A map of Palestine will help clarify the references in this verse. Only Egypt would attack Jerusalem from the south. Except for Edom, Moab, and Ammon, all other enemies would attack from the north. The Mediterranean Sea to the west and the great desert to the east would prevent an approach from those directions.
I will remove the northerner far from you: “The north” had become symbolic as the source of enemy attacks on Israel (see Jer 1.14-15; 4.6; 6.1, 22; 13.20; Ezek 38.6, 15; 39.2). If a human army were the enemy here, the northerner would have fit the situation very well. New Revised Standard Version translates “the northern army.” This may refer to the locusts coming from the north. However, some scholars claim that locusts normally come from the east or the south in Palestine. If so, then the northerner would have been used to show that the army of locusts is related as a metaphor to the invasion from the north that the prophets predicted. Good News Translation explicitly identifies the locusts as the enemy by rendering this whole line as “I will remove the locust army that came from the north.” As the prophet continues his imaginative way of referring to both the locusts and a human army at the same time, it may well be that at this point he is giving greater emphasis to a human army. Translators will have to find means of expressing this information in a creative way in their own language. Revised English Bible attempts this by translating the northerner as “the northern peril.” If an expression such as “the enemy from the north” could refer to both a human army and a locust plague, translators could use that. The easiest decision is probably to retain the figure of the locusts.
And drive him into a parched and desolate land: The pronoun him refers to the locusts as a whole group as if it were a single person. The land far to the south of Jerusalem was a desert-like land that could be called a parched and desolate land, that is, an area with neither water nor people. Therefore, although the Hebrew does not explicitly mention the south, it seems that the locusts are described as coming from the north, but God will force them to continue south past Jerusalem into the desert. Good News Translation says “and will drive some of them into the desert.” Since not all the locusts will perish in the south, Good News Translation explicitly says “some of them.”
His front into the eastern sea, and his rear into the western sea: His front is the vanguard of the locusts, while his rear is their rearguard. Good News Translation says “Their front ranks” and “their rear ranks.” In some languages it would be natural to speak of “their head” and “their back.” The eastern sea is the Dead Sea, east of Jerusalem, while the western sea is the Mediterranean Sea. It may be good to name these seas explicitly, as do Good News Translation and other common-language translations. Many of the locusts will fly or be blown onto the water, where they will drown.
The stench and foul smell of him will rise: When many soldiers in an enemy army were killed, their bodies would soon decay and cause a bad odor if not buried immediately. When the locusts die, they will cause a similar smell. For better English style Good News Translation renders this line as “Their dead bodies will stink.” Another possible model is “People will smell the stench of their dead bodies.”
For he has done great things: The connector for does not clearly show the intended logical relation of this clause with the preceding ones, so Good News Translation explicitly makes it a reason by rendering the whole line as “I will destroy them because of all they have done to you.” However, the Hebrew word translated for may be an emphatic marker here, so New Revised Standard Version says “Surely he has done great things!” If it has this sense, the whole line is an ironic remark that matches the great deeds of the locusts with their intense smell. Just as the third person singular pronouns him and his in the previous lines of this verse refer to the locusts, the pronoun he probably does also. Contemporary English Version believes this pronoun refers to Yahweh by assuming this line is parallel with the third line of the next verse, so it says “The LORD works wonders” (similarly New International Version, Living Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). However, this interpretation is less likely than the one in Good News Translation. The great things are the unusual and terrible devastation by the locusts. The Hebrew rendered great things can have the connotation of boasting, so Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates the whole line as “Thus do I punish him for his boasting,” and New English Bible says “because of their proud deeds.”
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 .