Joel 2:6

6 Before them peoples are in anguish, all faces grow pale.

Joel 2:6 Meaning and Commentary

Joel 2:6

Before their face the people shall be much pained
Or, "at their presence"; at the sight of them they shall be in pain, as a woman in travail; into such distress an army of locusts would throw them, since they might justly fear all the fruits of the earth would be devoured by them, and they should have nothing left to live upon; and a like consternation and pain the army of the Assyrians or Chaldeans upon sight filled them with, as they expected nothing but ruin and destruction from them: all faces shall gather blackness;
like that of a pot, as the word ^F13 signifies; or such as appears in persons dying, or in fits and swoons; and this here, through fear and hunger; see ( Nahum 2:10 ) ( Lamentations 4:8 ) ( 5:10 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F13 (rwrap) "fuliginem", Montanus; "luridum ollae colorem", Tigurine version, Tarnovius; "ollam pro nigore ollae", Drusius.

Joel 2:6 In-Context

4 They have the appearance of horses, and like war-horses they charge.

5 As with the rumbling of chariots, they leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring the stubble, like a powerful army drawn up for battle.

6 Before them peoples are in anguish, all faces grow pale.

7 Like warriors they charge, like soldiers they scale the wall. Each keeps to its own course, they do not swerve from their paths.

8 They do not jostle one another, each keeps to its own track; they burst through the weapons and are not halted.

Footnotes

• [a]. Meaning of Heb uncertain