Joel 2:3

A fire devoureth before them, &c. A hyperbolical description of the destructive march of a swarm of locusts: the country which they have passed over is left as bare as if it had been wasted by fire; and the prophet accordingly imagines poetically a fire as preceding and following them on their course. Many travellers have used the same comparison: one says, for instance, "Wherever they come, the ground seems burned, as it were with fire." Another, "They covered a square mile so completely, that it appeared, at a little distance, to have been burned and strewed over with brown ashes." And a third, "Wherever they settled, it looked as if fire had devoured and burnt up everything." Palestine was invaded by locusts in 1865; from June 13 to 15 they poured into Nazareth: "the trees," an eye-witness wrote, "are as barren as in England in winter, but it looks as if the country had been burnt by fire" (Eccles. Gazette, 1865, p. 55).

as the garden of Eden like a park (LXX. here, as in Gen., παράδεισος), richly watered, and well stocked with majestic trees (Genesis 2:8-10): the comparison, as Ezekiel 36:35 (of the restored land of Israel) "this land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden": similarly the garden of Jehovah, Genesis 13:10; Isaiah 51:3 (in the parallel clause, Eden); cp. also the trees of Eden, Ezekiel 31:9; Ezekiel 31:16; Ezekiel 31:18.

and behind them a desolate wilderness The destruction wrought by locusts is such as to be hardly imaginable by those who have not witnessed it: see the next note; and cf. Exodus 10:15.

shall escape them escapeth them. Present tenses, in English, represent the scene, as pictured by Joel, most vividly; and are best throughout to Joel 2:11 (cf. R.V.). The fact noted by the prophet is literally true, as almost every observer testifies. "On whatever spot they fall, the whole vegetable produce disappears. Nothing escapes them, from the leaves on the forest to the herbs on the plain" (Clarke, Travels, I. 428 f.). "They had [for a space of 80 90 miles in length] devoured every green herb, and every herb of grass." "Not a shrub nor blade of grass was visible" (Barrow, S. Africa, pp. 242, 257).