the judgments which the Chaldeans
inflicted upon Judah, appear only as a part of a universal judgment
upon all nations.

According to chap. ii. 7-9, the locusts take the city by storm. They
cannot be warded off by force of arms. They climb the wall. They fill
the streets, and enter by force into the houses. Peal locusts are not
dangerous to towns, but only to the fields.

In chap. ii. 11, every feature is against the literal explanation. "And
the Lord giveth His voice before His army; for His camp is very
numerous, for he is strong that executeth His word; for the day of the
Lord is great and very terrible, who can comprehend it?" There is not
the remotest analogy in favour of the supposition which would represent
an army of locusts as the host and camp of God, at the head of which He
[Pg 316] Himself marches as a general, and before which He causes His
thunders to resound like trumpets. It is true that, in some Arabic
writer, this is mentioned as a Mosaic command: "You shall not kill
locusts, for they are the host of God, the Most High;" see _Bochart_
ii. p. 482, ed. _Rosenmueller_ iii. p. 318. But who does not see that
this sentence owes its origin to the passage under consideration? Is.
xiii. 2-5, where the Lord marches at the head of a great army to
destroy the whole earth, may here be compared; and on Joel ii. 10,
"Before him the earth quaketh, the heavens tremble, the sun and the
moon mourn, and the stars withdraw their shining," Is xiii. 10 and Jer.
iv. 28 may be compared, where, in the view of threatening hostile
inundation, the earth laments, and the heavens above mourn.

In ii. 17, "Give not Thine heritage to reproach, _that the heathen
should rule over them_" ([Hebrew: lmwl-bM gviM]), the prophet drops the
figure altogether, and allows the reality--the devastation of the
country by heathen enemies--to appear in all its nakedness. (It is
worthy of notice that by the term [Hebrew: gviM] in this verse, our
remarks on [Hebrew: gvi] in ii. 6 receive a confirmation.) The
defenders of the literal explanation have tried a twofold mode of
escaping from this difficulty. _Michaelis_ explains thus: "Spare Thy
people, and deliver them from that plague of locusts. For if they
should continue to swarm any longer, the greatest famine would arise,
and Thy people, in order to satisfy the cravings of hunger, would be
compelled to flee into the territories of heathen nations to serve them
for bread, and to submit not only to