Joel 2:20

from you lit. from upon you, from being a burden on you; a delicate Hebrew idiom which cannot generally be represented without stiffness in English: comp. on Amos 5:23; and see Exodus 10:17 (-remove from upon me," also of locusts).

the northernarmy] lit. the northern one. The reference, as seems evident both from the context and also from the words following (which exactly describe the fate of a swarm of locusts), can be only to the locusts: although it is true that locusts generally invade Palestine from the S. or S. E., there is not sufficient ground for supposing this rule to be a universal one: they are not indigenous in Palestine, but are brought thither by the wind from their breeding-ground; and instances are on record of their being seen in the Syrian desert Niebuhr, for instance (Credner, p. 271), saw a large tract of country between Mosul and Nisibis covered with young locusts whence a N.E. wind would readily bear them towards Judah, in which case the epithet Northernwould very naturally be applied to them (the Chaldaeans, though Babylon is in reality almost due East of Palestine, are often spoken of as coming from the North, on account of that being the usual direction of their approach; Jeremiah 13:20; Jeremiah 47:2, &c.).

into a dry land, and a waste] i.e. into the desert, on the S.E. or S. of Judah.

his forepart (or van: lit. face) into the east sea lit. the front sea, i.e. the Dead Sea (Ezekiel 47:18; Zechariah 14:8).

and his rear (lit. end) into the west sea lit. the hinder sea, i.e. the Mediterranean Sea (Deuteronomy 11:24; Deuteronomy 34:2; Zechariah 14:8). The Hebrews, like other ancient nations, in fixing the points of the compass, faced Eastwards; hence in frontor beforeis often used for the East, behindfor the West, the right handfor the South (cf. the Arab. Yemen, i.e. the South part of Arabia). The description of the removal of the locusts is naturally not to be understood with prosaic literalness: it is intended rather as an imaginative representation of their rapid and complete destruction, though a wind rising first in the N.W., and afterwards gradually veering round to the N.E., would produce approximately the effects indicated.

Rear (סוף) is properly an Aramaic word (Daniel 4:8, &c.), occurring otherwise only in late Hebrew, 2 Chronicles 20:16; Ecclesiastes 3:11; Ecclesiastes 7:2; Ecclesiastes 12:13.

[and his stink shall come up,] that his foulness may come up The tautology, and especially the tense and construction (וְתַעַל) of the second clause make it probable that the first clause (here bracketed) is a gloss, based upon Isaiah 34:3 (cf. Amos 4:10), designed for the purpose of explaining the rare word (found only here) rendered foulness[43]. The reference is to the decaying carcases of the locusts, which often (see below) have been known to produce putrid exhalations.

[43] The meaning is fixed by the Aramaic (see Payne Smith, Thes. Syr.col. 3393 4).

because he hath done great things lit. hath shewn greatness in doing. Applied to God (see the next verse), the phrase is used in a good sense; applied to His creatures, it implies that they have in some way done more than they should have done, or have acted overweeningly (cf. Lamentations 1:9, of the Chaldaeans: lit. "the enemy hath shewn greatness"; Psalms 35:26 al.). There is of course a logical inexactness in the application of the expression to insects unconscious of moral distinctions; but the prophet invests them poetically with rational powers, just as other prophets for instance imagine trees or mountains as capable of rejoicing because Jehovah has redeemed His people (Isaiah 44:23, &c.).

It is a common fate of locust swarms to be driven away by the wind, and to perish in the sea (Exodus 10:19). Jerome says that in his own time when Judaea had been visited by locusts, he had known them to be driven by the wind into the same two seas which are mentioned by Joel, the shores of both being strewn afterwards by their carcases, cast up by the waters, producing pestilential odours. Augustine (de Civ. Dei, 3:31) quotes heathen writers as stating how in Africa immense swarms of locusts, cast by the wind into the sea, were afterwards thrown up by the waves, infecting the air, and giving rise to a serious pestilence. Locusts "not only produce a famine, but in districts near the sea where they had been drowned, they have occasioned a pestilence from the putrid effluvia of the immense numbers blown upon the coast or thrown up by the tides" (Forbes, Memoirs, 2:373). "The South and East winds drive the clouds of locusts with violence into the Mediterranean, and drown them in such quantities, that when their dead are cast on the shore they infect the air to a great distance" (Volney, 1:278).