Caterpillar Chacil, from chaacal to consume. As gazam is the gnawing locust, 'arbet the swarming locust, yalaq the licking locust, so chacil is the consuming, i.e. the most destructive, locust. Yeleq is also translated "caterpillar" (Psalms 105:34), in other places "cankerworm." The chacil or consuming locust is the climax. The real foe meant in Joel 1:4 is the Assyrian Babylonian power, the Medo-Persian, the Graeco-Macedonian and Antiochus Epiphanes, Rome the fourth and most consuming foe of the four which successively ravaged Judaea.