This verse gives a simple but powerful description of the plague of locusts. Translators may wish to make it a separate stanza, as in Revised Standard Version.
The text is not very specific about when the locust plague occurred, but it probably happened in the recent past. Some languages use different past tenses depending on whether an event took place earlier in the day, a few days ago, in the weeks past, or years back. If a translator has to be more specific than the original text, it is safe to assume that the disaster took place in the preceding weeks or months.
What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten is literally “The remainder of the cutting locust, the swarming locust has eaten.” In some languages it may be better to reorder this sentence by saying “The swarming locust has eaten what the cutting locust left.” The next four lines may be reordered in the same way since they are parallel to these two lines.
The Hebrew words rendered cutting locust, swarming locust, hopping locust, and destroying locust are the names of four different kinds of locusts. These names probably refer to different stages of the locust as it develops. The names are used in a way that connects one line with the next one, as the previous name is repeated and the next name introduced. This rhetorical device helps to emphasize the idea of complete destruction, as the locusts increase and the crops decrease. The locust is sometimes called “grasshopper,” since it belongs to the same family of insects. Locusts have very long and strong hind legs that enable these insects to jump great distances. They have one pair of hard, straight wings which cover a second pair of wings that, when uncovered, are used in flying. It is only the last, adult stage of the locust that can fly. Its food is primarily green, leafy vegetation, although if that is gone, it will also eat twigs and even bark that is tender. Because Joel’s names for the stages of the locusts cannot be identified exactly, and because the verse emphasizes the succession of one destructive attack after another, Good News Translation expresses this succession by rendering the verse as follows: “Swarm after swarm of locusts settled on the crops; what one swarm left, the next swarm devoured.” In this way Good News Translation avoids giving the insects names that may not correspond to the meaning of the Hebrew names and that may be misleading. However, All Creatures Great and Small points out that Good News Translation‘s rendering “is technically inaccurate in that not all the Hebrew words necessarily refer to swarming locusts.” It offers the following model for verse 4 as more precise:
What the swarming locusts left, the resident locusts ate;
What the resident locusts left, the young hopping locusts ate;
And what the young hopping locusts left, the young crawling locusts ate.
It is not known how much time elapsed between each swarm of locusts. They could have occurred just a few days or weeks apart, or they could have been separated by a longer period, each swarm devouring a separate harvest. However, since it is likely that the names represent various stages in the development of one generation of locusts, the time between each stage probably was not very long.
In many African languages it is possible to use terms for different species of locusts, although some do not seem to come in swarms. As a result the focus might shift to the different species, while the text emphasizes the gradual destruction of all the crops by the invading swarms. Translators will probably do best by using the most generic term for locusts in their language consistently, and by following the Good News Translation idea of the successions of the swarms of locusts devouring everything.
It is possible that, in situations where locust invasions are common, languages may have different terms for “locust” reflecting the various stages of development of the insect as in the Hebrew. In such cases translators may be able to use the terms of their own language and at the same time stay closer to the Hebrew form.
If translators use one generic term for “locust,” De Nieuwe Bijbelvertaling provides a possible model: “What the first locust left, the second one chewed off, what the second one left over, the third one mowed down, and what was left after the third one, the fourth one cleaned up.” If they use only one term, they may have to give up some of the Hebrew parallelism. However, they can compensate for the loss of parallelism to some extent by stating explicitly that “everything was devoured” (Bijbel in Gewone Taal; similarly Contemporary English Version). What is most important to communicate to the readers is that gradually the entire harvest was destroyed by these creatures.
Quoted with permission from de Blois, Kees & Dorn, Louis. A Handbook on Joel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2020. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .