AS THE APPEARANCE OF HORSES; AND AS HORSEMEN

A swarm of locusts had devastated the land. Such events were not uncommon in Middle Eastern countries, but nothing com­parable to this vast and destructive force was recalled in living memory, Joel 1. 2. Nothing escaped their voracious appetite as wave after irresistible wave of living creatures swept across the country, v. 4. Vineyards, fig trees, corn fields and fruit trees were left ravaged and bare. Meal offerings and drink offerings ceased in the temple as crops and vines were consumed and the land mourned, vv. 9-13.

Many years before, the ten-fold judgement of God had fallen upon Egypt because of Pharaoh’s stubborn refusal to obey the word of God through Moses. On that occasion locusts were sent to demonstrate God’s displeasure and to display His sovereignty in the face of man’s disobedience.

The significance of this was not lost on Joel, the son of Pethuel. Word came to him from the Lord and, in solemn, weighty tones, he challenged the nation for their apathy towards God. Having made them aware that the locust invasion was not just a chance event but rather a divine reprimand, he saw with prophetic vision a parallel not only with the immediate future when the armies of Assyria, and later Babylon, would enter the land, but also with the future day of the Lord, v. 15. ‘That day’, as it is often referred to by the prophets, will com­mence when the church has been removed from the earth as revealed through the apostle Paul, 1 Thess. 4. 13-18.

The character of ‘that day’ is such that an alarm is sounded in chapter 2 verse 1, to warn of the impending invasion of hostile forces. Daniel describes this incursion as ‘like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen’, Dan. 11. 40. Joel observes the great swarm of locusts destroying the land once likened to Eden for beauty, now, in the wake of the plague of insects, barren and des­olate, v. 3. He sees, as have others, the strange resemblance of the locust’s head to that of a horse in miniature, and his mind’s eye perceives vast legions of war horses bearing down in judgement upon the beleaguered nation, v. 4.