Albert Barnes Commentary Joel 1:6

"For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number; his teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the jaw-teeth of a lioness." — Joel 1:6 (ASV)

For a nation has come up upon my land - He calls this scourge of God a “nation,” giving them the title most commonly used in Holy Scripture for pagan nations. A similar term, “people” or “folk,” is used for the “ants” and the “conies” (Proverbs 30:25–26), because of the wisdom with which God teaches them to act. Here it is used to include both the irrational invader, guided by a Reason beyond its own, and the pagan conqueror.

This enemy, he says, has “come up” (because the land, being God’s land, was exalted in dignity above other lands) “upon My land,” that is, “the Lord’s land” (Hosea 9:3), until now owned and protected as God’s land, a land about which Moses said to them, “the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even to the end of the year” (Deuteronomy 11:12). Now it was to be stripped of God’s protection and trampled upon by a pagan foe.

Strong and without number - The imagery is still taken from the locust, whose numbers are entirely beyond human counting. Travelers sometimes use comparisons to express their number, such as clouds darkening the sun (see the note at Joel 2:10) or discharging flakes of snow. Some serious writers give up describing it as hopeless. For instance: “Their multitude is incredible, by which they cover the earth and fill the air; they take away the brightness of the sun.”

One writer exclaims, “I say again, the thing is incredible to one who has not seen them.” Another states, “It would not be a thing to be believed, if one had not seen it.” Yet another account reads: “On another day, it was beyond belief: they occupied a space of eight leagues (about 24 English miles). I do not mention the multitude of those without wings, because it is incredible.”

An observer in Abrigima reported: “When we were in the Seignory of Abrigima, in a place called Aquate, there came such a multitude of locusts as cannot be described. They began to arrive one day about nine in the morning (terce) and did not stop arriving until night; and when they arrived, they settled themselves. On the next day, at an early morning hour (prime), they began to depart, and by midday there was not one left, and not a leaf remained on the trees.

At that moment, others began to come, and stayed like the previous ones until the next day at the same hour; and these left not a stick with its bark, nor a green herb. They continued this way for five days, one after another. The people said that these were the sons, who went to seek their fathers, and they took the road toward the others that had no wings. After they were gone, we knew the breadth of the area they had occupied and saw the destruction they had caused; it exceeded three leagues (nine miles), in which no bark remained on the trees.”

Another writer describes the situation in South Africa: “Of the innumerable multitudes of the incomplete insect or larva of the locusts, which at this time infested this part of Africa, no adequate idea could be formed without having witnessed them. For the space of ten miles on each side of the Sea-Cow River, and eighty or ninety miles in length—an area of 1600 to 1800 square miles—the whole surface might literally be said to be covered with them.

The water of the river was scarcely visible because of the dead carcasses floating on the surface, drowned in their attempt to reach the weeds growing in it.” Another report states: “The present year is the third of their continuance, and their increase has far exceeded that of a geometrical progression whose ratio is a million.”

A reputable writer says of a “column of locusts” in India: “It extended, we were informed, 500 miles. So compact was it when on the wing that, like an eclipse, it completely hid the sun, so that no shadow was cast by any object, and some lofty tombs, not more than 200 yards distant, were rendered quite invisible.”

In one single neighborhood, even in Germany, it was once calculated that nearly 17,000,000 of their eggs were collected and destroyed. Even Volney writes of those in Syria: “The quantity of these insects is a thing incredible to anyone who has not seen it himself; the ground is covered with them for several leagues.”

Clarke, an otherwise incredulous traveler, says, “The steppes were entirely covered by their bodies, and their numbers falling resembled flakes of snow, carried obliquely by the wind, and spreading thick mists over the sun. Myriads fell over the carriage, the horses, and the drivers. The Tartars told us that people had been suffocated by a fall of locusts on the ‘steppes.’ It was now the season, they added, in which they began to diminish.” Another source confirms, “It was incredible that their breadth was eight leagues.”

Strong - The locust is remarkable for its long flights. “Its strength of limbs is amazing; when pressed down by the hand on the table, it has almost power to move the fingers.”

Whose teeth are the teeth of a lion - The teeth of the locust are said to be “harder than stone.” It is said, “They appear to be created for a scourge; since to strength incredible for so small a creature, they add saw-like teeth admirably calculated to “eat up all the herbs in the land.””

Some locusts near the Senegal are described as “quite brown, of the thickness and length of a finger, and armed with two jaws, toothed like a saw, and very powerful.” The prophet ascribes to them the sharp or prominent eye-teeth of the lion and lioness, combining strength with number. The ideal of this scourge of God is completed by blending immense numbers—in which such small creatures alone could exist together—with the strength of the fiercest predators.

The commentator reflects: “Weak and short-lived is man, yet when God is angered against a sinful people, what mighty power He allows man to wield against it!”

And he adds, “What is more cruel than those who endeavor to slay souls, turning them from the Infinite and Eternal Good, and so dragging them to the everlasting torments of Hell?”