SEV Biblia, Chapter 2:20
Y haré alejar de vosotros al del aquilón, y lo echaré en la tierra seca y desierta; su faz será hacia el mar oriental, y su fin al mar occidental; y exhalará su hedor; y subirá su pudrición, porque se engrandeció.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Joel 2:20
Verse 20. I will remove far off from you the northern army] "That is, the locusts; which might enter Judea by the north, as Circassia and Mingrelia abound with them. Or the locusts may be thus called, because they spread terror like the Assyrian armies, which entered Judea by the north. See Zeph. ii. 13."-Newcome. Syria, which was northward of Judea, was infested with them; and it must have been a northern wind that brought them into Judea, in the time of Joel; as God promises to change this wind, and carry them into a barren and desolate land, Arabia Deserta. "And his face toward the east sea," i.e., the Dead Sea, which lay eastward of Jerusalem. "His hinder part toward the utmost sea," the western sea, i.e., the Mediterranean.
And his stink shalt come up] After having been drowned by millions in the Mediterranean, the reflux of the tide has often brought them back, and thrown there in heaps upon the shore, where they putrefied in such a manner as to infect the air and produce pestilence, by which both men and cattle have died in great multitudes. See Bochart, Hieroz., vol. ii., p. 481.
Livy, and St. Augustine after him, relate that there was such an immense crowd of locusts in Africa that, having eaten up every green thing, a wind arose that carried them into the sea, where they perished; but being cast upon the shore, they putrefied, and bred such a pestilence, that eighty thousand men died of it in the kingdom of Massinissa, and thirty thousand in the garrison of Utica, in which only ten remained alive. See Calmet and Livy, lib. xc., and August. De Civitate Dei, lib. iv., c. 31. We have many testimonies of a similar kind.
Because he hath done great things] Or, yk ki, although he have done great things, or, after he has done them, i.e., in almost destroying the whole country.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 20. But I will remove far off from you the northern [army] , etc.] The army of the locusts, which came from the northern corner, as Aben Ezra and Kimchi; and is the first sense Jarchi makes mention of; though he says their Rabbins F49 interpret it of the evil imagination hid in the heart of men; and the two seas, later mentioned, of the two temples, first and second, destroyed by it; so, Kimchi says, they explain this verse of the days of the Messiah, and observes, the same sense they give; but Jarchi mentions another, according to which a people coming from the north are designed, even the kings of Assyria; and with this agrees the Targum, which paraphrases it, “and the people which come from the north I will remove far off from you;” and indeed locusts do not usually come from the north, but from the south, or from the east; it was an east wind that brought the locusts into Egypt, ( Exodus 10:13); though the word “northern” may be used of the locusts in the emblem, because the Assyrians or Chaldeans came from the north to Judea: and will drive him into a land barren and desolate : where there are no green grass, herbs, plants, and trees, to live upon, and so must starve and die: with his face towards the east sea ; the front of this northern army was towards the east sea, into which it was drove and fell; that is, the sea of Chinnereth, or Gennesareth, the same with the lake of Tiberias, often mentioned in the New Testament; or the Salt sea, the same with the lake Asphaltites, or Dead sea, which was where Sodom and Gomorrah formerly stood, as is usually said; and both these were to the east of the land of Israel, as Kimchi and Ben Melech observe; and so either of them might be called the “eastern sea”: and his hinder part towards the utmost sea ; the rear of this army was towards the utmost sea, or hinder sea, as it is called in ( Zechariah 14:8); the western sea, as Kimchi and Ben Melech interpret it, the same with the Mediterranean sea, which lay to the west of the land of Israel; so the Egyptian locusts were cast into the Red sea, ( Exodus 10:19); and Pliny F50 observes, that they are sometimes taken away with a wind, and fall into seas and lakes, and adds, perhaps this comes by chance; but what is here related came not by chance, but by the will and providence of God: and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up : that is, the stink and ill savour of the locusts shall come, up out of the seas and lakes into which they fell, and where they died and putrefied; or, being cast up from thence upon the shares, gave a most noisome stench; so Jerom on the place says, “in our times we have seen swarms of locusts cover the land of Judea, which upon the wind rising have been driven into the first and last seas; that is, into the Dead and Mediterranean seas; and when the shores of both seas have been filled with heaps of dead locusts, which the waters have thrown up, their rottenness and stench have been so very noxious as to corrupt the air, and produce a pestilence among men and beasts;” or this may be understood of the fall and ruin of the enemies of the Jews, signified by these locusts; and some apply it to Sennacherib’s army smote by the angel, when there fell in one night a hundred and fourscore and five thousand of them in the land of Israel, and lay unburied, ( 2 Kings 19:35); Theodoret interprets the seas of armies; the first sea of the army of the Babylonians, by which Nineveh the royal seat of the Assyrians was destroyed; and the other sea of the army of the Persians, who, under Cyrus, took Babylon, the metropolis of the Chaldean empire: because he hath done great things ; evil things, as the Targum; either the locust, which had done much mischief to the fruits of the earth; or the enemy, signified by it, who had behaved proudly, and done much hurt to the inhabitants of Judea: or, “though he hath done great things” F51 , as some render it, yet all this shall come to him. Some interpret it of God, “for he (God) hath done”, or “will do, great things” F52 ; in the removing of the locusts, or in the destruction of those enemies they represented, as is expressly said of him in ( Joel 2:21).
Matthew Henry Commentary
A plague of locusts. (Joel 1:1-7) All sorts of people are called to lament it. (Joel 1:8-13) They are to look to God. (Joel 1:14-20)
Joel 1:1-7 The most aged could not remember such calamities as wer about to take place. Armies of insects were coming upon the land to ea the fruits of it. It is expressed so as to apply also to the destruction of the country by a foreign enemy, and seems to refer to the devastations of the Chaldeans. God is Lord of hosts, has ever creature at his command, and, when he pleases, can humble and mortify proud, rebellious people, by the weakest and most contemptibl creatures. It is just with God to take away the comforts which ar abused to luxury and excess; and the more men place their happiness in the gratifications of sense, the more severe temporal afflictions ar upon them. The more earthly delights we make needful to satisfy us, the more we expose ourselves to trouble.
Joel 1:8-13 All who labour only for the meat that perishes, will sooner or later, be ashamed of their labour. Those that place their happiness in the delights of sense, when deprived of them, or disturbe in the enjoyment, lose their joy; whereas spiritual joy then flourishe more than ever. See what perishing, uncertain things ou creature-comforts are. See how we need to live in continual dependenc upon God and his providence. See what ruinous work sin makes. As far a poverty occasions the decay of piety, and starves the cause of religio among a people, it is a very sore judgment. But how blessed are the awakening judgments of God, in rousing his people and calling home the heart to Christ, and his salvation!
Joel 1:14-20 The sorrow of the people is turned into repentance an humiliation before God. With all the marks of sorrow and shame, sin must be confessed and bewailed. A day is to be appointed for thi purpose; a day in which people must be kept from their commo employments, that they may more closely attend God's services; an there is to be abstaining from meat and drink. Every one had added to the national guilt, all shared in the national calamity, therefor every one must join in repentance. When joy and gladness are cut of from God's house, when serious godliness decays, and love waxes cold then it is time to cry unto the Lord. The prophet describes ho grievous the calamity. See even the inferior creatures suffering for our transgression. And what better are they than beasts, who never cr to God but for corn and wine, and complain of the want of the delight of sense? Yet their crying to God in those cases, shames the stupidit of those who cry not to God in any case. Whatever may become of the nations and churches that persist in ungodliness, believers will fin the comfort of acceptance with God, when the wicked shall be burned u with his indignation __________________________________________________________________
Original Hebrew
ואת 853 הצפוני 6830 ארחיק 7368 מעליכם 5921 והדחתיו 5080 אל 413 ארץ 776 ציה 6723 ושׁממה 8077 את 854 פניו 6440 אל 413 הים 3220 הקדמני 6931 וספו 5490 אל 413 הים 3220 האחרון 314 ועלה 5927 באשׁו 889 ותעל 5927 צחנתו 6709 כי 3588 הגדיל 1431 לעשׂות׃ 6213
