Joel 2:3

2:3 Like fire they devour everything in their path; ¹ 

a flame blazes behind them.

The land looks like the Garden of Eden ²  before them,

but behind them there is only a desolate wilderness –

for nothing escapes them! ³ 

Jeremiah 9:10

The Coming Destruction Calls For Mourning

9:10 I said, ⁴ 

“I will weep and mourn ⁵  for the grasslands on the mountains, ⁶ 

I will sing a mournful song for the pastures in the wilderness

because they are so scorched no one travels through them.

The sound of livestock is no longer heard there.

Even the birds in the sky and the wild animals in the fields

have fled and are gone.”

Amos 7:4

7:4 The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw ⁷  the sovereign Lord summoning a shower of fire. ⁸  It consumed the great deep and devoured the fields.

[2:3]  ¹ tn Heb “a fire devours before it.”

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

[2:3]  ³ 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.

[9:10]  ⁴ tn The words “I said” are not in the text, but there is general agreement that Jeremiah is the speaker. Cf. the lament in 8:18-9:1. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity. Some English versions follow the Greek text which reads a plural imperative here. Since this reading would make the transition between 9:10 and 9:11 easier it is probably not original but a translator’s way of smoothing over a difficulty.

[9:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “I will lift up weeping and mourning.”

[9:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “for the mountains.” However, the context makes clear that it is the grasslands or pastures on the mountains that are meant. The words “for the grasslands” are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

[7:4]  ⁸ tc The Hebrew appears to read, “summoning to contend with fire,” or “summoning fire to contend,” but both are problematic syntactically (H. W. Wolff, Joel and Amos [Hermeneia], 292; S. M. Paul, Amos [Hermeneia], 230-31). Many emend the text to לרבב אשׁ, “(calling) for a shower of fire,” though this interpretation is also problematic (see F. I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman, Amos [AB], 746-47).