Discovery BoxJoel 2:9 
Context2:9 They rush into 1 the city;
they scale 2 its walls.
They climb up into the houses;
they go in through the windows like a thief.
Joel 2:25
Context2:25 I will make up for the years 3
that the ‘arbeh-locust 4 consumed your crops 5 –
the yeleq-locust, the hasil-locust, and the gazam-locust –
my great army 6 that I sent against you.
1 tn Heb “dart about in.”
2 tn Or “they run upon its wall.”
3 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.
4 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.
5 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.
6 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.
