Discovery BoxJoel 2:11 
Context2:11 The voice of the Lord thunders 1 as he leads his army. 2
Indeed, his warriors 3 are innumerable; 4
Surely his command is carried out! 5
Yes, the day of the Lord is awesome 6
and very terrifying – who can survive 7 it?
Joel 2:25
Context2:25 I will make up for the years 8
that the ‘arbeh-locust 9 consumed your crops 10 –
the yeleq-locust, the hasil-locust, and the gazam-locust –
my great army 11 that I sent against you.
1 tn Heb “the
2 tn Heb “before his army.”
3 tn Heb “military encampment.”
4 tn Heb “very large.”
5 tn Heb “he makes his word powerful.”
6 tn Or “powerful.” Heb “great.”
7 tn Heb “endure.” The MT and LXX read “endure,” while one of the Qumran manuscripts (4QXXIIc) has “bear.”
8 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.
9 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.
10 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.
11 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.
