and is supported by the following arguments. 1. The descripti1m is too terrible to be used of any mere plague of locusts. 2. Many of the rletaih1 do not apply to the known habits oflocusts, or to the devastation caused by them, but could be used only of the attacks of hostile armies. 3. The agents in this plague are alluded to as responsible. 4. The scourge comes from the north, whereas locusts are brought into Palestine from the south. 5. The time of an iµvasion of locusts could never be described as" the day of the Lord." In reply to all such allegations, it must be observed generally that, although w~ hold that the prophet is depicting a calamity which had happened liuirally and truly, nothing forbids us from allowing that be beheld therein a figure of future events, and in bis description of the past mingled terms which are appropriate to what he foresaw. As all the prophets, Joel was carried peyond the immediate present, and spoke words which had a sense deeper than he knew, and which had yet, or which have yet, to find their fulfih;nent. It cannot be denied that the actual language describes a present, not a fnture, judgment. The prophet calls the people to :repentance in the face oLan existing plague; he bids the .old men bear witness that the calamity is unpreced~nted ; he narrates the matter with simple perfects; he states historically ( eh. ii. 18, 19) the effect of the repentance which he had urged upon the people, and to which they had devoutly betaken them- selves. There is here no prophetic use of a preterite in describing a furure event; there is no mark of an allegory being intended; the prophet has before his eyes the infliction wbioh he portrays in such fervent language; he calls on. the people to fast and weep, not for a distant invasion of ima- ginary enemies, but to deprecate present ruin which was palpable and unmistakable. So much premised, we may briefly notice the arguments mentioned above, which are maintained by Hengstenberg, Pusey, and others. 1 and 2. The accounts of the effects produced by an invasion of locusts, which are given by modern travellers and naturalists, confirm in all points the picturesque description of Joel, and prove that it is not inaccurate or. exaggerated. The following passage from Van-Lennep ('.Bible Lands,' i. p. 314) disposes of most of the objections which have been offered to the prophet's language. " The young locusts," he says, " rapidly attain the size of the common grasshopper, and proceed in one and the same direction, first crawling, and at a later period leaping, as they go, devouring every green thing that lies in their path. They advance more slowly than a devouring fire, but the ravages they commit are scarcely inferior or less to be dreaded. Fields of standing wheat and barley, vineyards, mulberry orchards, and groves of olive, fig, and other trees are in a few hours deprived of every green blade and leaf, the very bark being often destroyed. Their voracity is such that, in the neighbourhood of Broosa, in the year 1856, an infant, having been left asleep in its cradle under some shady trees, was found not long after partly devoured by the locusts. The ground over which their devas- lr IN1.'RODUC'l'ION TO
tating hordeR have pa.Rsed at once assumes an appearance of sterility and dc:.rth. Well did t.he Romane call them • the burners of tho land,' which ie 1he literal meaning of our word • Jocnst.' On they move, covering the ground h) ''"mple1ely as to hide it from sight, and in such numbers that it often takes
three or four days for the mighty host to pass by. When eeon at a. distance, this swarm of advancing locusts resembles a cloud of dnst or B&nd, rea.ohing a few feet above the ground, as the myriads of insects leap forward. The only thing that momentarily arrests their progress is a. sudden oha.nge of weather; for the cold benumbs them while it lasts. They also keep quiet at night, swarming like bees on the bushes and hedges until the moming sun warms them and re-rives them and enables them to proceed on their de,astating march. They • have no king' nor leader, yet they falter not, but p~esR on in serried ranks, urged in the same direction by an inesistible impuhe, and turn neither to the right hand nor to the left for any sort of obstacle. When a wall or a house lies in their way, they climb straight up, going over the roof to the other side, and blindly rush in at the open doors and windows. When they come to water, be it a mere puddle or a 1 iver, a lake or the open sea, they never attempt to go -round it, but unhesi- tatingly leap in and are drowned, and their dead bodies, floating on the ~urface, form a bridge for their companions to pass over. The scourge thus often come& to an end, but it as often happens that the decomposition of millions of insects produces pestilence and death. History records a remarkable instance which occurred in the year 125 before the Christian era. The insects were driven by the wind into the sea in such vast num- bers that their bodies, being driven baok by the tide upon the land, oaused a stench which produced a fearful plague, whereby eighty thousand persons perished in Libya, Cyrene, and Egypt. The locust, however, soon acquires its wings, and proceeds on its way by flight, whenever a strong breeze favotIIB its progress. Onr attention has often been attracted by the sudden darkening of the sun in a summer sky, accompanied by the peculiar noise which a swarm of locusts always makes moving through the air, and, n-lancing llpward, we have seen them passing like a cloud at a height of two or three hllndred feet. Some of them are constantly dropping to the l'e.rth, and, after resting awhile, are driven by a common impulse to rise again and proceed with the wind, so that, besides the principal cloud, single locusts or a few together may be seen in almost auy part of the sky. During a great flight, thf:"y sometimes drop so thickly upon the ground that it is impossible to step without treading upon some of them." It will be seen from this extract that Joel's description is exact in every particular, thongh coloured by poetic fancy and enriched by omamental dic- tion. It is to be noted that in it no mention is made of injury to persons or buildings. If a hostile invasion were intended, this omission would not be found; the mischief would not he confined to cattle and vegetable produc- 1ion,-;. Many of the detail,- of the locust-flight could only be applied to : , 1 1 man ene1aies by a violent ,training of mctapqorical language Qr by THE HOOK 01<' JOEL.