Joel 2:7

"They run like mighty men; they climb the wall like men of war; and they march every one on his own ways, and they break not their ranks.

The mention of "ranks" again suggests the military, not a swarm of insects; and, although it is true enough that the locusts move in a straight trajectory, turning aside neither to the right or the left, and even scaling walls and houses in their procedure, it has never been alleged by anyone that the locusts were definitely arrayed in "ranks" and "echelons." The prophecy throughout this section (Joel 2:4-11) moves beyond the locust plague to something more terrible. However, the locust plague was also terrible in its own right:

When a wall or a house lies in their way, they climb straight up, going over the roof. When they come to water, whether a puddle, river, lake, or the open sea, they never attempt to go around it, but unhesitatingly leap in and are drowned; and their dead bodies floating on the surface make a bridge (over lesser bodies of water) for their companions to pass over. Thus the scourge often ends, causing a stench which sometimes produces a fearful plague.[16]

This also has its counterpart in the stench of battlefields with the rotting of the dead bodies of men and horses.