2 3<\/strong>. Introduction, characterizing the event which forms the occasion of Joel’s prophecy: it is an unexampled one, of a kind which even the oldest of the prophet’s contemporaries had neither witnessed themselves nor heard of from their fathers; its memory, therefore, deserves the more to be handed on to successive generations in the future.<\/p>\n Hear this<\/em> ] viz., the question following, implying the unprecedented character of the calamity.<\/p>\n ye old men<\/em>, &c.] the whole people is addressed: not one among them, however long or varied his experience, has ever heard tell of such an occurrence.<\/p>\n of the land<\/em> ] i.e. of Judah, with which alone Joel deals: Son 1:14<\/span>; Son 2:1<\/span>.<\/p>\n this<\/em> ] i.e. the like of this.<\/p>\n or even<\/em> ] simply or.<\/p>\n Part I. Chap. Joe 1:2<\/span> to Joe 2:17<\/span><\/p>\n Description of the present calamity (ch. 1.). The terrible “Day of Jehovah,” of which it is the harbinger (Joe 2:1-11<\/span>), but which may yet be averted by the nation’s timely repentance (Joe 2:12-17<\/span>).<\/p>\n Hear this, ye old men – <\/B>By reason of their age they had known and heard much; they had heard from their fathers, and their fathers fathers, much which they had not known themselves. Among the people of the east, memories of past times were handed down from generation to generation, for periods, which to us would seem incredible. Israel was commanded, so to transmit the vivid memories of the miracles of God. The prophet appeals to the old men, to hear, and, (lest, anything should seem to have escaped them) to the whole people of the land, to give their whole attention to this thing, which he was about to tell them, and then, reviewing all the evils which each had ever heard to have been inflicted by God upon their forefathers, to say whether this thing had happened in their days or in the days of their fathers.<\/P><\/p>\n Verse 2<\/span>. Ye old men<\/B><\/I>] Instead of hazzekenim, old men<\/I>, a few MSS. have haccohanim, ye priests<\/I>, but improperly.<\/P> <\/P> Hath this been in your days<\/B><\/I>] He begins very abruptly; and before he proposes his subject<\/I>, excites attention and alarm by intimating that he is about to announce disastrous events, such as the oldest<\/I> man<\/I> among them has never seen, nor any of them learnt from the histories of ancient times.<\/P> <\/p>\n Hear this:<\/B> he is about to report a very wonderful occurrence, and desires all to consider it, mark it well, and tell me what you know. <\/P> Ye old men; <\/B>the oldest among you, who can remember things done in your days when you were young, some scores of years past. <\/P> Give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land:<\/B> it is an appeal to all that may possibly know more than others, and remember better than others can. <\/P> Hath this been in your days?<\/B> did you personally ever know the like? <\/P> Or even in the days of your fathers?<\/B> did your fathers ever tell you of such a thing happening in their days? was there ever such a thing known among them? have you ever heard them speak of it? <\/P> <\/p>\n 2, 3.<\/B> A spirited introductioncalling attention. <\/P> old men<\/B>the best judgesin question concerning the past (Deu 32:7<\/span>;Job 32:7<\/span>). <\/P> Hath this been,<\/B> &c.thatis, Hath any so grievous<\/I> a calamity as this<\/I> ever beenbefore? No such plague of locusts had been since the ones inEgypt.<\/I> Ex 10:14<\/span> is not atvariance with this verse, which refers to Judea,<\/I> in which Joelsays there had been no such devastation before.<\/P><\/p>\n Hear this, ye old men<\/strong>,…. What the prophet was about to relate, concerning the consumption of the fruits of the earth, by various sorts of creatures, and by a drought; and these are called upon to declare if ever the like had been known or heard of by them; who by reason of age had the greatest opportunities of knowledge of this sort, and could remember what they had heard or seen, and would faithfully relate it: this maybe understood of elders in office, as well as in age;<\/p>\n and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land<\/strong>; or “earth”, not of the whole earth; but of the land of Judea; who were more particularly concerned in this affair, and therefore are required to listen attentively to it:<\/p>\n hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers<\/strong>? that is, not the selfsame thing, but anything equal to it; a judgment of the same kind and nature, and of the same degree. By this question it seems the like had never been in the memory of any man living; nor in former times, in the days of their ancestors, as could be averted upon report; or attested on the credit of annals, chronicles, or other methods of conveying the history of ages past. As for the plague of locusts in Egypt, though they were such as; never find been, nor would be there any more; yet such or greater, and more in number than those, might be in Judea; besides, they continued but a few, lays at most, these four years successively, as Kimchi observes; and who thinks that in Egypt there was but one sort of locusts, here four; but the passage he quotes in Ps 78:46<\/span>; contradicts him; to which may be added<\/p>\n Ps 105:34<\/span>.<\/p>\n Hear this, ye old men; and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land: has this been in your days, and in the days of your fathers? This declare to your children and your children to their children, and their children to the next generation: the residue of the locust has the chafer eaten, and the residue of the chafer has the cankerworm eaten, and the residue of the cankerworm has the caterpillar eaten (2) I have in the last Lecture already mentioned what I think of this passage of the Prophet. Some think that a future punishment is denounced; but the context sufficiently proves that they mistake and pervert the real meaning of the Prophet; for, on the contrary, he reproves here the hardness of the people, — that they fell not their plagues. And as men are not easily moved by God’s judgments, the Prophet here declares that God had executed such a vengeance as could not be regarded otherwise than miraculous; as though he said, “God often punishes men, and it behaves them to be attentive as soon as he raises up his finger. But common punishments are wont to be unheeded; men soon forget those punishments to which they have been accustomed. God has, however, treated you in an unusual manner, having openly as it were put forth his hand from heaven, and brought on you punishments nothing less than miraculous. Ye must then be more than stupid, if ye perceive not that you are smitten by God’s hand.” This is the true meaning of the Prophet, and may be easily gathered from the words. <\/p>\n Hear, ye old men, he says. He expressly addresses the old, because experience teaches men much; and the old, when they see any thing new or unusual, must know, that it is not according to the ordinary course of things. He who has past his fiftieth or sixtieth year, and sees something new happening which he had never thought of, doubtless acknowledges it as the unusual work of God. This is the reason why the Prophet directs here his discourse to the old; as though he said, “I will not terrify you about nothing; but let the old hear, who have been accustomed for many years to many revolutions; let them now answer me, whether in their whole life, which has been an age on the earth, have they seen any such thing ” We now perceive the design of the Prophet; for he intended to awaken the Jews that they might understand that God had put forth his hand from heaven, and that it was impossible to ascribe what they had seen with their eyes to chance or to earthly causes, but that it was a miracle. And his object was to make the Jews at length ashamed of their folly in not having hitherto been attentive to God’s punishments, and in having always flattered themselves, as though God slept in heaven, when yet he so violently thundered against them, and intended by an extraordinary course to move them, that they might at last perceive that they were summoned to judgment. <\/p>\n He afterwards adds, And all ye inhabitants of the land. Had the Prophet addressed only the old, some might seize on some pretext for their ignorance; hence he addressed and from the least to the greatest; and this he did, that the young might not exempt themselves from blame in proceeding in their obstinacy and in thus mocking God, when he called them to repentance. Hear, he says, all ye inhabitants of the land; has this been in your days or in the days of your fathers? He says first, has such a thing been in your days, for doubtless what happens rarely deserves a greater consideration. It is indeed true that foolish men are blind to the daily works of God; as the favor of God in making his sun to rise daily is but little thought of by us. This happens through our ingratitude; but our ingratitude is doubled, and is much more base and less excusable, when the Lord works in an unwonted manner, and we yet with closed eves overlook what ought to be deemed a miracle. This dullness the Prophet now reproves, Has such a thing, he says, “happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers? Ye can recall to mind what your fathers have told you. It is certain that for two ages no such thing has happened. Your torpidity then is extreme, since ye neglect this judgment of God, which from its very rareness ought to have awakened your minds.” <\/p>\n (2) All these are different kinds of locusts. There are in Hebrew ten names for them, designative probably of so many kinds. There are four here: גזם, gizam, the young locust; ארבה, arebe, so called from their number, one on the wing; ילק, ilak, one of the hairy bristly kind; and λψσ᾿, chesil, one unfledged. Following the probable ideal meaning of the words, we may give them these names, —the cutter, the multiplier, the licker, and the devourer. — Ed. <\/p>\n (2, 3) Hath this been in your days.<\/strong>The introduction points to the startling nature of the portent: it was unexampled; it was a cause of consternation to all who beheld it; it would be recollected as a subject of wondering comment among succeeding generations. The hand of God was evident, recalling the marvellous things he did in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.<\/p>\n THE SCOURGE OF LOCUSTS, DROUGHT, AND FIRE, Joe 1:2-20<\/span>.<\/p>\n Out of the midst of a terrible calamity (Joe 1:2-4<\/span>) the prophet summons the people to universal lamentation (5-12). He sees in the present disaster the harbinger of the day of Jehovah. To avert its terrors he exhorts all to turn to Jehovah in penitent supplication (13-15). He calls attention once more to the present awful condition, and closes with a prayer for deliverance (16-20).<\/p>\n 2<\/strong>. <\/strong> Hear this <\/strong> A solemn summons to give attention to the words about to be uttered (Amo 3:1<\/span>; Amo 4:1<\/span>; Amo 5:1<\/span>). <\/p>\n Inhabitants of the land <\/strong> With Joel, Judah, since all his interest seems to center there (see Joe 1:14<\/span>; Joe 2:1<\/span>; Joe 2:32<\/span>; Joe 3:1<\/span>; Joe 3:17<\/span>, etc.). <\/p>\n Old men <\/strong> Not “elders” in an official sense, for, if mentioned at all by Joel, these do not appear until Joe 1:14<\/span>; but those who have lived longest, who have experienced most, whose memories run back farthest, and whose testimony, therefore, will be of greatest weight in a case where appeal to past experiences is made. <\/p>\n This <\/strong> That is, a calamity such as the one described in Joe 1:4<\/span>. The witnesses are asked whether such a calamity had been in their days, or whether the present generation had been told that there had ever been one like it. <\/p>\n In the days of your fathers <\/strong> “Among the people of the East memories of past times were handed down from generation to generation for periods which to us would seem incredible.” 3. The reply is not stated; the prophet continues, well aware that the answer could only be an emphatic No! <\/em> He requests his hearers to hand down the story of the calamity from one generation to another as an event unique and unparalleled. <\/p>\n Tell <\/strong> The Hebrew verb comes from the same root from which is derived the word “book.” Here the verb is in the intensive form; it means more, therefore, than ordinary telling; it means the giving of careful, detailed information. This verse may be compared with Psa 78:5-7<\/span>; Deu 4:9<\/span>; Deu 6:6-7<\/span>; Deu 6:20-24<\/span>; Deu 11:19<\/span>, etc. The memory of the wonders of Jehovah’s love, his deliverances, his laws and statutes were to be handed down from father to son; here the memory of unparalleled woe and judgment; such story would not be without its lessons.<\/p>\n The Call To Hear What God Has To Say ( Joe 1:2-5<\/strong><\/span><\/strong> ).<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n The prophecy opens with a call to all in Judah to hear what God has to say. The opening call has in mind Exo 10:1-2<\/span> which, in the context of a plague of locusts, says, ‘Then YHWH said to Moses, — “And that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am YHWH.” Here Joel similarly calls on the old men, and all the inhabitants of the land, to recognise the uniqueness of the occasion, and pass on what they learn to those who will follow them, for he wants them to see that it is a judgment from YHWH, a warning shot concerning what is to come in even greater measure in the final Day of YHWH.<\/p>\n The judgment that they have experienced is then portrayed in terms of huge plagues of locusts, both of flying locusts and of hopping locusts, possibly following one after another in vast numbers, which have eaten up all that is in the land and left it desolated.<\/p>\n Analysis of Joe 1:2-5<\/strong><\/span><\/strong> .<\/p>\n a <\/strong> Hear this, you old men, and give ear, all you inhabitants of the land. Has this been in your days, or in the days of your fathers? Tell you your children of it, and your children their children, and their children another generation (Joe 1:2-3<\/span>).<\/p>\n b <\/strong> What the adult locust (or ‘shearing locust’) has left the maturing locust (or ‘swarming locust’) has eaten, and what the maturing locust has left the young locust (or ‘hopping locust’) has eaten, and what the young locust has left the infant locust (or ‘destroying locust’) has eaten (Joe 1:4<\/span>).<\/p>\n a <\/strong> Awake, you drunkards, and weep, and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth (Joe 1:5<\/span>).<\/p>\n Note how the emphasis is on the huge plagues of locusts, with the call to consider it going out in ‘a’ to the old men and all the people, and in the parallel to the drunkards and drinkers of wine.<\/p>\n Joe 1:2-3<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n ‘Hear this, you old men,<\/p>\n And give ear, all you inhabitants of the land.<\/p>\n Has this been in your days,<\/p>\n Or in the days of your fathers?’<\/p>\n ‘Tell you your children of it, and your children their children,<\/p>\n And their children another generation.<\/p>\n The fact that the message has to be passed on for a number of generations indicates that this is something that is seen as a part of history and not as something occurring at the end of it. What he is describing is not descriptive of the final day of YHWH, but is rather something that is to be remembered in the light of it being an example of what could happen in the Day of YHWH, that day when YHWH brings about His purposes through judgment. The call to hear his words are first spoken to the ‘old men’, because they are the wisest and most knowledgeable in the land. Let them consider the significance of what has happened. YHWH has spoken. And the call is then extended to all the people, because what has happened has a message for everyone. And that message is with regard to something the like of which has never been seen in living memory. Indeed it is so important that its occurrence and its implications must be passed on to succeeding generations. As mentioned in the introduction we have here a parallel to Exo 10:1-2<\/span>, ‘Then YHWH said to Moses, — “And that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am YHWH.” Similarly Joel wanted the people of his and succeeding days to recognise in what had just happened a sign from YHWH of what He has done and of what He will yet do.<\/p>\n And what is it that Joel sees as so climactic that he wants it to be noted and remembered? It is that Judah have been visited by plagues of locusts unlike any in living memory, plagues that have devastated the whole land, and which are a sign of YHWH’s displeasure with Judah. Plagues of locusts were one of the recognised curses which could come on God’s people when they broke the covenant (Deu 28:38<\/span>), and Solomon recognised in his prophetic prayer that God would punish His people with locust swarms, and prayed that when this happened they might seek and find forgiveness ((1Ki 8:37<\/span>; 2Ch 6:28<\/span>). So Joel had every reason to see in what had happened a signal judgment of YHWH.<\/p>\n Joe 1:4<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n ‘What the adult locust (or ‘gnawing locust’) has left the maturing locust (or ‘swarming locust’) has eaten,<\/p>\n And what the maturing locust has left the young locust (or ‘hopping locust’) has eaten,<\/p>\n And what the young locust has left the infant locust (or ‘destroying locust’) has eaten.’<\/p>\n The size and scale of the locust invasion is emphasised either by reference to all levels of locust from maturity to infancy, as in the text, or equally likely by reference to a number of swarms of locusts each of which is described in terms of one well known aspect of locusts, as in brackets. The words used are all descriptions of locusts, but as seeing them from differing viewpoints. Taking into account the roots behind the nouns the first word for locust has in mind its ability to ‘shear or gnaw’ the grain and fruit from its source (the same noun is used in Amo 4:9<\/span>), the second has in mind its tendency to swarm at particular times (this is the most common word for locust), the third has in mind its ability to hop around on everything and everywhere (the locust is a form of grasshopper, compare Psa 105:34-35<\/span>; Jer 51:14<\/span>; Jer 51:27<\/span>: Nah 3:15-16<\/span>), and the fourth has in mind its tendency to destroy all living vegetation (compare 1Ki 8:37<\/span>; 2Ch 6:28<\/span>; Psa 78:46<\/span>; Isa 33:4<\/span>). In some of the cited verses the second type is used in parallel with either the third or fourth which may suggest that two types of locust were being distinguished, the second type possibly referring to the flying locusts, and the others to the young locusts on the march (see introduction above). We may thus see the gnawing locusts as having arrived by air in swarms, and denuded the land, followed by swarming locusts who also had their fill and laid billions of eggs, followed by the hatching out of the young hopping locusts who marched over the land devouring everything in their paths, followed by the destroying locusts who acted similarly. But however it was, the overall emphasis is firstly on the vast scale of the invasions, so that as one appeared to be ending another one appeared, and secondly on the fact that once they had all finished their work nothing was left.<\/p>\n The all-embracing nature of the description calls to mind the similar all-embracing descriptions in Exo 10:5<\/span>; Exo 10:15<\/span>, and no one who had experienced such an invasion would ever forget it.<\/p>\n The ability of a swarm of locusts to swoop down and destroy all vegetation and trees would have been well known, as would the ground based march of young locusts from the millions of eggs that would have been laid (described in the introduction). What was not expected was the intensity and widespread nature of what had happened this time. It was on a vast scale unknown before (compare Joe 2:2<\/span>), denuding the whole land of grain, vegetation and trees.<\/p>\n Joe 1:5<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n ‘Awake, you drunkards, and weep,<\/p>\n And wail, all you drinkers of wine,<\/p>\n Because of the sweet wine,<\/p>\n For it is cut off from your mouth.’<\/p>\n Even the drunkards are called on to take notice of what has happened and weep, for they are to recognise that it is affecting what they love best, the very source of their supplies of their beloved drink. But the call also goes out to all drinkers of wine, they too are to wail, for all will be affected. There is an indication here of what Joel sees as the reason for the judgment that has come on them. It is because they are so taken up with pleasure rather than with obedience to the covenant and the worship of YHWH.<\/p>\n Joe 1:2<\/span><\/em><\/strong>. <\/strong>Hear this, ye old men<\/em><\/strong><\/strong> This prophesy begins with threatening the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the land of Judah, with such desolation of their country, by swarms of locusts, as had never happened to them before in the memory of the oldest inhabitants of the land, <\/em>and as should occasion the utmost distress to all sorts of persons among them. The havock that should be made by these creatures is described in a lively manner. Their corn of all sorts should be devoured, and all their choicest fruit-trees entirely destroyed; so that there should be the greatest scarcity of provision in the land, and not enough to supply the meat and drink-offerings for the altar of God. And what should increase this calamity was, the excessive heat and drought which should happen at the same time, whereby their herds and flocks should be almost ready to perish for want of water. Chandler. <\/p>\n Joe 1:2 Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?<\/p>\n Ver. 2. Hear this, ye old men<\/strong> ] Who, as ye are fittest to hear serious discourses (Aristotle excludeth young men from his ethic lectures, because raw and rash: green wood is ever shrinking and warping), so ye are more experienced; and yet not so wise, but that, by hearing, ye may become wiser, Pro 1:5<\/span> . Solon said, he could never be too old to learn, . Julianus, the lawyer, said, that when he had one foot in the grave, yet he would have the other in the school. David Chytraeus, when he lay dying, lifted up himself to hear the divine discourses of his friends that sat by him; and said, that he should die with better cheer if he might die learning something, Si moribundus etiam aliquid didicisset.<\/em> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n And give ear, all, &c.<\/strong> ] Hear and give ear: draw up the ears of your minds to the ears of your bodies, that one sound may pierce both. When these two words are joined together, as they are often, the matter propounded is either very dark or very remarkable, and commands attention, as Deu 1:45 Isa 1:2<\/span> ; Isa 1:10 Jer 13:15<\/span> Hos 5:1<\/span> . <\/p>\n <\/p>\n All ye inhabitants of the land<\/strong> ] sc.<\/em> of Judea, or all ye inhabitants of the whole earth, q.d.<\/em> I shall speak of so great a matter, as that I could wish to be heard all the world over. And because all men love to hear news, I shall tell you that that was never known to happen in any age. Rem novam pollicetur emphaticoteros quam more Rhetorico,<\/em> saith Oecolampadius. Prick up your ears, therefore, and listen. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers<\/strong> ] Was there ever such havoc made by several sorts of vermin successively, for four years together? This was the very finger of God, Exo 8:19<\/span> , all whose works (by how small instruments soever) are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein, Psa 111:2<\/span> . His extraordinary works especially are to be noted and noticed; the memory of them is to be transmitted to all posterity. “This shall be written for the generation to come,” Psa 102:18<\/span> . “They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this,” Psa 22:31<\/span> . Sed vae stupori nostro.<\/em> There is a woe to such as regard not the works of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands, Isa 5:12<\/span> , that make of them but a nine days’ wonderment at best, and so pass them over. Whereas every judgment of God should be a warning peal to repentance. We be like the smith’s dog (saith one), who the harder the anvil is beaten on, lies by, and sleeps the sounder. Like the hen (saith another), which loseth her chickens one after another by the devouring kite; and yet still continues to pick up what lies before her: such a deep drowsiness and dressiness of spirit there is upon most of us.<\/p>\n Hear. Note this indication of the formula of Joel’s prophetic utterances. See App-82. <\/p>\n ye. Hebrew has no proper vocative. The simple Noun with the Article takes its place. <\/p>\n old men. Not official elders, but those whose memory goes back farthest. <\/p>\n Hath . . . ? Figure of speech Erotesis (App-38), for emphasis. Compare Joe 2:2. <\/p>\n Hear: Psa 49:1, Isa 34:1, Jer 5:21, Hos 5:1, Amo 3:1, Amo 4:1, Amo 5:1, Mic 1:2, Mic 3:1, Mic 3:9, Mat 13:9, Rev 2:7 <\/p>\n ye old: Job 8:8, Job 12:12, Job 15:10, Job 21:7 <\/p>\n Hath: Joe 2:2, Deu 4:32-35, Isa 7:17, Jer 30:7, Dan 12:1, Mat 24:21 <\/p>\n Reciprocal: Exo 10:14 – very grievous Jer 13:15 – and Jer 28:8 – prophesied<\/p>\n Joe 1:2. The idea of this verse is that the condition about to be described was without a likeness, either in the present or the following days.<\/p>\n Joe 1:2 to Joe 2:17. A Description of the Plague of Locusts, and a Summons to an Assembly for Confession and Intercession.<\/p>\n Joe 1:2-4. The Unprecedented Character of the Plague.No living Jew has experienced so terrible a plague: it will be talked of in generations yet to come. The locusts have eaten the land absolutely bare.<\/p>\n Joe 1:2. ye old men: might also be rendered ye elders, i.e. officials; but the words are probably a later insertion.<\/p>\n Joe 1:4. palmerworm, locust, cankerworm, caterpillar: neither of the suggestions in mg. is probable. The names, which may be rendered shearer, devastator, lapper, finisher, are different names for locust, each expressing its destructive power.<\/p>\n 1:2 Hear this, ye {a} old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath {b} this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?<\/p>\n (a) Signifying the princes, the priests, and the governors.<\/p>\n (b) He calls the Jews to the consideration of God’s judgments, who had now plagued the fruits of the ground for the space of four years, which was because of their sins, and to call them to repentance.<\/p>\n II. A PAST DAY OF THE LORD: A LOCUST INVASION 1:2-20<\/span><\/p>\n The rest of chapter 1 describes the effects of a severe locust plague that had recently destroyed the agriculture of the land.<\/p>\n A. An initial appeal 1:2-4<\/span><\/p>\n Joel called on everyone, from the most respected ruling elders of the land (cf. 1Sa 30:26-31; 2Sa 19:11-15; 2Ki 23:1; Ezr 10:8; Pro 31:23; Jer 26:17; Lam 5:12; Lam 5:14) to the ordinary inhabitants, to pay attention to what he had to say. Nothing like what he was about to describe had happened in their lifetime or in that of their recent ancestors. He urged them to retell the devastating news to their descendants for generations to come.<\/p>\n THE LOCUSTS AND THE DAY OF THE LORD<\/p>\n Joe 1:2-20; Joe 2:1-17<\/p>\n JOEL, as we have seen, found the motive of his prophecy in a recent plague of locusts, the appearance of which and the havoc they worked are described by him in full detail. Writing not only as a poet but as a seer, who reads in the locusts signs of the great Day of the Lord, Joel has necessarily put into his picture several features which carry the imagination beyond the limits of experience. And yet, if we ourselves had lived through such a plague, we should be able to recognize how little license the poet has taken, and that the seer, so far from unduly mixing with his facts the colors of Apocalypse, must have experienced in the terrible plague itself enough to provoke all the religious and monitory use which he makes of it.<\/p>\n The present writer has seen but one swarm of locusts, in which, though it was small and soon swept away by the wind, he felt not only many of the features that Joel describes, but even some degree of that singular helplessness before a calamity of portent far beyond itself, something of that supernatural edge and accent, which, by the confession of so many observers, characterize the locust-plague and the earthquake above all other physical disasters. One summer afternoon, upon the plain of Hauran, a long bank of mist grew rapidly from the western horizon. The day was dull, and as the mist rose athwart the sunbeams, struggling through clouds, it gleamed cold and white, like the front of a distant snow storm. When it came near, it seemed to be more than a mile broad, and was dense enough to turn the atmosphere raw and dirty, with a chill as of a summer sea-fog, only that this was not due to any fall in the temperature. Nor was there the silence of a mist. We were enveloped by a noise, less like the whirring of wings than the rattle of hail or the crackling of bush on fire. Myriads upon myriads of locusts were about us, covering the ground, and shutting out the view in all directions. Though they drifted before the wind, there was no confusion in their ranks. They sailed in unbroken lines, sometimes straight, sometimes wavy; and when they passed pushing through our caravan, they left almost no stragglers, except from the last battalion, and only the few dead which we had caught in our hands. After several minutes they were again but a lustre on the air, and so melted away into some heavy clouds in the east.<\/p>\n Modern travelers furnish us with terrible impressions of the innumerable multitudes of a locust plague, the succession of their swarms through days and weeks, and the utter desolation they leave behind them. Mr. Doughty writes: “There hopped before our feet a minute brood of second locusts, of a leaden color, with budding wings like the spring leaves, and born of those gay swarms which a few weeks before had passed over and despoiled the desert. After forty days these also would fly as a pestilence, yet more hungry than the former, and fill the atmosphere.” And later: “The clouds of the second locust brood which the Aarab call Amdan, pillars, flew over us for some days, invaded the booths and for blind hunger even bit our shins.” It was “a storm of rustling wings.” “This year was remembered for the locust swarms and great summer heat.” A traveler in South Africa says: “For the space of ten miles on each side of the Sea-Cow river and eighty or ninety miles in length, an area of sixteen or eighteen hundred square miles, the whole surface might literally be said to be covered with them.” In his recently published book on South Africa, Mr. Bryce writes:-<\/p>\n “It is a strange sight, beautiful if you can forget the destruction it brings with it. The whole air, to twelve or even eighteen feet above the ground, is filled with the insects, reddish brown in body, with bright gauzy wings. When the suns rays catch them it is like the sea sparkling with light. When you see them against a cloud they are like the dense flakes of a driving snow-storm. You feel as if you had never before realized immensity in number. Vast crowds of men gathered at a festival, countless tree-tops rising along the slope of a forest ridge, the chimneys of London houses from the top of St. Pauls-all are as nothing to the myriads of insects that blot out the sun above and cover the ground beneath and fill the air whichever way one looks. The breeze carries them swiftly past, but they come on in fresh clouds, a host of which there is no end, each of them a harmless creature which you can catch and crush in your hand, but appalling in their power of collective devastation.”<\/p>\n And take three testimonies from Syria: <\/p>\n “The quantity of these insects is a thing incredible to any one who has not seen it himself; the ground is covered by them for several leagues.” <\/p>\n “The whole face of the mountain was black with them. On they came like a living deluge. We dug trenches and kindled fires, and beat and burnt to death heaps upon heaps, but the effort was utterly useless. They rolled up the mountain-side, and poured over rocks, walls, ditches, and hedges, those behind covering up and passing over the masses already killed. For some days they continued to pass. The noise made by them in marching and foraging was like that of a heavy shower falling upon a distant forest.” <\/p>\n “The roads were covered with them, all marching and in regular lines, like armies of soldiers, with their leaders in front; and all the opposition of man to resist their progress was in vain.” Having consumed the plantations in the country, they entered the towns and villages. “When they approached our garden all the farm servants were employed to keep them off, but to no avail; though our men broke their ranks for a moment, no sooner had they passed the men than they closed again, and marched forward through hedges and ditches as before. Our garden finished, they continued their march toward the town, devastating one garden after another. They have also penetrated into most of our rooms: whatever one is doing one hears their noise from without, like the noise of armed hosts, or the running of many waters. When in an erect position their appearance at a little distance is like that of a well-armed horseman.”<\/p>\n Locusts are notoriously adapted for a plague, “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.” They are the incarnation of hunger. No voracity is like theirs, the voracity of little creatures, whose million separate appetites nothing is too minute to escape. They devour first grass and leaves, fruit and foliage, everything that is green and juicy.<\/p>\n Then they attack the young branches of trees, and then the hard bark of the trunks. “After eating up the corn, they fell upon the vines, the pulse, the willows, and even the hemp, notwithstanding its great bitterness.” “The bark of figs, pomegranates, and oranges, bitter, hard, and corrosive, escaped not their voracity.” “They are particularly injurious to the palm-trees; these they strip of every leaf and green particle, the trees remaining like skeletons with bare branches.” “For eighty or ninety miles they devoured every green herb and every blade of grass.” “The gardens outside Jaffa are now completely stripped, even the bark of the young trees having been devoured, and look like a birch-tree forest in winter.” “The bushes were eaten quite bare, though the animals could not have been long on the spot. They sat by hundreds on a bush gnawing the rind and the woody fibres.” “Bamboo groves have been stripped of their leaves and left standing like saplings after a rapid bush fire, and grass has been devoured so that the bare ground appeared as if burned.” “The country did not seem to be burnt, but to be much covered with snow through the whiteness of the trees and the dryness of the herbs.” The fields finished, they invade towns and houses, in search of stores. Victual of all kinds, hay, straw, and even linen and woolen clothes and leather bottles, they consume or tear in pieces. They flood through the open, unglazed windows and lattices: nothing can keep them out.<\/p>\n These extracts prove to us what little need Joel had of hyperbole in order to read his locusts as signs of the Day of Jehovah; especially if we keep in mind that locusts are worst in very hot summers, and often accompany an absolute drought along with its consequence of prairie and forest fires. Some have thought that, in introducing the effects of fire, Joel only means to paint the burnt look of a land after locusts have ravaged it. But locusts do not drink up the streams, nor cause the seed to shrivel in the earth. {Joe 1:20; Joe 1:17} By these the prophet must mean drought, and by “the flame that has burned all the trees of the field,” {Joe 1:19} the forest fire, finding an easy prey in the trees which have been reduced to firewood by the locusts teeth.<\/p>\n Even in the great passage in which he passes from history to Apocalypse, from the gloom and terror of the locusts to the lurid dawn of Jehovahs Day, Joel keeps within the actual facts of experience:-<\/p>\n “Day of darkness and murk,<\/p>\n Day of cloud and heavy mist, <\/p>\n Like dawn scattered on the mountains, <\/p>\n A people many and powerful.”<\/p>\n No one who has seen a cloud of locusts can question the realism even of this picture: the heavy gloom of the immeasurable mass of them, shot by gleams of light where a few of the suns imprisoned beams have broken through or across the storm of lustrous wings. This is like dawn beaten down upon the hilltops, and crushed by rolling masses of cloud, in conspiracy to prolong the night. No: the only point at which Joel leaves absolute fact for the wilder combinations of Apocalypse is at the very close of his description, Joe 2:10-11, and just before his call to repentance. Here we find, mixed with the locusts, earthquake and thunderstorm; and Joel has borrowed these from the classic pictures of the Day of the Lord, using some of the very phrases of the latter:-<\/p>\n “Earth trembles before them, <\/p>\n Heaven quakes, Sun and moon become black, <\/p>\n The stars withdraw their shining, <\/p>\n And Jehovah utters His voice before His army.”<\/p>\n Joel, then, describes, and does not unduly enhance, the terrors of an actual plague. At first his whole strength is so bent to make his people feel these, that, though about to call to repentance, he does not detail the national sins which require it. In his opening verses he summons the drunkards (Joe 1:5), but that is merely to lend vividness to his picture of facts, because men of such habits will be the first to feel a plague of this kind. Nor does Joel yet ask his hearers what the calamity portends. At first he only demands that they shall feet it, in its uniqueness and its own sheer force.<\/p>\n Hence the peculiar style of the passage. Letter for letter, this is one of the heaviest passages in prophecy. The proportion in Hebrew of liquids to the other letters is not large; but here it is smaller than ever. The explosives and dentals are very numerous. There are several key-words, with hard consonants and long vowels, used again and again: Shuddadh, a-bhlah, umlal, hobbish. The longer lines into which Hebrew parallelism tends to run are replaced by a rapid series of short, heavy phrases, falling like blows. Critics have called it rhetoric. But it is rhetoric of a very high order and perfectly suited to the prophets purpose. Look at Joe 1:10 :shuddadh sadheh, abhlah adhamah, shuddadh daghan, hobhish tirosh, umlal yishar. Joel loads his clauses with the most leaden letters he can find, and drops them in quick succession, repeating the same heavy word again and again, as if he would stun the careless people into some sense of the bare, brutal weight of the calamity which has befallen them.<\/p>\n Now Joel does this because he believes that, if his people feel the plague in its proper violence, they must be convinced that it comes from Jehovah. The keynote of this part of the prophecy is found in Joe 1:15 : “Keshodh mishshaddhai,” “like violence from the All-violent doth it come.” “If you feel this as it is, you will feel Jehovah Himself in it. By these very blows, He and His Day are near. We had been forgetting how near.” Joel mentions no crime, nor enforces any virtue: how could he have done so in so strong a sense that “the Judge was at the door”? To make men feel that they had forgotten they were in reach of that Almighty Hand, which could strike so suddenly and so hard-Joel had time only to make men feel that, and to call them to repentance. In this we probably see some reflection of the age: an age when mens thoughts were thrusting the Deity further and further from their life; when they put His Law and Temple between Him and themselves: and when their religion, devoid of the sense of His Presence, had become a set of formal observances, the rending of garments and not of hearts. But He, whom His own ordinances had hidden from His people, has burst forth through nature and in sheer force of calamity. He has revealed Himself, El-Shaddhai, God All-violent, as He was known to their fathers, who had no elaborate law or ritual to put between their fearful hearts and His terrible strength, but cowered before Him, helpless on the stripped soil, and naked beneath His thunder. By just these means did Elijah and Amos bring God home to the hearts of ancient Israel. In Joel we see the revival of the old nature-religion, and the revenge that it was bound to take upon the elaborate systems which had displaced it, but which by their formalism and their artificial completeness had made men forget that near presence and direct action of the Almighty which it is natures own office to enforce upon the heart.<\/p>\n The thing is true, and permanently valid. Only the great natural processes can break up the systems of dogma and ritual in which we make ourselves comfortable and formal, and drive us out into Gods open air of reality. In the crash of natures forces even our particular sins are forgotten, and we feel, as in the immediate presence of God, our whole, deep need of repentance. So far from blaming the absence of special ethics in Joels sermon, we accept it as natural and proper to the occasion.<\/p>\n Such, then, appears to be the explanation of the first part of the prophecy, and its development towards the call to repentance, which follows it. If we are correct, the assertion is false that no plan was meant by the prophet. For not only is there a plan, but the plan is most suitable to the requirements of Israel, after their adoption of the whole Law in 445, and forms one of the most necessary and interesting developments of all religion: the revival, in an artificial period, of those primitive forces of religion which nature alone supplies, and which are needed to correct formalism and the forgetfulness of the near presence of the Almighty. We see in this, too, the reason of Joels archaic style, both of conception and expression: that likeness of his to early prophets which has led so many to place him between Elijah and Amos. They are wrong. Joels simplicity is that not of early prophecy, but of the austere forces of this revived and applied to the artificiality of a later age.<\/p>\n One other proof of Joels conviction of the religious meaning of the plague might also have been pled by the earlier prophets, but certainly not in the terms in which Joel expresses it. Amos and Hoses had both described the destruction of the countrys fertility in their day as Gods displeasure on His people and (as Hosea puts it) His divorce of His Bride from Himself. But by them the physical calamities were not threatened alone: banishment from the land and from enjoyment of its fruits was to follow upon drought, locusts, and famine. In threatening no captivity Joel differs entirely from the early prophets. It is a mark of his late date. And he also describes the divorce between Jehovah and Israel, through the interruption of the ritual by the plague, in terms and with an accent which could hardly have been employed in Israel before the Exile. After the rebuilding of the Temple and restoration of the daily sacrifices morning and evening, the regular performance of the latter was regarded by the Jews with a most superstitious sense of its indispensableness to the national life. Before the Exile, Jeremiah, for instance, attaches no importance to it, in circumstances in which it would have been not unnatural for him, priest as he was, to do so. {Jer 14:1-22} But after the Exile, the greater scrupulousness of the religious life, and its absorption in ritual, laid extraordinary emphasis upon the daily offering, which increased to a most painful degree of anxiety as the centuries went on. The New Testament speaks of “the Twelve Tribes constantly serving God day and night”; {Act 26:7} and Josephus, while declaring that in no siege of Jerusalem before the last did the interruption ever take place in spite of the stress of famine and war combined, records the awful impression made alike on Jew and heathen by the giving up of the daily sacrifice on the 17th of July, A.D. 70, during the investment of the city by Titus. This disaster, which Judaism so painfully feared at every crisis in its history, actually happened, Joel tells us, during the famine caused by the locusts. “Cut off are the meal and the drink offerings from the house of Jehovah. {Joe 1:9; Joe 1:13} Is not food cut off from our eves, joy and gladness from the house of our God? {Joe 2:14} Perhaps He will turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him, meal and drink offering for Jehovah our God.” {Joe 1:16} The break “of the continual symbol of gracious intercourse between Jehovah and His people, and the main office of religion,” means divorce between Jehovah and Israel. “Wail like a bride girt in sackcloth for the husband of her youth! Wail, O ministers of the altar, O ministers of God!” {Joe 1:8; Joe 1:13} This then was another reason for reading in the plague of locusts more than a physical meaning. This was another proof, only too intelligible to scrupulous Jews, that the great and terrible Day of the Lord was at hand. Thus Joel reaches the climax of his argument. Jehovah is near, His Day is about to break. From this it is impossible to escape on the narrow path of disaster by which the prophet has led up to it. But beneath that path the prophet passes the ground of a broad truth, and on that truth, while judgment remains still as real, there is room for the people to turn from it. If experience has shown that God is in the present, near and inevitable, faith remembers that He is there not willingly for judgment, but with all His ancient feeling for Israel and His zeal to save her. If the people choose to turn, Jehovah, as their God and as one who works for their sake, will save them. Of this God assures them by His own word. For the first time in the prophecy He speaks for Himself. Hitherto the prophet has been describing the plague and summoning to penitence. “But now oracle of Jehovah of Hosts.” {Joe 2:12} The great covenant name, “Jehovah your God,” is solemnly repeated as if symbolic of the historic origin and age-long endurance of Jehovahs relation to Israel; and the very words of blessing are repeated which were given when Israel was called at Sinai and the covenant ratified:-<\/p>\n “For He is gracious and merciful, <\/p>\n Long-suffering and plenteous in leal love. <\/p>\n And relents Him of the evil”<\/p>\n He has threatened upon you. Once more the nation is summoned to try Him by prayer: the solemn prayer of all Israel, pleading that He should not give His people to reproach.<\/p>\n “The Word of Jehovah which came to Joel the son of Pethflel. Hear this, ye old men, And give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has the like been in your days, Or in the days of your fathers? Tell it to your children, And your children to their children, And their children to the generation that follows. That which the Shearer left the Swarmer hath eaten, And that which the Swarmer left the Lapper hath eaten, And that which the Lapper left the Devourer hath eaten.”<\/p>\n These are four different names for locusts, which it is best to translate by their literal meaning. Some think that they represent one swarm of locusts in four stages of development, but this cannot be, because the same swarm never returns upon its path, to complete the work of destruction which it had begun in an earlier stage of its growth. Nor can the first-named be the adult brood from whose eggs the others spring, as Doughty has described, for that would account only for two of the four names. Joel rather describes successive swarms of the insect, without reference to the stages of its growth, and he does so as a poet, using, in order to bring out the full force of its devastation, several of the Hebrew names that were given to the locust as epithets of various aspects of its destructive power.<\/p>\n The names, it is true, cannot be said to rise in climax, but at least the most sinister is reserved to the last.<\/p>\n “Rouse ye, drunkards, and weep, And wail, all ye bibbers of wine! The new wine is cut off from your month! For a nation is come up on My land, Powerful and numberless; His teeth are the teeth of the lion, And the fangs of the lioness his. My vine he has turned to waste, And My fig-tree to splinters; He hath peeled it and strawed it, Bleached are its branches!”<\/p>\n “Wail as a bride girt in sackcloth for the spouse of her youth. Cut off are the meal and drink offerings from the house of Jehovah! In grief are the priests, the ministers of Jehovah. The fields are blasted, the ground is in grief, Blasted is the corn, abashed is the new wine, the oil pines away. Be ye abashed, O ploughmen! Wail, O vine-dressers, For the wheat and the barley; The harvest is lost from the field! The vine is abashed, and the fig-tree is drooping; Pomegranate, palm too and apple, All trees of the field are dried up: Yea, joy is abashed and away from the children of men.”<\/p>\n In this passage the same feeling is attributed to men and to the fruits of the land: “In grief are the priests, the ground is in grief.” And it is repeatedly said that all alike are “abashed.” By this heavy word we have sought to render the effect of the similarly sounding “hobhisha,” that our English version renders “ashamed.” It signifies to be frustrated, and so “disheartened,” “put out” “soured” would be an equivalent, applicable to the vine and to joy and to mens hearts.<\/p>\n “Put on mourning, O priests, beat the breast; Wail, ye ministers of the altar; Come, lie down in sackcloth, O ministers of my God: For meal-offering and drink-offering are cut off from the house of your God.”<\/p>\n “Hallow a fast, summon an assembly, Gather all the inhabitants of the land to the house of your God; And cry to Jehovah! Alas for the Day! At hands the Day of Jehovah. And as vehemence from the Vehement doth it come. Is not food cut off from before us, Gladness and joy from the house of our God? The grains shrivel under their hoes, The garners are desolate, the barns broken down, For the corn is withered-what shall we put in them? The herds of cattle huddle together, for they have no pasture; Yea, the flocks of sheep are forlorn. To Thee, Jehovah, do I cry”:<\/p>\n “For fire has devoured the pastures of the steppes, And the flame hath scorched all the trees of the field. The wild beasts pant up to Thee: For the watercourses are dry, And fire has devoured the pastures of the steppes.”<\/p>\n Here, with the close of chapter 1, Joels discourse takes, pause, and in chapter 2 he begins a second with another call to repentance in face of the same plague. But the plague has progressed. The locusts are described now in their invasion not of the country but of the towns, to which they pass after the country is stripped. For illustration of the latter see above. The “horn” which is to be blown, Joe 2:1, is an “alarm horn,” to warn the people of the approach of the Day of the Lord, and not the Shophar which called the people to a general assembly, as in Joe 2:15.<\/p>\n “Blow a horn in Zion, Sound the alarm in My holy mountain! Let all inhabitants of the land tremble, For the Day of Jehovah comes-it is near! Day of darkness and murk, day of cloud and heavy mist. Like dawn scattered on the mountains, A people many and powerful; Its like has not been from of old, And shall not again be for years of generation upon generation. Before it the fire devours, And behind the flame consumes. Like the garden of Eden {Eze 36:35} is the land in front, And behind it a desolate desert; Yea, it lets nothing escape. Their visage is the visage of horses, And like horsemen they run. They rattle like chariots over the tops of the hills, Like the crackle of flames devouring stubble, Like a powerful people prepared for battle. Peoples are writhing before them, Every face gathers blackness.”<\/p>\n “Like warriors they run, Like fighting men they come up the wall; They march every man by himself, And they ravel not their paths. None jostles his comrade, They march every man on his track, And plunge through the missiles unbroken. They scour the city, run upon the walls, Climb into the houses, and enter the windows like a thief, Earth trembles before them, Heaven quakes, Sun and moon become black, The stars withdraw their shining. And Jehovah utters His voice before His army: For very great is His host; Yea, powerful is He that performeth His word, Great is the Day of Jehovah, and very awful: Who may abide it?”<\/p>\n “But now hear the oracle of Jehovah: Turn ye to Me with all your heart, And with fasting and weeping and mourning. Rend ye your hearts and not your garments, And turn to Jehovah your God: For He is gracious and merciful, Long-suffering and plenteous in love, And relents of the evil. Who knows but He will turn and relent, And leave behind Him a blessing, Meal-offering and drink-offering to Jehovah your God?”<\/p>\n “Blow a horn in Zion, Hallow a fast, summon the assembly! Gather the people, hallow the congregation, Assemble the old men, gather the children, and infants at the breast; Let the bridegroom come forth from his chamber, And the bride from her bower.<\/p>\n Let the priests, the ministers of Jehovah, weep between porch and altar; Let them say, Spare, O Jehovah, Thy people, And give not Thine heritage to dishonor, for the heathen to mock.<\/p>\n Why should it be said among the nations, Where is their God?”<\/p>\n Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? 2 3. Introduction, characterizing the event which forms the occasion of Joel’s prophecy: it is an unexampled one, of a kind which even the oldest of the … Continue reading “Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Joel 1:2”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible <\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"