3. a generation to come. Literally, “another generation.”

4. the locust. Plagues of locusts, an instance of which figures in the Ten Plagues, were known catastrophic events in the Near East. Vast swarms of the voracious insects would eat everything in their path, leaving the fields bare of produce. Joel uses four different Hebrew synonyms for “locust,” and all the English versions, including the present translation, flounder to find or invent four equivalents. Some scholars think these four terms indicate four stages in the metamorphosis of the insect, but that is uncertain. Three of the four Hebrew words show a transparent etymology: gazam (the word rendered here as “locust”), “to cut back”; ʾarbeh, “multitude”; and ḥasil, “to finish off or destroy.” The last, yeleq, might conceivably be linked with laqaq, “lick.”

5. drunkards . . . / drinkers of wine. This is not a denunciation of drunkenness, as one finds, for example, in Isaiah. Rather, the prophet is invoking all the hedonists who delighted in the pleasures of drinking and now, with the vineyards stripped bare by the locusts, will have nothing to drink.

6. For a nation has come up against my land. In this instance, the invading nation is a metaphorical representation of the locusts.

Its teeth are the teeth of a lion. The prophet revels in a poetic paradox. In biblical poetry, warriors are often compared to ravening lions. Here, the gnawing insects are tiny, with nothing like lion’s teeth, but the effect of their vast voracious numbers is as devastating as the rending fangs of a lion.

9. Grain offering and libation are cut off. With the standing grain and the vines utterly consumed by the locusts, there is nothing left to bring to the Temple.

10. the oil is bleak. While in context this probably means something like “gone bad,” there is a persistent personification in this prophecy that is worth preserving.

11. The farmers are shamed. The Hebrew verb in this conjugated form is a homonym of “dried up” in verse 10, and the pun seems quite deliberate. “Dried up” at the beginning of the next verse is the same word, thus carrying a subsurface secondary meaning of “shamed.”

12. quince. The Hebrew tapuaḥ, appearing only here and in the Song of Songs (2:3), does not mean “apple,” as it is often translated, because there were no apple trees in the ancient Near East. “Quince” is an educated guess, although others opt for “apricot.”

joy has dried up. This is the fourth occurrence of this verb, again with a likely double meaning.

13. Gird. This verb is an ellipsis for “gird sackcloth.”

15. like a shattering from Shaddai it comes. The Hebrew wordplay, approximated in this English version, is shod (literally, “devastation,” “ravaging”) mishaday. “Shaddai” is an archaic name for God, of uncertain etymology, largely restricted to poetry.

16. rejoicing and exultation. The verb “cut off” does double duty for “food” and for these two nouns. The festivals in the Temple were times of joyous celebration as pilgrims came from throughout the land to offer sacrifices and to partake in the festive feasts. Now, there is nothing to bring as offering (“food”) and no occasion for joy.

17. The seeds have rotted. The point of view now swivels away from the desolate Temple, deprived of the wherewithal for the celebration of the festivals, to the fields across the country lying in ruins.

18. the flocks of sheep are desolate. The verb here is another reflection of Joel’s fondness for introducing double meanings through similarities of sound. The verb neʾashmu would ordinarily mean “to be guilty,” but it seems to be a deliberate distortion of nashamu, “to be desolate,” thus intimating a shadow of personifying guilt in the depiction of the desolate animals.

19. for fire consumed the wilderness meadows. At this point, it becomes clear that another disaster, distinct from the locusts, has swept over the land. The drying out of the new grain (verse 17) and of the watercourses (verse 20) are the result of drought, and as residents of California know, in a drought the tinder-dry fields and forests are wont to catch fire.

20. The beast of the field, too, / yearns for You. Joel is probably recalling Psalm 42:2: “As a deer yearns for streams of water, / so I yearn for You, O God.” The elided term “water,” associated with God, is activated through the allusion.