Joel 1:2

A Locust Plague Foreshadows the Day of the Lord

1:2 Listen to this, you elders;

pay attention, all inhabitants of the land.

Has anything like this ever happened in your whole life

or in the lifetime of your ancestors?

Joel 2:32

2:32 It will so happen that

everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered.

For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who survive,

just as the Lord has promised;

the remnant will be those whom the Lord will call. 10 


sn Elders here refers not necessarily to men advanced in years, but to leaders within the community.

tn Heb “give ear.”

tn Heb “days.” The term “days” functions here as a synecdoche for one’s lifespan.

tn Heb “days.”

tn Heb “fathers.”

tn While a number of English versions render this as “saved” (e.g., NIV, NRSV, NLT), this can suggest a “spiritual” or “theological” salvation rather than the physical deliverance from the cataclysmic events of the day of the Lord described in the context.

map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

tn Heb “deliverance”; or “escape.” The abstract noun “deliverance” or “escape” probably functions here as an example of antimeria, referring to those who experience deliverance or escape with their lives: “escaped remnant” or “surviving remnant” (Gen 32:8; 45:7; Judg 21:17; 2 Kgs 19:30, 31; Isa 4:2; 10:20; 15:9; 37:31, 32; Ezek 14:22; Obad 1:17; Ezra 9:8, 13-15; Neh 1:2; 1 Chr 4:43; 2 Chr 30:6).

tn Heb “and among the remnant.”

10 tn The participle used in the Hebrew text seems to indicate action in the imminent future.