Yoel 2:3

2:3 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 

[2:3]  ¹ tn Heb “a fire devours before it.”

[2:3]  ² tn Heb “like the garden of Eden, the land is before them.”

[2:3]  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.