Joel 1:4-7

1:4 What the gazam-locust left the ‘arbeh-locust consumed, ¹ 

what the ‘arbeh-locust left the yeleq-locust consumed,

and what the yeleq-locust left the hasil-locust consumed! ² 

1:5 Wake up, you drunkards, ³  and weep!

Wail, all you wine drinkers, ⁴ 

because the sweet wine ⁵  has been taken away ⁶  from you. ⁷ 

1:6 For a nation ⁸  has invaded ⁹  our ¹⁰  land.

There are so many of them they are too numerous to count. ¹¹ 

Their teeth are like those ¹²  of a lion;

they tear apart their prey like a lioness. ¹³ 

1:7 They ¹⁴  have destroyed our ¹⁵  vines; ¹⁶ 

they have turned our ¹⁷  fig trees into mere splinters.

They have completely stripped off the bark ¹⁸  and thrown them aside;

the ¹⁹  twigs are stripped bare. ²⁰ 

Joel 2:2-4

2:2 It will be ²¹  a day of dreadful darkness, ²² 

a day of foreboding storm clouds, ²³ 

like blackness ²⁴  spread over the mountains.

It is a huge and powerful army ²⁵  –

there has never been anything like it ever before,

and there will not be anything like it for many generations to come! ²⁶ 

2:3 Like fire they devour everything in their path; ²⁷ 

a flame blazes behind them.

The land looks like the Garden of Eden ²⁸  before them,

but behind them there is only a desolate wilderness –

for nothing escapes them! ²⁹ 

2:4 They look like horses; ³⁰ 

they charge ahead like war horses.

Jonah 4:7

4:7 So God sent ³¹  a worm at dawn the next day, and it attacked the little plant so that it dried up.

[1:4]  ¹ tn Heb “eaten.” This verb is repeated three times in v. 4 to emphasize the total devastation of the crops by this locust invasion.

[1:4]  ² tn The four Hebrew terms used in this verse are of uncertain meaning. English translations show a great deal of variation in dealing with these: (1) For ָגּזָם (gazam) KJV has “palmerworm,” NEB “locust,” NAB “cutter”, NASB “gnawing locust,” NIV “locust swarm,” NKJV “chewing locust,” NRSV, NLT “cutting locust(s),” NIrV “giant locusts”; (2) for אַרְבֶּה (’arbeh) KJV has “locust,” NEB “swarm,” NAB “locust swarm,” NASB, NKJV, NRSV, NLT “swarming locust(s),” NIV “great locusts,” NIrV “common locusts”; (3) for יֶלֶק (yeleq) KJV has “cankerworm,” NEB “hopper,” NAB “grasshopper,” NASB “creeping locust,” NIV, NIrV “young locusts,” NKJV “crawling locust,” NRSV, NLT “hopping locust(s)”; (4) for חָסִיל (khasil) KJV has “caterpillar,” NEB “grub,” NAB “devourer,” NASB, NLT “stripping locust(s),” NIV, NIrV “other locusts,” NKJV “consuming locust,” NRSV “destroying locust.” It is debated whether the Hebrew terms describe different species of locusts or similar insects or different developmental stages of the same species, or are virtual synonyms. While the last seems more likely, given the uncertainty over their exact meaning, the present translation has transliterated the Hebrew terms in combination with the word “locust.”

[1:5]  ³ sn The word drunkards has a double edge here. Those accustomed to drinking too much must now lament the unavailability of wine. It also may hint that the people in general have become religiously inebriated and are unresponsive to the Lord. They are, as it were, drunkards from a spiritual standpoint.

[1:5]  ⁴ sn Joel addresses the first of three groups particularly affected by the locust plague. In v. 5 he describes the effects on the drunkards, who no longer have a ready supply of intoxicating wine; in vv. 11-12 he describes the effects on the farmers, who have watched their labors come to naught because of the insect infestation; and in vv. 13-14 he describes the effects on the priests, who are no longer able to offer grain sacrifices and libations in the temple.

[1:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “over the sweet wine, because it.” Cf. KJV, NIV, TEV, NLT “new wine.”

[1:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “cut off” (so KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV); NAB “will be withheld.”

[1:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “your mouth.” This is a synecdoche of part (the mouth) for whole (the person).

[1:6]  ⁸ sn As becomes increasingly clear in what follows, this nation is to be understood figuratively. It refers to the locust invasion as viewed from the standpoint of its methodical, destructive advance across the land (BDB 156 s.v. גּוֹי 2). This term is used figuratively to refer to animals one other time (Zeph 2:14).

[1:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “has come up against.”

[1:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “my.”

[1:6]  ¹¹ tn Heb “[It] is huge and there is not number.”

[1:6]  ¹² tn Heb “its teeth are the teeth of a lion.”

[1:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “its incisors are those of a lioness.” The sharp, cutting teeth are metonymical for the action of tearing apart and eating prey. The language is clearly hyperbolic. Neither locusts nor human invaders literally have teeth of this size. The prophet is using exaggerated and picturesque language to portray in vivid terms the enormity of the calamity. English versions vary greatly on the specifics: KJV “cheek teeth”; ASV “jaw-teeth”; NAB “molars”; NASB, NIV, NRSV “fangs.”

[1:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “it.” Throughout vv. 6-7 the Hebrew uses singular forms to describe the locust swarm, but the translation uses plural forms because several details of the text make more sense in English as if they are describing the appearance and effects of individual locusts.

[1:7]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “my.”

[1:7]  ¹⁶ tn Both “vines” and “fig trees” are singular in the Hebrew text, but are regarded as collective singulars.

[1:7]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “my.”

[1:7]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “it has completely stripped her.”

[1:7]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “her.”

[1:7]  ²⁰ tn Heb “grow white.”

[2:2]  ²¹ tn The phrase “It will be” does not appear in the Hebrew, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of smoothness and style.

[2:2]  ²² tn Heb “darkness and gloom.” These two terms probably form a hendiadys here. This picture recalls the imagery of the supernatural darkness in Egypt during the judgments of the exodus (Exod 10:22). These terms are also frequently used as figures (metonymy of association) for calamity and divine judgment (Isa 8:22; 59:9; Jer 23:12; Zeph 1:15). Darkness is often a figure (metonymy of association) for death, dread, distress and judgment (BDB 365 s.v. חשֶׁךְ 3).

[2:2]  ²³ tn Heb “a day of cloud and darkness.”

[2:2]  ²⁴ tc The present translation here follows the proposed reading שְׁחֹר (shÿkhor, “blackness”) rather than the MT שַׁחַר (shakhar, “morning”). The change affects only the vocalization; the Hebrew consonants remain unchanged. Here the context calls for a word describing darkness. The idea of morning or dawn speaks instead of approaching light, which does not seem to fit here. The other words in the verse (e.g., “darkness,” “gloominess,” “cloud,” “heavy overcast”) all emphasize the negative aspects of the matter at hand and lead the reader to expect a word like “blackness” rather than “dawn.” However, NIrV paraphrases the MT nicely: “A huge army of locusts is coming. They will spread across the mountains like the sun when it rises.”

[2:2]  ²⁵ tn Heb “A huge and powerful people”; KJV, ASV “a great people and a strong.” Many interpreters understand Joel 2 to describe an invasion of human armies, either in past history (e.g., the Babylonian invasion of Palestine in the sixth century b.c.) or in an eschatological setting. More probably, however, the language of this chapter referring to “people” and “armies” is a hypocatastic description of the locusts of chapter one. Cf. TEV “The great army of locusts advances like darkness.”

[2:2]  ²⁶ tn Heb “it will not be repeated for years of generation and generation.”

[2:3]  ²⁷ tn Heb “a fire devours before it.”

[2:3]  ²⁸ tn Heb “like the garden of Eden, the land is before them.”

[2:3]  ²⁹ 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.

[2:4]  ³⁰ tn Heb “Like the appearance of horses [is] its appearance.”

[4:7]  ³¹ tn Or “appointed.” The verb מָנָה (manah) in the Piel stem means “to send, to appoint” (Ps 61:8; Jonah 2:1; 4:6-8; Dan 1:5, 10-11; HALOT 599 s.v. מנה 2; BDB 584 s.v. מָנָה).