherever they come, the ground seems burned, as it were with
25

fire.” : “Wherever they pass, they burn and spoil everything, and that irremediably.” :
“I have myself observed that the places where they had browsed were as scorched, as
if the fire had passed there.” : “They covered a square mile so completely, that it
appeared, at a little distance, to have been burned and strewn over with brown ashes.
Not a shrub, nor a blade of grass was visible.” : “A few months afterward, a much
larger army alighted and gave the whole country the appearance of having been
burned.” “Wherever they settled, it looks as if fire had devoured and burnt up
everything.” : “It is better to have to do with the Tartars, than with these little
destructive animals; you would think that fire follows their track,” are the
descriptions of their ravages in Italy, Aethiopia, the Levant, India, South Africa. The
locust, itself the image of God’s judgments, is described as an enemy, invading, as
they say, “with fire and sword,” “breathing fire,” wasting all, as he advances, and
leaving behind him the blackness of ashes, and burning villages. : “Whatsoever he
seizeth on, he shall consume as a devouring flame and shall leave nothing whole
behind him.”
The land is as the garden of Eden before them - In outward beauty the land
was like that Paradise of God, where He placed our first parents; as were Sodom and
Gomorrah, before God overthrew them Gen_13:10. It was like a garden enclosed and
protected from all inroad of evil. They sinned, and like our first parents forfeited its
bliss. “A fruitful land God maketh barren, for the wickedness of them that dwell
therein” Psa_107:34. Ezekiel fortells the removal of the punishment, in connection
with the Gospel promise of “a new heart and a new spirit. They shall say, This land
that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden” Eze_36:26, Eze_36:35.
And behind them a desolate wilderness - The desolation caused by the locust
is even more inconceivable to us, than their numbers. We have seen fields blighted;
we have known of crops, of most moment to man’s support, devoured; and in one
year we heard of terrific famine, as its result. We do not readily set before our eyes a
whole tract, embracing in extent several of our counties, in which not the one or
other crop was smitten, but every green thing was gone. Yet such was the scourge of
locusts, the image of other and worse scourges in the treasure-house of God’s
displeasure. A Syrian writer relates , “1004 a.d., a large swarm of locusts appeared in
the land of Mosul and Bagdad, and it was very grievous in Shiraz. It left no herb nor
even leaf on the trees, and even gnawed the pieces of linen which the fullers were
bleaching; of each piece the fuller gave a scrap to its owner: and time was a famine,
and a cor (about two quarters) of wheat was sold in Bagdad for 120 gold dinars
(about 54 British pounds):” and again , “when it (the locust of 784 a.d.,) had
consumed the whole tract of Edessa and Sarug, it passed to the west and for three
years after this heavy chastisement there was a famine in the land.” : “We traveled
five days through lands wholly despoiled; and for the canes of maize, as large as the
largest canes used to prop vines, it cannot be said how they were broken and
trampled, as if donkeys had trampled them; and all this from the locusts. The wheat,
barley, tafos , were as if they had never been sown; the trees without a single leaf; the
tender wood all eaten; there was no memory of herb of any sort. If we had not been
advised to take mules laden with harley and provisions for ourselves, we should have
perished of hunger, we and our mules. This land was all covered with locusts without
wings, and they said that they were the seed of those who had all gone, who had
destroyed the land.” : “Everywhere, where their legions march, verdure disappears
from the country, like a curtain which is folded up; trees and plants stripped of
leaves, and reduced to their branches and stalks, substitute, in the twinkling of an
eye, the dreary spectacle of winter for the rich scenes of spring.” “Happily this plague
is not very often repeated, for there is none which brings so surely famine and the
diseases which follow it.” : “Desolation and famine mark their progress; all the
expectations of the farmer vanish; his fields, which the rising sun beheld covered
26

with luxuriance, are before evening a desert; the produce of his garden and orchard
are alike destroyed, for where these destructive swarms alight, not a leaf is left upon
the trees, a blade of grass in the pastures, nor an ear of corn in the field.” : “In 1654 a
great multitude of locusts came from the northwest to the Islands Tayyovvan and
Formosa, which consumed all that grew in the fields, so that above eight thousand
men perished by famine.” : “They come sometimes in such prodigious swarms, that
they darken the sky as they pass by and devour all in those parts where they settle, so
that the inhabitants are often obliged to change their habitations for want of
sustenance, as it has happened frequently in China and the Isle of Tajowak.” : “The
lands, ravaged throughout the west, produced no harvest. The year 1780 was still
more wretched. A dry winter produced a new race of locusts which ravaged what had
escaped the inclemency of the season. The farmer reaped not what he had sown, and
was reduced to have neither nourishment, seed, nor cattle. The people experienced
all the horrors of famine. You might see them wandering over the country to devour
the roots; and, seeking in the bowels of the earth for means to lengthen their days,
perhaps they rather abridged them. A countless number died of misery and bad
nourishment. I have seen countrymen on the roads and in the streets dead of
starvation, whom others were laying across asses, to go bury them. fathers sold their
children. A husband, in concert with his wife, went to marry her in some other
province as if she were his sister, and went to redeem her, when better off. I have
seen women and children run after the camels, seek in their dung for some grain of
indigested barley and devour it with avidity.”
Yea, and nothing shall escape them - Or (which the words also include)
“none shall escape him,” literally, “and also there shall be no escaping as to him or
from him.” The word , being used elsewhere of the persons who escape, suggests, in
itself, that we should not linger by the type of the locusts only, but think of enemies
more terrible, who destroy not harvests only, but people, bodies or souls also. Yet the
picture of devastation is complete. No creature of God so destroys the whole face of
nature, as does the locust. A traveler in the Crimea uses unconsciously the words of
the prophet; ; “On whatever spot they fall, the whole vegetable produce disappears.
Nothing escapes them, from the leaves of the forest to the herbs on the plain. Fields,
vineyards, gardens, pastures, everything is laid waste; and sometimes the only
appearance left is a disgusting superficies caused by their putrefying bodies, the
stench of which is sufficient to breed a pestilence.” Another in South Africa says ,
“When they make their appearance, not a single field of grain remains unconsumed
by them. This year the whole of the Sneuwberg will not, I suppose, produce a single
bushel.” : “They had (for a space 80 or 90 miles in length) devoured every green herb
and every blade of grass; and had it not been for the reeds on which our cattle
entirely subsisted while we skirted the banks of the river, the journey must have been
discontinued, at least in the line that had been proposed.” : “Not a shrub nor blade of
grass was visible.” The rapidity with which they complete the destruction is also
observed. : “In two hours, they destroyed all the herbs around Rama.”
All this which is a strong, but true, image of the locusts is a shadow of God’s other
judgments. It is often said of God, “A fire goeth before Him and burneth up His
enemies on every side” Psa_97:3. “The Lord will come with fire; by fire will the Lord
plead with all flesh” Isa_66:15-16. This is said of the Judgment Day, as in Paul, “The
Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire
taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ” 2Th_1:7-8. That awful lurid stream of fire shall burn up “the earth
and all the works that are therein” 2Pe_3:10. All this whole circuit of the globe shall
be enveloped in one burning deluge of fire; all gold and jewels, gardens, fields,
pictures, books, “the cloud-capt towers and gorgeous palaces, shall dissolve, and
leave not a rack behind.” The good shall be removed beyond its reach, for they shall
27

be caught up to meet the Lord in the air 1Th_4:17.
But all which is in the earth and those who are of the earth shall be swept away by
it. It shall go before the army of the Lord, the Angels whom “the Son of man shall
send forth, to gather out of His kingdom all things that shall offend and them that do
iniquity. It shall burn after them” Mat_13:41. For it shall burn on during the Day of
Judgment until it have consumed all for which it is sent. “The land will be a garden of
Eden before it.” For they will, our Lord says, be eating, drinking, buying, selling,
planting, building, marrying and giving in marriage Luk_17:27-28, Luk_17:30; the
world will be “glorifying itself and living deliciously,” full of riches and delights, when
it “shall be utterly burned with fire,” and “in one hour so great riches shall come to
nought” Rev_18:7-8, Rev_18:17. “And after it a desolate wilderness,” for there shall
be none left. “And none shall escape.” For our Lord says, “they shall gather all things
that offend; the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just,
and shall cast them into the furnace of fire” Mat_13:41, Mat_13:49-50.
CLARKE, "A fire devoureth before them - They consume like a general
conflagration. “They destroy the ground, not only for the time, but burn trees for two
years after.” Sir Hans Sloane, Nat. Hist. of Jamaica, vol. i., p. 29.
Behind them a flame burneth - “Wherever they feed,” says Ludolf, in his
History of Ethiopia, “their leavings seem as if parched with fire.”
Nothing shall escape them - “After devouring the herbage,” says Adanson,
“with the fruits and leaves of trees, they attacked even the buds and the very bark;
they did not so much as spare the reeds with which the huts were thatched.”
GILL, "A fire devoureth before them, and behind them aflame
burneth,.... This is not to be understood of the heat of the sun, or of the great
drought that went before and continued after the locusts; but of them themselves,
which were like a consuming fire; wherever they came, they devoured all green grass,
herbs, and leaves of trees, as fire does stubble; they sucked out the juice and moisture
of everything they came at, and what they left behind shrivelled up and withered
away, as if it had been scorched with a flame of fire: and so the Assyrians and
Chaldeans, they were an emblem of, destroyed all they met with, by fire and sword;
cut up the corn and herbage for forage; and what they could not dispense with they
set fire to, and left it burning. Sanctius thinks this refers to fire, which the Chaldeans
worshipped as God, and carried before their armies as a sacred and military sign; but
this seems not likely:
the land is as the garden of Eden before them; abounding with fields and
vineyards, set with fruitful trees, planted with all manner of pleasant plants, and all
kind of corn growing upon it, and even resembling a paradise:
and behind them a desolate wilderness; all green grass eaten up, the corn of
the field devoured, the vines and olives destroyed, the leaves and fruit of them quite
gone, and the trees themselves barked; so that there was just the same difference
between this country before the calamities described came upon it, and what it was
after, as between the garden of Eden, or a paradise, and the most desolate
wilderness; such ravages were made by the locusts, and by those they resembled:
yea, and nothing shall escape them; no herb: plant, or tree, could escape the
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