Attributed commentary excerpt
Barnes' Notes on Joel 1:4
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Notes on the Whole Bible
Albert Barnes (1798–1870) · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
That which the palmerworm hath left, hath the locust eaten - The creatures here spoken of are different kinds of locusts, so named from their number or voracity. We, who are free from this scourge of God, know them only by the generic name of locusts. But the law mentions several sorts of locusts, each after its kind, which might be eaten . In fact, above eighty different kinds of locusts have been observed , some of which are twice as large as that which is the ordinary scourge of God . Slight as they are in themselves, they are mighty in God’s Hand; beautiful and gorgeous as they are, floating in the sun’s rays , they are a scourge, including other plagues, famine, and often, pestilence. Of the four kinds, here named by the prophet, that rendered “locust” is so called from its multitude, (from where Jeremiah says “they are more numerous than the locust” See Judges 6:5; Judges 7:12; Psalms 105:34; Nahum 3:15. It is a proverb in Arabic also)), and is, probably, the creature which desolates whole regions of Asia and Africa. The rest are named from their voracity, the “gnawer,” “licker,” “consumer,” but they are, beyond doubt, distinct kinds of that destroyer. And this is the characteristic of the prophet’s threatening, that he foretells a succession of destroyers, each more fatal than the preceding; and that, not according to the order of nature. For in all the observations which have been made of the locusts, even when successive flights have desolated the same land, they have always been successive clouds of the same creature. Over and above the fact, then, that locusts are a heavy chastisement from God, these words of Joel form a sort of sacred proverb. They are the epitome of his whole prophecy. It is “this” which he had called the old men to hear, and to say whether they had known anything like “this;” that scourge came after scourge, judgment after judgment, until man yielded or perished. The visitation of locusts was one of the punishments threatened in the law, “Thou shall carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in, for the locust shall consume it” Deuteronomy 28:38. It was one of God’s ordinary punishments for sin, in that country, like famine, or pestilence, or blight, or mildew, or murrain, or (in this) potato disease. Solomon, accordingly, at the dedication of the temple mentions the locust among the other plagues, which he then solemnly entreated God to remove, when individuals or the whole people should spread forth their hands in penitence toward that house 1 Kings 8:37-38. But the characteristic of “this” prophecy is the successiveness of the judgments, each in itself, desolating, and the later following quick upon the earlier, and completing their destructiveness. The judgments of God are linked together by an invisible chain, each drawing on the other; yet, at each link of the lengthening chain, allowing space and time for repentance to break it through. So in the plagues of Egypt, God, “executing His judgments upon them by little and little, gave them time for repentance” (Wisd. 12:10); yet, when Pharaoh hardened his heart, each followed on the other, until he perished in the Red Sea. In like way God said, “him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay; and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay” 1 Kings 19:17. So, in the Revelation, the “trumpets” are sounded Revelation 8:1-13; Revelation 9:0; Revelation 11:15, and “the vials of the wrath of God are poured out upo…
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