Albert Barnes Commentary Joel 2:3

"A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and none hath escaped them." — Joel 2:3 (ASV)

A fire devours before them... Travelers of different nations and characters, and in different lands, some unacquainted with the Bible's words, have agreed in describing the ravages of locusts under this image.

One account states, “They scorch many things with their touch.” Another says, “Whatever herb or leaf they gnaw is, as it were, scorched by fire.” A third observes, “Wherever they come, the ground seems burned, as if with fire.” And yet another, “Wherever they pass, they burn and spoil everything, and that irremediably.”

An observer noted, “I have myself observed that the places where they had browsed were as scorched, as if the fire had passed there.” Another description reads: “They covered a square mile so completely, that it appeared, at a little distance, to have been burned and strewn over with brown ashes. Not a shrub, nor a blade of grass was visible.” Similarly, “A few months afterward, a much larger army alighted and gave the whole country the appearance of having been burned.” And, “Wherever they settled, it looks as if fire had devoured and burnt up everything.”

The descriptions of their ravages in Italy, Ethiopia, the Levant, India, and South Africa include statements like, “It is better to have to do with the Tartars, than with these little destructive animals; you would think that fire follows their track.” The locust, itself an image of God’s judgments, is described as an enemy invading, as they say, “with fire and sword,” “breathing fire,” wasting all as it advances, and leaving behind it the blackness of ashes and burning villages. As one source puts it: “Whatever it seizes on, it will consume as a devouring flame and will leave nothing whole behind it.”

The land is as the garden of Eden before them. In outward beauty the land was like that Paradise of God, where He placed our first parents; as were Sodom and Gomorrah, before God overthrew them (Genesis 13:10). It was like a garden enclosed and protected from all intrusion of evil. They sinned, and like our first parents, forfeited its bliss. “A fruitful land God maketh barren, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein” (Psalms 107:34). Ezekiel foretells the removal of the punishment, in connection with the Gospel promise of “a new heart and a new spirit. They shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden” (Ezekiel 36:26, Ezekiel 36:35).

And behind them a desolate wilderness. The desolation caused by the locust is even more inconceivable to us than their numbers. We have seen fields blighted; we have known of crops, most crucial for human sustenance, devoured; and in one year we heard of terrific famine as its result. We do not readily picture in our minds a whole tract, covering an area of several of our counties, in which not just one or another crop was destroyed, but every green thing was gone. Yet such was the scourge of locusts, the image of other and worse scourges in the treasure-house of God’s displeasure.

A Syrian writer relates, “In 1004 AD, a large swarm of locusts appeared in the land of Mosul and Baghdad, and it was very severe in Shiraz. It left no herb nor even leaf on the trees, and even gnawed the pieces of linen which the fullers were bleaching; of each piece the fuller gave a scrap to its owner: and a famine ensued, and a cor (about two quarters) of wheat was sold in Baghdad for 120 gold dinars (about 54 British pounds).”

The same writer continues, “When it (the locust of 784 AD) had consumed the whole tract of Edessa and Sarug, it passed to the west, and for three years after this heavy chastisement there was a famine in the land.”

Another account describes: “We traveled five days through lands utterly despoiled. As for the stalks of maize, as large as the largest canes used to prop vines, it is impossible to describe how they were broken and trampled, as if donkeys had trampled them; and all this was from the locusts. The wheat, barley, and tafos were as if they had never been sown; the trees were without a single leaf; the tender wood was all eaten; there was no trace of any kind of plant.”

“If we had not been advised to take mules laden with barley and provisions for ourselves, we and our mules would have perished of hunger. This land was all covered with locusts without wings, and they said that these were the offspring of those that had all departed, which had destroyed the land.”

Another observer writes: “Everywhere their legions march, greenery disappears from the country like a curtain that is folded up; trees and plants, stripped of leaves and reduced to their branches and stalks, substitute in the twinkling of an eye the dreary spectacle of winter for the rich scenes of spring.” It is also noted, “Fortunately, this plague is not very often repeated, for there is none that so surely brings famine and the diseases that follow it.”

Further accounts state: “Desolation and famine mark their progress; all the expectations of the farmer vanish. His fields, which the rising sun saw covered with luxuriance, are before evening a desert. The produce of his garden and orchard are likewise destroyed, for where these destructive swarms alight, not a leaf is left upon the trees, a blade of grass in the pastures, nor an ear of corn in the field.”

For example, “In 1654 a great multitude of locusts came from the northwest to the Islands Tayyovvan and Formosa, which consumed all that grew in the fields, so that above eight thousand men perished by famine.” And, “They come sometimes in such prodigious swarms that they darken the sky as they pass by and devour all in those parts where they settle, so that the inhabitants are often obliged to change their habitations for want of sustenance, as has happened frequently in China and the Isle of Tajowak.”

One report details: “The lands, ravaged throughout the west, produced no harvest. The year 1780 was still more miserable. A dry winter produced a new race of locusts which ravaged what had escaped the harshness of the season.”

“The farmer did not reap what he had sown and was reduced to having neither nourishment, seed, nor cattle. The people experienced all the horrors of famine. People could be seen wandering over the country to devour roots; and, seeking in the depths of the earth for means to prolong their lives, perhaps they instead shortened them. A countless number died of misery and malnutrition. I have seen people on the roads and in the streets dead of starvation, whom others were laying across donkeys to be buried. Fathers sold their children. A husband, in agreement with his wife, would arrange for her to marry someone in another province as if she were his sister, intending to redeem her when his circumstances improved. I have seen women and children run after camels, search in their dung for some grain of undigested barley, and devour it eagerly.”

Yes, and nothing will escape them. Or (which the words also include) “none will escape him,” literally, “and also there will be no escaping concerning him or from him.” The word, being used elsewhere of the persons who escape, suggests in itself that we should not linger only on the symbol of the locusts, but think of enemies more terrible, who destroy not only harvests, but also people—bodies or souls. Yet the picture of devastation is complete.

No creature of God so completely destroys the whole face of nature as does the locust. A traveler in the Crimea unconsciously uses the words of the prophet: “On whatever spot they fall, the whole vegetable produce disappears. Nothing escapes them, from the leaves of the forest to the herbs on the plain. Fields, vineyards, gardens, pastures, everything is laid waste; and sometimes the only appearance left is a disgusting surface layer caused by their putrefying bodies, the stench of which is sufficient to cause a plague.”

Another in South Africa says, “When they make their appearance, not a single field of grain remains unconsumed by them. This year the whole of the Sneuwberg will not, I suppose, produce a single bushel.”

A further account states: “They had (for a space 80 or 90 miles in length) devoured every green herb and every blade of grass; and if it had not been for the reeds on which our cattle entirely subsisted while we traveled along the banks of the river, the journey must have been discontinued, at least along the proposed route.” Another simply notes, “Not a shrub nor blade of grass was visible.” The rapidity with which they complete the destruction is also observed: “In two hours, they destroyed all the herbs around Rama.”

All this, which is a strong but true image of the locusts, is a shadow of God’s other judgments. It is often said of God, “A fire goeth before Him and burneth up His enemies on every side” (Psalms 97:3). “The Lord will come with fire; by fire will the Lord plead with all flesh” (Isaiah 66:15–16). This is said of the Judgment Day, as in Paul: “The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 1:7–8).

That awful, lurid stream of fire will burn up “the earth and all the works that are therein” (2 Peter 3:10). This entire circuit of the globe will be enveloped in one burning deluge of fire; all gold and jewels, gardens, fields, pictures, books, “the cloud-capt towers and gorgeous palaces, shall dissolve, and leave not a rack behind.” The good will be removed beyond its reach, for “they shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

But all that is in the earth and those who are of the earth will be swept away by it. It will go before the army of the Lord, the Angels whom “the Son of man shall send forth, to gather out of His kingdom all things that shall offend and them that do iniquity. It shall burn after them” (Matthew 13:41). For it will burn on during the Day of Judgment until it has consumed all for which it is sent.

“The land will be a garden of Eden before it.” For, as our Lord says, they will be “eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building, marrying and giving in marriage” (Luke 17:27–28, Luke 17:30); the world will be “glorifying itself and living deliciously,” full of riches and delights, when it “shall be utterly burned with fire,” and “in one hour so great riches shall come to nought” (Revelation 18:7–8, Revelation 18:17).

“And after it a desolate wilderness,” for there will be none left. “And none shall escape.” For our Lord says, “they shall gather all things that offend; the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire” (Matthew 13:41, Matthew 13:49–50).