Joel 1:6-7

By what agency this devastation has been wrought: an army of depredators has invaded Judah, countless in numbers and well equipped for their work; and vine and fig-tree have been left by them bare.

a nation cf. for the figure Proverbs 30:24-26: also Homer's expression ἔθνεα μελισσάων, μυιάων, &c. (Il. 2:87, 469, &c.).

is come up upon(or against)] the phrase used of an invading army (e.g. 2 Kings 18:13).

my land the prophet speaks in the name of the people. So Joel 1:7; Joel 1:13; Joel 1:19and frequently (cf. the writer's Introduction, p. 366 f.).

strong Cf. Joel 2:2; Joel 2:5; Joel 2:11. The term is used often of a powerful and numerous nation (e.g. Deuteronomy 26:5; Isaiah 60:22; Micah 4:7). The reference is partly to the strength of limb possessed by the locust, enabling it for instance to take long flights and to persevere incessantly in its work of destruction, partly to the irresistible numbers in which swarms of locusts are apt to invade a country.

without number a characteristic of locust-swarms, often alluded to in the O.T.: Psalms 105:34 ("and the yéleḳwithout number"); and in comparisons Judges 6:5; Judges 7:12; Jeremiah 46:23 (all of the arbeh), Jeremiah 51:14; Jeremiah 51:27 (of the yéleḳ). Modern travellers speak often of the literally incalculable numbers in which locusts come. Thus an observer in South Africa writes, "For the space of 10 miles on each side of the Sea-Cow river, and 80 90 miles in breadth, an area of 16 1800 square miles, the whole surface might literally be said to be covered with them: the water of the river was scarcely visible on account of the dead carcases which floated on the surface, drowned in the attempt to come at the weeds which grew in it." Again, in Cyprus, "the locusts lay swarming above a foot deep in several parts of the high road, and thousands were destroyed by the wheels of the carriage driving over them." A writer in Nature(1889, p. 153) states "that a flight of locusts that passed over the Red Sea in Nov. 1889, was 2000 square miles in extent," and upon the assumption that it was 48 miles square, half a mile deep, and contained 144 locusts, each weighing 16 oz., to a cubic foot, he calculated that it contained 24,420 billions of insects, and weighed 42,850 millions of tons. "A second similar, perhaps even larger flight, was seen passing in the same direction the next day. In Cyprus in 1881, up to the end of October, 1,600,000,000 egg-cases bad that season been collected and destroyed, each case containing a considerable number of eggs. By the end of the season over 1300 tons of eggs had been collected; and yet not less than 5,076,000,000 egg-cases were, it is believed, deposited in the island two years afterwards" (Cambridge Nat. Hist.v. 292).

his teeth, &c. the locust's teeth are edged like a saw, and very powerful; hence, though infinitely smaller, they may for destructiveness be compared to those of a lion. Cp. Revelation 9:8.

the cheek-teeth or jaw teeth(R.V.), i.e. the sharp and prominent eye-teeth of the animal. The word is the same which is found in Job 29:17 and Proverbs 30:14; and (with two letters transposed) in Psalms 58:6 (also of the lion: R.V. "great teeth"): it possibly signifies (from the Arabic) the projectors.

of a great lion of a lioness. Hebrew has several distinct terms, all denoting generally the lion, but, unfortunately, seldom distinguishable in English except by the use of separate epithets. The ordinary word for lion is that used in the former clause of the present verse (aryçh, also ărî), that used here (lâbhî") is the lioness, Numbers 23:24; Deuteronomy 33:20 al., but only in poetry; another (kĕphîr) is the young lion(Isaiah 31:4, and frequently); other poetical words are layish, only Isaiah 30:6; Job 4:11; Proverbs 30:30; and shaḥal, properly the roarer, Hosea 5:14; Hosea 13:7; Job 4:10; Job 10:16; Job 28:8; Proverbs 26:13; Psalms 91:13. Gûr(or gôr) is a lion's whelp, Genesis 49:9 al. In poetry, the synonyms for lion appear often, as they do here, in the parallel clauses of a verse: see esp. Job 4:10-11.