Joel 1:19-20

1:19 To you, O Lord, I call out for help, ¹ 

for fire ²  has burned up ³  the grassy pastures, ⁴ 

flames have razed ⁵  all the trees in the fields.

1:20 Even the wild animals ⁶  cry out to you; ⁷ 

for the river beds ⁸  have dried up;

fire has destroyed ⁹  the grassy pastures. ¹⁰ 

Joel 2:3

2:3 Like fire they devour everything in their path; ¹¹ 

a flame blazes behind them.

The land looks like the Garden of Eden ¹²  before them,

but behind them there is only a desolate wilderness –

for nothing escapes them! ¹³ 

Joel 2:5

2:5 They sound like ¹⁴  chariots rumbling ¹⁵  over mountain tops,

like the crackling ¹⁶  of blazing fire consuming stubble,

like the noise of ¹⁷  a mighty army ¹⁸  being drawn up for battle. ¹⁹ 

[1:19]  ¹ tn The phrase “for help” does not appear in the Hebrew, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[1:19]  ² sn Fire here and in v. 20 is probably not to be understood in a literal sense. The locust plague, accompanied by conditions of extreme drought, has left the countryside looking as though everything has been burned up (so also in Joel 2:3).

[1:19]  ³ tn Heb “consumed.” This entire line is restated at the end of v. 20.

[1:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “the pastures of the wilderness.”

[1:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “a flame has set ablaze.” This fire was one of the effects of the drought.

[1:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “beasts of the field.”

[1:20]  ⁷ tn Heb “long for you.” Animals of course do not have religious sensibilities as such; they do not in any literal sense long for Yahweh. Rather, the language here is figurative (metonymy of cause for effect). The animals long for food and water (so BDB 788 s.v. עָרַג), the ultimate source of which is Yahweh.

[1:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “sources of water.”

[1:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “consumed.”

[1:20]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the pastures of the wilderness.”

[2:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “a fire devours before it.”

[2:3]  ¹² tn Heb “like the garden of Eden, the land is before them.”

[2:3]  ¹³ tn Heb “and surely a survivor there is not for it.” The antecedent of the pronoun “it” is apparently עַם (’am, “people”) of v. 2, which seems to be a figurative way of referring to the locusts. K&D 26:191-92 thought that the antecedent of this pronoun was “land,” but the masculine gender of the pronoun does not support this.

[2:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “like the sound of.”

[2:5]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “jostling” or “leaping.” There is question whether this pictures chariots rumbling over the mountains (e.g., 2 Sam 6:14,16; 1 Chr 15:29; Nah 3:2) or the locusts flying – or “leaping” – over the mountains (e.g., Job 21:11); see BDB 955 s.v. רָקַד.

[2:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “sound.”

[2:5]  ¹⁹ tn The phrase “the noise of” does not appear in the Hebrew, but is implied by the parallelism, so it has been supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[2:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “people.”

[2:5]  ²¹ tn Heb “being arrayed of battle.”