this war,
God, whom thou hast robbed of His eternal worship?" But the sound
explanation readily suggests itself, as soon as it is admitted that
behind the locusts the Gentiles are concealed. In that case, Dan. ix.
27, where the destroyer makes sacrifice and oblation to cease, is
parallel. The destruction of the temple is also announced by the
contemporary Amos in chap. ix.; compare ii. 5: "And I send fire upon
Judah, and it devours the palaces of Jerusalem." Of a similar purport,
in the time after Joel, is the passage in Micah, chap. iii. 12.

The words in ver. 15--"Woe, for the day, for the day of the Lord is at
hand, and as destruction from the Almighty does it come,"--point to
something infinitely higher than a mere [Pg 312] desolation by locusts
in the literal sense. This appears from a comparison of Is. xiii. 6,
where they are taken, almost verbatim, from Joel, and used with a
reference to the judgment of the Lord upon the whole earth. This is
granted even by _Credner_ himself, when he makes the vain attempt
(compare S. 345) to refer them to a judgment different from the
devastation by the locust. The same is the case with _Maurer_ and
_Hitzig_. How, indeed, is it at all conceivable that a national
calamity, so small and transient as a devastation by real locusts would
have been, should have been considered by the prophet as the day of the
Lord [Greek: kat' exochen], as the conclusion and completion of all the
judgments upon the Covenant-people? A conception like this would imply
such low notions of God's justice, and such a total misapprehension of
the greatness of human guilt, as we find in none of the Old Testament
prophets, and, generally, in none of the writers of Holy Scripture.
That which the men of God under the Old Testament, from the
first--Moses--to the last, announce, is the total expulsion of the
people from the country which they defiled by their sins.

The image suddenly changes in vers. 19 and 20: "To thee, O Lord, do I
cry. For fire devoureth the pastures of the wilderness, and flame
burneth all the trees of the field. Even the beasts of the field desire
for Thee; for the fountains of waters are dried up, and fire devoureth
the pastures of the wilderness." The divine punishment appears under
the image of an all-devouring fire. Now, since we cannot here think of
a literal fire, it is certain that, in the preceding verses also, a
figurative representation prevails. _Holzhausen_ and _Credner_ (S.
16