Hear this, you elders, And listen, all you inhabitants of the land. Has this ever happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?
Parallel Translations
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Hear this, you elders, And listen, all you inhabitants of the land. Has this ever happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?
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Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?
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Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or in the days of your fathers?
Cross-references (24)
Passages linked to Joel 1:2 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Joel 2:2 A day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness. As the dawn spreading on the mountains, a great and strong people; there has never been the like, neither will there be any more after them, even to the years of many generations.
- Hosea 5:1 “Listen to this, you priests! Listen, house of Israel, and give ear, house of the king! For the judgment is against you; for you have been a snare at Mizpah, and a net spread on Tabor.
- Job 8:8 “Please inquire of past generations. Find out about the learning of their fathers.
- Jeremiah 30:7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it. It is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he will be saved out of it.
- Deuteronomy 4:32-35 For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and from the one end of the sky to the other, whether there has been anything as great as this thing is, or has been heard like it? Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the middle of the fire, as you have heard, and live? Or has God tried to go and take a nation for himself from among another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? It was shown to you so that you might know that Yahweh is God. There is no one else besides him.
- Job 12:12 With aged men is wisdom, in length of days understanding.
- Job 15:10 With us are both the gray-headed and the very aged men, much elder than your father.
- Job 21:7 “Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?
- Psalms 49:1 Hear this, all you peoples. Listen, all you inhabitants of the world,
- Isaiah 7:17 Yahweh will bring on you, on your people, and on your father’s house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah, even the king of Assyria.
- Isaiah 34:1 Come near, you nations, to hear! Listen, you peoples. Let the earth and all it contains hear, the world, and everything that comes from it.
- Jeremiah 5:21 ‘Hear this now, foolish people without understanding, who have eyes, and don’t see, who have ears, and don’t hear:
- Daniel 12:1 “At that time Michael will stand up, the great prince who stands for the children of your people; and there will be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time. At that time your people will be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book.
- Hosea 4:1 Hear Yahweh’s word, you children of Israel; for Yahweh has a charge against the inhabitants of the land: “Indeed there is no truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land.
- Joel 1:14 Sanctify a fast. Call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders, and all the inhabitants of the land, to the house of Yahweh, your God, and cry to Yahweh.
- Amos 3:1 Hear this word that Yahweh has spoken against you, children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up out of the land of Egypt, saying:
- Amos 4:1 Listen to this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who tell their husbands, “Bring us drinks!”
- Amos 5:1 Listen to this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel.
- Micah 1:2 Hear, you peoples, all of you. Listen, O earth, and all that is therein: and let the Lord Yahweh be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.
- Micah 3:1 I said, “Please listen, you heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel: Isn’t it for you to know justice?
- Micah 3:9 Please listen to this, you heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice, and pervert all equity.
- Matthew 13:9 He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
- Matthew 24:21 for then there will be great suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, nor ever will be.
- Revelation 2:7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of my God.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain Hear this, ye old men; and give ear, all…
Hear this, ye old men; and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land: has this been in your days, and in the days of your fathers? This declare to your children and your children to their children, and their children to the next generation: the residue of the locust has the chafer eaten, and the residue of the chafer has the cankerworm eaten, and the residue of the cankerworm has the caterpillar eaten I have in the last Lecture already mentioned what I think of this passage of the Prophet. Some think that a future punishment is denounced; but the context sufficiently proves that they mistake and pervert the real meaning of the Prophet; for, on the contrary, he reproves here the hardness of the people, — that they fell not their plagues. And as men are not easily moved by God’s judgments, the Prophet here declares that God had executed such a vengeance as could not be regarded otherwise than miraculous; as though he said, “God often punishes men, and it behooves them to be attentive as soon as he raises up his finger. But common punishments are wont to be unheeded; men soon forget those punishments to which they have been accustomed. God has, however, treated you in an unusual manner, having openly as it were put forth his hand from heaven, and brought on you punishments nothing less than miraculous. Ye must then be more than stupid, if ye perceive not that you are smitten by God’s hand.” This is the true meaning of the Prophet, and may be easily gathered from the words.
Hear, ye old men, he says. He expressly addresses the old, because experience teaches men much; and the old, when they see any thing new or unusual, must know, that it is not according to the ordinary course of things. He who has past his fiftieth or sixtieth year, and sees something new happening which he had never thought of, doubtless acknowledges it as the unusual work of God. This is the reason why the Prophet directs here his discourse to the old; as though he said, “I will not terrify you about nothing; but let the old hear, who have been accustomed for many years to many revolutions; let them now answer me, whether in their whole life, which has been an age on the earth, have they seen any such thing ” We now perceive the design of the Prophet; for he intended to awaken the Jews that they might understand that God had put forth his hand from heaven, and that it was impossible to ascribe what they had seen with their eyes to chance or to earthly causes, but that it was a miracle. And his object was to make the Jews at length ashamed of their folly in not having hitherto been attentive to God’s punishments, and in having always flattered themselves, as though God slept in heaven, when yet he so violently thundered against them, and intended by an extraordinary course to move them, that they might at last perceive that they were summoned to judgment.
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He afterwards adds, And all ye inhabitants of the land. Had the Prophet addressed only the old, some might seize on some pretext for their ignorance; hence he addressed and from the least to the greatest; and this he did, that the young might not exempt themselves from blame in proceeding in their obstinacy and in thus mocking God, when he called them to repentance. Hear, he says, all ye inhabitants of the land; has this been in your days or in the days of your fathers? He says first, has such a thing been in your days, for doubtless what happens rarely deserves a greater consideration. It is indeed true that foolish men are blind to the daily works of God; as the favor of God in making his sun to rise daily is but little thought of by us. This happens through our ingratitude; but our ingratitude is doubled, and is much more base and less excusable, when the Lord works in an unwonted manner, and we yet with closed eves overlook what ought to be deemed a miracle. This dullness the Prophet now reproves, Has such a thing, he says, “happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers? Ye can recall to mind what your fathers have told you. It is certain that for two ages no such thing has happened. Your torpidity then is extreme, since ye neglect this judgment of God, which from its very rareness ought to have awakened your minds.”
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain He calleth the Jews to the consideration of God’s…
He calleth the Jews to the consideration of God’s judgments, who had now plagued the fruits of the ground for the space of four years, which was for their sins, and to call them to repentance.
Signifying the Princes, the Priests and the governors.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Joe 1:2 Hear this, ye old men, and give…
Joe 1:2 Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?
Ver. 2. Hear this, ye old men] Who, as ye are fittest to hear serious discourses (Aristotle excludeth young men from his ethic lectures, because raw and rash: green wood is ever shrinking and warping), so ye are more experienced; and yet not so wise, but that, by hearing, ye may become wiser, Pro 1:5. Solon said, he could never be too old to learn, γηρασκω αιει πολλα διδασκομενος. Julianus, the lawyer, said, that when he had one foot in the grave, yet he would have the other in the school. David Chytraeus, when he lay dying, lifted up himself to hear the divine discourses of his friends that sat by him; and said, that he should die with better cheer if he might die learning something, Si moribundus etiam aliquid didicisset.
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And give ear, all, &c.] Hear and give ear: draw up the ears of your minds to the ears of your bodies, that one sound may pierce both. When these two words are joined together, as they are often, the matter propounded is either very dark or very remarkable, and commands attention, as Deu 1:45 Isa 1:2; Isa 1:10 Jer 13:15 Hos 5:1.
All ye inhabitants of the land] sc. of Judea, or all ye inhabitants of the whole earth, q.d. I shall speak of so great a matter, as that I could wish to be heard all the world over. And because all men love to hear news, I shall tell you that that was never known to happen in any age. Rem novam pollicetur emphaticoteros quam more Rhetorico, saith Oecolampadius. Prick up your ears, therefore, and listen.
Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers] Was there ever such havoc made by several sorts of vermin successively, for four years together? This was the very finger of God, Exo 8:19, all whose works (by how small instruments soever) are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein, Psa 111:2. His extraordinary works especially are to be noted and noticed; the memory of them is to be transmitted to all posterity. "This shall be written for the generation to come," Psa 102:18. "They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this," Psa 22:31. Sed vae stupori nostro. There is a woe to such as regard not the works of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands, Isa 5:12, that make of them but a nine days’ wonderment at best, and so pass them over. Whereas every judgment of God should be a warning peal to repentance. We be like the smith’s dog (saith one), who the harder the anvil is beaten on, lies by, and sleeps the sounder. Like the hen (saith another), which loseth her chickens one after another by the devouring kite; and yet still continues to pick up what lies before her: such a deep drowsiness and dressiness of spirit there is upon most of us.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Hear this: he is about to report a very…
Hear this: he is about to report a very wonderful occurrence, and desires all to consider it, mark it well, and tell me what you know.
Ye old men; the oldest among you, who can remember things done in your days when you were young, some scores of years past.
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Give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land: it is an appeal to all that may possibly know more than others, and remember better than others can.
Hath this been in your days? did you personally ever know the like?
Or even in the days of your fathers? did your fathers ever tell you of such a thing happening in their days? was there ever such a thing known among them? have you ever heard them speak of it?
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Hear this, ye old men,.... What the prophet was…
Hear this, ye old men,.... What the prophet was about to relate, concerning the consumption of the fruits of the earth, by various sorts of creatures, and by a drought; and these are called upon to declare if ever the like had been known or heard of by them; who by reason of age had the greatest opportunities of knowledge of this sort, and could remember what they had heard or seen, and would faithfully relate it: this maybe understood of elders in office, as well as in age;
and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land; or "earth", not of the whole earth; but of the land of Judea; who were more particularly concerned in this affair, and therefore are required to listen attentively to it:
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hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? that is, not the selfsame thing, but anything equal to it; a judgment of the same kind and nature, and of the same degree. By this question it seems the like had never been in the memory of any man living; nor in former times, in the days of their ancestors, as could be averted upon report; or attested on the credit of annals, chronicles, or other methods of conveying the history of ages past. As for the plague of locusts in Egypt, though they were such as; never find been, nor would be there any more; yet such or greater, and more in number than those, might be in Judea; besides, they continued but a few, lays at most, these four years successively, as Kimchi observes; and who thinks that in Egypt there was but one sort of locusts, here four; but the passage he quotes in Psa 78:46; contradicts him; to which may be added Psa 105:34.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Old men - The oldest among you, who can…
Old men - The oldest among you, who can remember things done many years ago.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 2. Ye old men] Instead of הזקנים hazzekenim,…
Verse 2. Ye old men] Instead of הזקנים hazzekenim, old men, a few MSS. have הכהנים haccohanim, ye priests, but improperly.
Hath this been in your days] He begins very abruptly; and before he proposes his subject, excites attention and alarm by intimating that he is about to announce disastrous events, such as the oldest man among them has never seen, nor any of them learnt from the histories of ancient times.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Hear this, ye old men - By reason of…
Hear this, ye old men - By reason of their age they had known and heard much; they had heard from their fathers, and their father’s fathers, much which they had not known themselves. Among the people of the east, memories of past times were handed down from generation to generation, for periods, which to us would seem incredible. Israel was commanded, so to transmit the vivid memories of the miracles of God. The prophet appeals “to the old men, to hear,” and, (lest, anything should seem to have escaped them) to the whole people of the land, to give their whole attention to this thing, which he was about to tell them, and then, reviewing all the evils which each had ever heard to have been inflicted by God upon their forefathers, to say whether this thing had happened in their days or in the days of their fathers.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Men. Magistrates, and all who have children. (Haydock) He…
Men. Magistrates, and all who have children. (Haydock) He speaks to Juda, as the kingdom of Israel was ruined, chap. iii. 2. His principal object is to describe the ravages of locusts, and to exhort the people to repent, promising them better times after the captivity, and under the Messias, chap. ii. 28., and iii. 20. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain A spirited introduction calling attention.
A spirited introduction calling attention.
old men--the best judges in question concerning the past (Deu 32:7; Job 32:7).
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Hath this been, &c.--that is, Hath any so grievous a calamity as this ever been before? No such plague of locusts had been since the ones in Egypt. Exo 10:14 is not at variance with this verse, which refers to Judea, in which Joel says there had been no such devastation before.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain THE SCOURGE OF LOCUSTS, DROUGHT, AND FIRE, Joe_1:2-20.
THE SCOURGE OF LOCUSTS, DROUGHT, AND FIRE, Joe_1:2-20.
Out of the midst of a terrible calamity (Joe_1:2-4) the prophet summons the people to universal lamentation (5-12). He sees in the present disaster the harbinger of the day of Jehovah. To avert its terrors he exhorts all to turn to Jehovah in penitent supplication (13-15). He calls attention once more to the present awful condition, and closes with a prayer for deliverance (16-20).
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2. Hear this — A solemn summons to give attention to the words about to be uttered (Amo_3:1; Amo_4:1; Amo_5:1).
Inhabitants of the land — With Joel, Judah, since all his interest seems to center there (see Joe_1:14; Joe_2:1; Joe_2:32; Joe_3:1; Joe_3:17, etc.).
Old men — Not “elders” in an official sense, for, if mentioned at all by Joel, these do not appear until Joe_1:14; but those who have lived longest, who have experienced most, whose memories run back farthest, and whose testimony, therefore, will be of greatest weight in a case where appeal to past experiences is made.
This — That is, a calamity such as the one described in Joe_1:4. The witnesses are asked whether such a calamity had been in their days, or whether the present generation had been told that there had ever been one like it.
In the days of your fathers — “Among the people of the East memories of past times were handed down from generation to generation for periods which to us would seem incredible.” 3. The reply is not stated; the prophet continues, well aware that the answer could only be an emphatic No! He requests his hearers to hand down the story of the calamity from one generation to another as an event unique and unparalleled.
Tell — The Hebrew verb comes from the same root from which is derived the word “book.” Here the verb is in the intensive form; it means more, therefore, than ordinary telling; it means the giving of careful, detailed information. This verse may be compared with Psa_78:5-7; Deu_4:9; Deu_6:6-7; Deu_6:20-24; Deu_11:19, etc. The memory of the wonders of Jehovah’s love, his deliverances, his laws and statutes were to be handed down from father to son; here the memory of unparalleled woe and judgment; such story would not be without its lessons.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 2–3. Introduction, characterizing the event which forms the occasion…
2–3. Introduction, characterizing the event which forms the occasion of Joel’s prophecy: it is an unexampled one, of a kind which even the oldest of the prophet’s contemporaries had neither witnessed themselves nor heard of from their fathers; its memory, therefore, deserves the more to be handed on to successive generations in the future.
Hear this] viz., the question following, implying the unprecedented character of the calamity.
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ye old men, &c.] the whole people is addressed: not one among them, however long or varied his experience, has ever heard tell of such an occurrence.
of the land] i.e. of Judah, with which alone Joel deals: Son_1:14; Son_2:1.
this] i.e. the like of this.
or even] simply or.
Part I. Chap. Joe_1:2 to Joe_2:17
Description of the present calamity (ch. 1.). The terrible “Day of Jehovah,” of which it is the harbinger (Joe_2:1-11), but which may yet be averted by the nation’s timely repentance (Joe_2:12-17).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (2, 3) Hath this been in your days.—The introduction…
(2, 3) Hath this been in your days.—The introduction points to the startling nature of the portent: it was unexampled; it was a cause of consternation to all who beheld it; it would be recollected as a subject of wondering comment among succeeding generations. The hand of God was evident, recalling the marvellous things he did in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 2-7. These verses describe the invasion of the…
Vers. 2-7. These verses describe the invasion of the locusts, with an exhortation to reflect on and lament for the calamity.
Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?
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Vers. 2-4. A retrospect and a prospect.
The former was sufficiently gloomy, the latter might prove salutary in its tendency. The oldest are challenged to look back on the past and recall all the years that had been, and then say if they could find any parallel for the disasters of the calamitous time through which they had just passed or were passing. The prophet did not need to name or specify the calamity; somewhat indefinitely or abruptly he asks, "Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?" He knew well that the thought then uppermost in every heart was the calamity that had pressed so sorely, or was probably still pressing upon them.
I THE DUTY OF COMMEMORATION IS TAUGHT US HERE. Why should a tale so doleful be put upon record and transmitted to children and children"s children, that is, grand-children (for which there is no corresponding word in Hebrew), and onward still to great-grandchildren, and from them yet forward to another generation? We car easily understand why the memory of God"s mercies should be kept up; but why keep a record of miseries so crushing and cruel? Obviously not for the purpose of distressing posterity. The object, there can be no reason to doubt, was to perpetuate a standing memorial of those great and grievous calamities, in order by such memorial to set up a solemn warning against the great and heinous sins that had entailed those calamities.
II THE DESPICABLE THINGS THAT PROVIDENCE MAY MAKE THE MEANS OF DESTRUCTION. These locusts "licker," "devourer whether different species of locusts, or different stages of their development, or merely poetical epithets rhetorically to characterize the destructive processes or modes of operation, were weak and mean instrumentalities by themselves and in their individual capacity.
HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON Vers. 2, 3. Tradition.
The generations of mankind succeed one another upon the face of the earth; but they are not disconnected, isolated, independent. Each receives from those who have gone before, and communicates to those who shall come after. Hence the continuity of human history; hence the life of humanity.
I TRADITION ALONE IS AN INSUFFICIENT BASIS FOE RELIGION. It is well known that oral tradition is liable to corruption. Inaccuracy creeps in, and the truth is distorted, by the weakness of memory, the liveliness of imagination, the power of prejudice. Hence the importance of a "book-revelation," which has been often but unjustly reviled. The Scriptures are a standard by which correctness of belief may be tested, by which ignorance may be instructed, and errors avoided. There were traditions in the apostolic age which originated in misunderstanding, and which were corrected by the evangelists.
II TRADITION HAS, HOWEVER, A VALUABLE PLACE IN RELIGION.
1. Memories of Divine goodness and interposition are thus preserved. The Passover may be adduced as an example. The children of a Hebrew family asked, when partaking of the Paschal meal, "What mean ye by this feast?" and an opportunity was thus given for the father to relate the story of Israel"s emancipation from the bondage of Egypt.
2. Instances of Divine displeasure and wrath following upon human sin were thus handed down. Joel alluded especially in this passage to such purposes as these: Calamities came upon the land; the people were sorely chastened; and the prophet enjoins upon the old to communicate, to their posterity to their children"s children the awful events by which Jehovah signalized his indignation with national unfaithfulness and disobedience.
3. Piety was thus promoted. One generation would learn from another what are the Divine laws, what the principles and methods of the Divine government. In this manner the fear of the Lord, and confidence in his faithfulness, would evidently be promoted and perpetuated. T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Joe_1:2-20; Joe_2:1-17
THE LOCUSTS AND THE DAY OF THE LORD
Joe_1:2-20; Joe_2:1-17
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JOEL, as we have seen, found the motive of his prophecy in a recent plague of locusts, the appearance of which and the havoc they worked are described by him in full detail. Writing not only as a poet but as a seer, who reads in the locusts signs of the great Day of the Lord, Joel has necessarily put into his picture several features which carry the imagination beyond the limits of experience. And yet, if we ourselves had lived through such a plague, we should be able to recognize how little license the poet has taken, and that the seer, so far from unduly mixing with his facts the colors of Apocalypse, must have experienced in the terrible plague itself enough to provoke all the religious and monitory use which he makes of it.
The present writer has seen but one swarm of locusts, in which, though it was small and soon swept away by the wind, he felt not only many of the features that Joel describes, but even some degree of that singular helplessness before a calamity of portent far beyond itself, something of that supernatural edge and accent, which, by the confession of so many observers, characterize the locust-plague and the earthquake above all other physical disasters. One summer afternoon, upon the plain of Hauran, a long bank of mist grew rapidly from the western horizon. The day was dull, and as the mist rose athwart the sunbeams, struggling through clouds, it gleamed cold and white, like the front of a distant snow storm. When it came near, it seemed to be more than a mile broad, and was dense enough to turn the atmosphere raw and dirty, with a chill as of a summer sea-fog, only that this was not due to any fall in the temperature. Nor was there the silence of a mist. We were enveloped by a noise, less like the whirring of wings than the rattle of hail or the crackling of bush on fire. Myriads upon myriads of locusts were about us, covering the ground, and shutting out the view in all directions. Though they drifted before the wind, there was no confusion in their ranks. They sailed in unbroken lines, sometimes straight, sometimes wavy; and when they passed pushing through our caravan, they left almost no stragglers, except from the last battalion, and only the few dead which we had caught in our hands. After several minutes they were again but a lustre on the air, and so melted away into some heavy clouds in the east.
Modern travelers furnish us with terrible impressions of the innumerable multitudes of a locust plague, the succession of their swarms through days and weeks, and the utter desolation they leave behind them. Mr. Doughty writes: "There hopped before our feet a minute brood of second locusts, of a leaden color, with budding wings like the spring leaves, and born of those gay swarms which a few weeks before had passed over and despoiled the desert. After forty days these also would fly as a pestilence, yet more hungry than the former, and fill the atmosphere." And later: "The clouds of the second locust brood which the Aarab call Amdan, pillars, flew over us for some days, invaded the booths and for blind hunger even bit our shins." It was "a storm of rustling wings." "This year was remembered for the locust swarms and great summer heat." A traveler in South Africa says: "For the space of ten miles on each side of the Sea-Cow river and eighty or ninety miles in length, an area of sixteen or eighteen hundred square miles, the whole surface might literally be said to be covered with them." In his recently published book on South Africa, Mr. Bryce writes:-
"It is a strange sight, beautiful if you can forget the destruction it brings with it. The whole air, to twelve or even eighteen feet above the ground, is filled with the insects, reddish brown in body, with bright gauzy wings. When the suns rays catch them it is like the sea sparkling with light. When you see them against a cloud they are like the dense flakes of a driving snow-storm. You feel as if you had never before realized immensity in number. Vast crowds of men gathered at a festival, countless tree-tops rising along the slope of a forest ridge, the chimneys of London houses from the top of St. Pauls-all are as nothing to the myriads of insects that blot out the sun above and cover the ground beneath and fill the air whichever way one looks. The breeze carries them swiftly past, but they come on in fresh clouds, a host of which there is no end, each of them a harmless creature which you can catch and crush in your hand, but appalling in their power of collective devastation."
And take three testimonies from Syria:
"The quantity of these insects is a thing incredible to any one who has not seen it himself; the ground is covered by them for several leagues."
"The whole face of the mountain was black with them. On they came like a living deluge. We dug trenches and kindled fires, and beat and burnt to death heaps upon heaps, but the effort was utterly useless. They rolled up the moun-tain-side, and poured over rocks, walls, ditches, and hedges, those behind covering up and passing over the masses already killed. For some days they continued to pass. The noise made by them in marching and foraging was like that of a heavy shower falling upon a distant forest."
"The roads were covered with them, all marching and in regular lines, like armies of soldiers, with their leaders in front; and all the opposition of man to resist their progress was in vain." Having consumed the plantations in the country, they entered the towns and villages. "When they approached our garden all the farm servants were employed to keep them off, but to no avail; though our men broke their ranks for a moment, no sooner had they passed the men than they closed again, and marched forward through hedges and ditches as before. Our garden finished, they continued their march toward the town, devastating one garden after another. They have also penetrated into most of our rooms: whatever one is doing one hears their noise from without, like the noise of armed hosts, or the running of many waters. When in an erect position their appearance at a little distance is like that of a well-armed horseman."
Locusts are notoriously adapted for a plague, "since to strength incredible for so small a creature, they add saw-like teeth, admirably calculated to eat up all the herbs in the land." They are the incarnation of hunger. No voracity is like theirs, the voracity of little creatures, whose million separate appetites nothing is too minute to escape. They devour first grass and leaves, fruit and foliage, everything that is green and juicy.
Then they attack the young branches of trees, and then the hard bark of the trunks. "After eating up the corn, they fell upon the vines, the pulse, the willows, and even the hemp, notwithstanding its great bitterness." "The bark of figs, pomegranates, and oranges, bitter, hard, and corrosive, escaped not their voracity." "They are particularly injurious to the palm-trees; these they strip of every leaf and green particle, the trees remaining like skeletons with bare branches." "For eighty or ninety miles they devoured every green herb and every blade of grass." "The gardens outside Jaffa are now completely stripped, even the bark of the young trees having been devoured, and look like a birch-tree forest in winter." "The bushes were eaten quite bare, though the animals could not have been long on the spot. They sat by hundreds on a bush gnawing the rind and the woody fibres." "Bamboo groves have been stripped of their leaves and left standing like saplings after a rapid bush fire, and grass has been devoured so that the bare ground appeared as if burned." "The country did not seem to be burnt, but to be much covered with snow through the whiteness of the trees and the dryness of the herbs." The fields finished, they invade towns and houses, in search of stores. Victual of all kinds, hay, straw, and even linen and woolen clothes and leather bottles, they consume or tear in pieces. They flood through the open, unglazed windows and lattices: nothing can keep them out.
These extracts prove to us what little need Joel had of hyperbole in order to read his locusts as signs of the Day of Jehovah; especially if we keep in mind that locusts are worst in very hot summers, and often accompany an absolute drought along with its consequence of prairie and forest fires. Some have thought that, in introducing the effects of fire, Joel only means to paint the burnt look of a land after locusts have ravaged it. But locusts do not drink up the streams, nor cause the seed to shrivel in the earth. {Joe_1:20; Joe_1:17} By these the prophet must mean drought, and by "the flame that has burned all the trees of the field," {Joe_1:19} the forest fire, finding an easy prey in the trees which have been reduced to firewood by the locusts teeth.
Even in the great passage in which he passes from history to Apocalypse, from the gloom and terror of the locusts to the lurid dawn of Jehovahs Day, Joel keeps within the actual facts of experience:-
"Day of darkness and murk,
Day of cloud and heavy mist,
Like dawn scattered on the mountains,
A people many and powerful."
No one who has seen a cloud of locusts can question the realism even of this picture: the heavy gloom of the immeasurable mass of them, shot by gleams of light where a few of the suns imprisoned beams have broken through or across the storm of lustrous wings. This is like dawn beaten down upon the hilltops, and crushed by rolling masses of cloud, in conspiracy to prolong the night. No: the only point at which Joel leaves absolute fact for the wilder combinations of Apocalypse is at the very close of his description, Joe_2:10-11, and just before his call to repentance. Here we find, mixed with the locusts, earthquake and thunderstorm; and Joel has borrowed these from the classic pictures of the Day of the Lord, using some of the very phrases of the latter:-
"Earth trembles before them,
Heaven quakes, Sun and moon become black,
The stars withdraw their shining,
And Jehovah utters His voice before His army."
Joel, then, describes, and does not unduly enhance, the terrors of an actual plague. At first his whole strength is so bent to make his people feel these, that, though about to call to repentance, he does not detail the national sins which require it. In his opening verses he summons the drunkards (Joe_1:5), but that is merely to lend vividness to his picture of facts, because men of such habits will be the first to feel a plague of this kind. Nor does Joel yet ask his hearers what the calamity portends. At first he only demands that they shall feet it, in its uniqueness and its own sheer force.
Hence the peculiar style of the passage. Letter for letter, this is one of the heaviest passages in prophecy. The proportion in Hebrew of liquids to the other letters is not large; but here it is smaller than ever. The explosives and dentals are very numerous. There are several key-words, with hard consonants and long vowels, used again and again: Shuddadh, a-bhlah, umlal, hobbish. The longer lines into which Hebrew parallelism tends to run are replaced by a rapid series of short, heavy phrases, falling like blows. Critics have called it rhetoric. But it is rhetoric of a very high order and perfectly suited to the prophets purpose. Look at Joe_1:10 :shuddadh sadheh, abhlah adhamah, shuddadh daghan, hobhish tirosh, umlal yishar. Joel loads his clauses with the most leaden letters he can find, and drops them in quick succession, repeating the same heavy word again and again, as if he would stun the careless people into some sense of the bare, brutal weight of the calamity which has befallen them.
Now Joel does this because he believes that, if his people feel the plague in its proper violence, they must be convinced that it comes from Jehovah. The keynote of this part of the prophecy is found in Joe_1:15 : "Keshodh mishshaddhai," "like violence from the All-violent doth it come." "If you feel this as it is, you will feel Jehovah Himself in it. By these very blows, He and His Day are near. We had been forgetting how near." Joel mentions no crime, nor enforces any virtue: how could he have done so in so strong a sense that "the Judge was at the door"? To make men feel that they had forgotten they were in reach of that Almighty Hand, which could strike so suddenly and so hard-Joel had time only to make men feel that, and to call them to repentance. In this we probably see some reflection of the age: an age when mens thoughts were thrusting the Deity further and further from their life; when they put His Law and Temple between Him and themselves: and when their religion, devoid of the sense of His Presence, had become a set of formal observances, the rending of garments and not of hearts. But He, whom His own ordinances had hidden from His people, has burst forth through nature and in sheer force of calamity. He has revealed Himself, El-Shaddhai, God All-violent, as He was known to their fathers, who had no elaborate law or ritual to put between their fearful hearts and His terrible strength, but cowered before Him, helpless on the stripped soil, and naked beneath His thunder. By just these means did Elijah and Amos bring God home to the hearts of ancient Israel. In Joel we see the revival of the old nature-religion, and the revenge that it was bound to take upon the elaborate systems which had displaced it, but which by their formalism and their artificial completeness had made men forget that near presence and direct action of the Almighty which it is natures own office to enforce upon the heart.
The thing is true, and permanently valid. Only the great natural processes can break up the systems of dogma and ritual in which we make ourselves comfortable and formal, and drive us out into Gods open air of reality. In the crash of natures forces even our particular sins are forgotten, and we feel, as in the immediate presence of God, our whole, deep need of repentance. So far from blaming the absence of special ethics in Joels sermon, we accept it as natural and proper to the occasion.
Such, then, appears to be the explanation of the first part of the prophecy, and its development towards the call to repentance, which follows it. If we are correct, the assertion is false that no plan was meant by the prophet. For not only is there a plan, but the plan is most suitable to the requirements of Israel, after their adoption of the whole Law in 445, and forms one of the most necessary and interesting developments of all religion: the revival, in an artificial period, of those primitive forces of religion which nature alone supplies, and which are needed to correct formalism and the forgetfulness of the near presence of the Almighty. We see in this, too, the reason of Joels archaic style, both of conception and expression: that likeness of his to early prophets which has led so many to place him between Elijah and Amos. They are wrong. Joels simplicity is that not of early prophecy, but of the austere forces of this revived and applied to the artificiality of a later age.
One other proof of Joels conviction of the religious meaning of the plague might also have been pled by the earlier prophets, but certainly not in the terms in which Joel expresses it. Amos and Hoses had both described the destruction of the countrys fertility in their day as Gods displeasure on His people and (as Hosea puts it) His divorce of His Bride from Himself. But by them the physical calamities were not threatened alone: banishment from the land and from enjoyment of its fruits was to follow upon drought, locusts, and famine. In threatening no captivity Joel differs entirely from the early prophets. It is a mark of his late date. And he also describes the divorce between Jehovah and Israel, through the interruption of the ritual by the plague, in terms and with an accent which could hardly have been employed in Israel before the Exile. After the rebuilding of the Temple and restoration of the daily sacrifices morning and evening, the regular performance of the latter was regarded by the Jews with a most superstitious sense of its indispensableness to the national life. Before the Exile, Jeremiah, for instance, attaches no importance to it, in circumstances in which it would have been not unnatural for him, priest as he was, to do so. {Jeremiah 14} But after the Exile, the greater scrupulousness of the religious life, and its absorption in ritual, laid extraordinary emphasis upon the daily offering, which increased to a most painful degree of anxiety as the centuries went on. The New Testament speaks of "the Twelve Tribes constantly serving God day and night"; {Act_26:7} and Josephus, while declaring that in no siege of Jerusalem before the last did the interruption ever take place in spite of the stress of famine and war combined, records the awful impression made alike on Jew and heathen by the giving up of the daily sacrifice on the 17th of July, A.D. 70, during the investment of the city by Titus. This disaster, which Judaism so painfully feared at every crisis in its history, actually happened, Joel tells us, during the famine caused by the locusts. "Cut off are the meal and the drink offerings from the house of Jehovah. {Joe_1:9; Joe_1:13} Is not food cut off from our eves, joy and gladness from the house of our God? {Joe_2:14} Perhaps He will turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him, meal and drink offering for Jehovah our God." {Joe_1:16} The break "of the continual symbol of gracious intercourse between Jehovah and His people, and the main office of religion," means divorce between Jehovah and Israel. "Wail like a bride girt in sackcloth for the husband of her youth! Wail, O ministers of the altar, O ministers of God!" {Joe_1:8; Joe_1:13} This then was another reason for reading in the.plague of locusts more than a physical meaning. This was another proof, only too intelligible to scrupulous Jews, that the great and terrible Day of the Lord was at hand. Thus Joel reaches the climax of his argument. Jehovah is near, His Day is about to break. From this it is impossible to escape on the narrow path of disaster by which the prophet has led up to it. But beneath that path the prophet passes the ground of a broad truth, and on that truth, while judgment remains still as real, there is room for the people to turn from it. If experience has shown that God is in the present, near and inevitable, faith remembers that He is there not willingly for judgment, but with all His ancient feeling for Israel and His zeal to save her. If the people choose to turn, Jehovah, as their God and as one who works for their sake, will save them. Of this God assures them by His own word. For the first time in the prophecy He speaks for Himself. Hitherto the prophet has been describing the plague and summoning to penitence. "But now oracle of Jehovah of Hosts." {Joe_2:12} The great covenant name, "Jehovah your God," is solemnly repeated as if symbolic of the historic origin and age-long endurance of Jehovahs relation to Israel; and the very words of blessing are repeated which were given when Israel was called at Sinai and the covenant ratified:-
"For He is gracious and merciful,
Long-suffering and plenteous in leal love.
And relents Him of the evil"
He has threatened upon you. Once more the nation is summoned to try Him by prayer: the solemn prayer of all Israel, pleading that He should not give His people to reproach.
"The Word of Jehovah which came to Joel the son of Pethflel. Hear this, ye old men, And give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has the like been in your days, Or in the days of your fathers? Tell it to your children, And your children to their children, And their children to the generation that follows. That which the Shearer left the Swarmer hath eaten, And that which the Swarmer left the Lapper hath eaten, And that which the Lapper left the Devourer hath eaten."
These are four different names for locusts, which it is best to translate by their literal meaning. Some think that they represent one swarm of locusts in four stages of development, but this cannot be, because the same swarm never returns upon its path, to complete the work of destruction which it had begun in an earlier stage of its growth. Nor can the first-named be the adult brood from whose eggs the others spring, as Doughty has described, for that would account only for two of the four names. Joel rather describes successive swarms of the insect, without reference to the stages of its growth, and he does so as a poet, using, in order to bring out the full force of its devastation, several of the Hebrew names that were given to the locust as epithets of various aspects of its destructive power.
The names, it is true, cannot be said to rise in climax, but at least the most sinister is reserved to the last.
"Rouse ye, drunkards, and weep, And wail, all ye bibbers of wine! The new wine is cut off from your month! For a nation is come up on My land, Powerful and numberless; His teeth are the teeth of the lion, And the fangs of the lioness his. My vine he has turned to waste, And My fig-tree to splinters; He hath peeled it and strawed it, Bleached are its branches!"
"Wail as a bride girt in sackcloth for the spouse of her youth. Cut off are the meal and drink offerings from the house of Jehovah! In grief are the priests, the ministers of Jehovah. The fields are blasted, the ground is in grief, Blasted is the corn, abashed is the new wine, the oil pines away. Be ye abashed, O ploughmen! Wail, O vine-dressers, For the wheat and the barley; The harvest is lost from the field! The vine is abashed, and the fig-tree is drooping; Pomegranate, palm too and apple, All trees of the field are dried up: Yea, joy is abashed and away from the children of men."
In this passage the same feeling is attributed to men and to the fruits of the land: "In grief are the priests, the ground is in grief." And it is repeatedly said that all alike are "abashed." By this heavy word we have sought to render the effect of the similarly sounding "hobhisha," that our English version renders "ashamed." It signifies to be frustrated, and so "disheartened," "put out" "soured" would be an equivalent, applicable to the vine and to joy and to mens hearts.
"Put on mourning, O priests, beat the breast; Wail, ye ministers of the altar; Come, lie down in sackcloth, O ministers of my God: For meal-offering and drink-offering are cut off from the house of your God."
"Hallow a fast, summon an assembly, Gather all the inhabitants of the land to the house of your God; And cry to Jehovah! Alas for the Day! At hands the Day of Jehovah. And as vehemence from the Vehement doth it come. Is not food cut off from before us, Gladness and joy from the house of our God? The grains shrivel under their hoes, The garners are desolate, the barns broken down, For the corn is withered-what shall we put in them? The herds of cattle huddle together, for they have no pasture; Yea, the flocks of sheep are forlorn. To Thee, Jehovah, do I cry":
"For fire has devoured the pastures of the steppes, And the flame hath scorched all the trees of the field. The wild beasts pant up to Thee: For the watercourses are dry, And fire has devoured the pastures of the steppes."
Here, with the close of chapter 1, Joels discourse takes, pause, and in chapter 2 he begins a second with another call to repentance in face of the same plague. But the plague has progressed. The locusts are described now in their invasion not of the country but of the towns, to which they pass after the country is stripped. For illustration of the latter see above. The "horn" which is to be blown, Joe_2:1, is an "alarm horn," to warn the people of the approach of the Day of the Lord, and not the Shophar which called the people to a general assembly, as in Joe_2:15.
"Blow a horn in Zion, Sound the alarm in My holy mountain! Let all inhabitants of the land tremble, For the Day of Jehovah comes-it is near! Day of darkness and murk, day of cloud and heavy mist. Like dawn scattered on the mountains, A people many and powerful; Its like has not been from of old, And shall not again be for years of generation upon generation. Before it the fire devours, And behind the flame consumes. Like the garden of Eden {Eze_36:35} is the land in front, And behind it a desolate desert; Yea, it lets nothing escape. Their visage is the visage of horses, And like horsemen they run. They rattle like chariots over the tops of the hills, Like the crackle of flames devouring stubble, Like a powerful people prepared for battle. Peoples are writhing before them, Every face gathers blackness."
"Like warriors they run, Like fighting men they come up the wall; They march every man by himself, And they ravel not their paths. None jostles his comrade, They march every man on his track, And plunge through the missiles unbroken. They scour the city, run upon the walls, Climb into the houses, and enter the windows like a thief, Earth trembles before them, Heaven quakes, Sun and moon become black, The stars withdraw their shining. And Jehovah utters His voice before His army: For very great is His host; Yea, powerful is He that performeth His word, Great is the Day of Jehovah, and very awful: Who may abide it?"
"But now hear the oracle of Jehovah: Turn ye to Me with all your heart, And with fasting and weeping and mourning. Rend ye your hearts and not your garments, And turn to Jehovah your God: For He is gracious and merciful, Long-suffering and plenteous in love, And relents of the evil. Who knows but He will turn and relent, And leave behind Him a blessing, Meal-offering and drink-offering to Jehovah your God?"
"Blow a horn in Zion, Hallow a fast, summon the assembly! Gather the people, hallow the congregation, Assemble the old men, gather the children, and infants at the breast; Let the bridegroom come forth from his chamber, And the bride from her bower.
Let the priests, the ministers of Jehovah, weep between porch and altar; Let them say, Spare, O Jehovah, Thy people, And give not Thine heritage to dishonor, for the heathen to mock.
Why should it be said among the nations, Where is their God?"
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 1:2 Hear this: Joel summoned the inhabitants of the…
1:2 Hear this: Joel summoned the inhabitants of the land to pay close attention to the prophetic word. • Leaders (literally elders): The prophet asked the community elders, has anything like this happened before? It hadn’t—this disaster was unique in the history of God’s people.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.