Joel 2:6

6 Fear grips all the people; every face grows pale with terror.

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 They look like horses; they charge forward like warhorses.

5 Look at them as they leap along the mountaintops. Listen to the noise they make—like the rumbling of chariots, like the roar of fire sweeping across a field of stubble, or like a mighty army moving into battle.

6 Fear grips all the people; every face grows pale with terror.

7 The attackers march like warriors and scale city walls like soldiers. Straight forward they march, never breaking rank.

8 They never jostle each other; each moves in exactly the right position. They break through defenses without missing a step.