2:19 The Lord responded 1 to his people,
“Look! I am about to restore your grain 2
as well as fresh wine and olive oil.
You will be fully satisfied. 3
I will never again make you an object of mockery among the nations.
2:25 I will make up for the years 4
that the ‘arbeh-locust 5 consumed your crops 6 –
the yeleq-locust, the hasil-locust, and the gazam-locust –
my great army 7 that I sent against you.
2:27 You will be convinced that I am in the midst of Israel.
I am the Lord your God; there is no other.
My people will never again be put to shame.
1 tn Heb “answered and said.”
2 tn Heb “Look! I am sending grain to you.” The participle used in the Hebrew text seems to suggest imminent action.
3 tc One of the Qumran manuscripts (4QXXIIc) inserts “and you will eat” before “and you will be fully satisfied” (the reading of the MT, LXX).
4 tn Heb “I will restore to you the years.”
sn The plural years suggests that the plague to which Joel refers was not limited to a single season. Apparently the locusts were a major problem over several successive years. One season of drought and locust invasion would have been bad enough. Several such years would have been devastating.
5 sn The same four terms for locust are used here as in 1:4, but in a different order. This fact creates some difficulty for the notion that the four words refer to four distinct stages of locust development.
6 tn The term “your crops” does not appear in the Hebrew, but has been supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.
7 sn Here Joel employs military language to describe the locusts. In the prophet’s thinking this invasion was far from being a freak accident. Rather, the Lord is pictured here as a divine warrior who leads his army into the land as a punishment for past sin and as a means of bringing about spiritual renewal on the part of the people.