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Minor Prophets, Part 2: Babylonian Crisis

  1. Lesson One
    Nahum
    23 Activities
    |
    3 Assessments
  2. Lesson Two
    Zephaniah
    22 Activities
    |
    3 Assessments
  3. Lesson Three
    Habakkuk
    19 Activities
    |
    4 Assessments
  4. Lesson Four
    Joel and Josiah
    24 Activities
    |
    2 Assessments
  5. Lesson Five
    Interpreting Prophecy
    34 Activities
    |
    7 Assessments
  6. Course Wrap-up
    Course Completion
    1 Activity
    |
    1 Assessment

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Minor Prophets, Part 2: Babylonian Crisis Joel and Josiah Behind | Workbook: Locusts and Armies, Part 1
Lesson 4, Activity 16

Behind | Workbook: Locusts and Armies, Part 1

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[Record your answers in the workbook provided at the beginning of this course.]

As important as the image of the locust invasion is in this book, the exact meaning of this image can be read a number of ways. It can be read literally as a plain description of locusts destroying crops and thereby laying waste to the agricultural life of the people. Alternatively, it can figuratively represent an army. It can also be read as either apocalyptic (at the end of time) or relating to the time of Joel. Of course, it might be all three at once. 

The reference to an army as “locusts” had plenty of precedent in the ancient world. Assryian kings like Sennacherib and Sargon the Great used imagery of locusts in this way in their royal documents:

Sennacherib:

. . . and all they were risen against me
to offer battle, like a spring invasion of
countless locusts.

 

. . . my warriors swarmed like locusts out of
the ships (and) on to the bank and brought about
(the enemy’s) defeat.

Sargon:

. . . I had the vast armies of Assur cover their
cities like locusts.

 

. . . with the mass of my troops, as with locusts,
I covered the city.

Source: Pablo R. Andiñach, “The Locusts in the Message of Joel,” Vetus Testamentum 42, no. 4 (1992), pp. 438-439.

  1. If Joel was using the term “locusts” to describe enemy armies (Assyrian or Babylonian), why do you think he used this imagery?