Discovery BoxJoel 2:3-4 
Context2:3 Like fire they devour everything in their path; 1
a flame blazes behind them.
The land looks like the Garden of Eden 2 before them,
but behind them there is only a desolate wilderness –
for nothing escapes them! 3
they charge ahead like war horses.
Joel 2:25
Context2:25 I will make up for the years 5
that the ‘arbeh-locust 6 consumed your crops 7 –
the yeleq-locust, the hasil-locust, and the gazam-locust –
my great army 8 that I sent against you.
1 tn Heb “a fire devours before it.”
2 tn Heb “like the garden of Eden, the land is before them.”
3 tn Heb “and surely a survivor there is not for it.” The antecedent of the pronoun “it” is apparently עַם (’am, “people”) of v. 2, which seems to be a figurative way of referring to the locusts. K&D 26:191-92 thought that the antecedent of this pronoun was “land,” but the masculine gender of the pronoun does not support this.
4 tn Heb “Like the appearance of horses [is] its appearance.”
sn The fact that a locust’s head resembles a miniature replica of a horse’s head has often been noticed. For example, the German word for locust (Heupferd, “hay horse”) and the Italian word as well (cavaletta, “little horse”) are based on this similarity in appearance.
5 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.
6 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.
7 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.
8 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.
