Yoel 2:4-5

2:4 They look like horses; ¹ 

they charge ahead like war horses.

2:5 They sound like ²  chariots rumbling ³  over mountain tops,

like the crackling ⁴  of blazing fire consuming stubble,

like the noise of ⁵  a mighty army ⁶  being drawn up for battle. ⁷ 

Yoel 1:7

1:7 They ⁸  have destroyed our ⁹  vines; ¹⁰ 

they have turned our ¹¹  fig trees into mere splinters.

They have completely stripped off the bark ¹²  and thrown them aside;

the ¹³  twigs are stripped bare. ¹⁴ 

[2:4]  ¹ tn Heb “Like the appearance of horses [is] its appearance.”

[2:4]  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.

[2:5]  ² tn Heb “like the sound of.”

[2:5]  sn The repetition of the word of comparison (“like”) in vv. 4-7 should not go unnoticed. The author is comparing the locust invasion to familiar aspects of human invasion. If the preposition has its normal force here, it is similarity and not identity that is intended. In other words, locusts are being likened to human armies, but human armies are not actually present. On the other hand, this Hebrew preposition is also on occasion used to indicate exactitude, a function described by grammarians as kaph veritatis.

[2:5]  ³ tn Heb “jostling” or “leaping.” There is question whether this pictures chariots rumbling over the mountains (e.g., 2 Sam 6:14,16; 1 Chr 15:29; Nah 3:2) or the locusts flying – or “leaping” – over the mountains (e.g., Job 21:11); see BDB 955 s.v. רָקַד.

[2:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “sound.”

[2:5]  ⁵ tn The phrase “the noise of” does not appear in the Hebrew, but is implied by the parallelism, so it has been supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[2:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “people.”

[2:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “being arrayed of battle.”

[1:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “it.” Throughout vv. 6-7 the Hebrew uses singular forms to describe the locust swarm, but the translation uses plural forms because several details of the text make more sense in English as if they are describing the appearance and effects of individual locusts.

[1:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “my.”

[1:7]  ¹⁰ tn Both “vines” and “fig trees” are singular in the Hebrew text, but are regarded as collective singulars.

[1:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “my.”

[1:7]  ¹² tn Heb “it has completely stripped her.”

[1:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “her.”

[1:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “grow white.”

[1:7]  sn Once choice leafy vegetation is no longer available to them, locusts have been known to consume the bark of small tree limbs, leaving them in an exposed and vulnerable condition. It is apparently this whitened condition of limbs that Joel is referring to here.