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 ) .


FOOTNOTES:

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

Joel 2:6 In-Context

4 Their appearance is like the appearance of horses, and like war horses they run.
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. They march each on his way, they do not swerve from their paths.
8 They do not jostle one another, each marches in his path; they burst through the weapons and are not halted.
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.