Joel 2:9 - Exposition

They shall run to and fro in the city (or rush to the assault of the city. Wunsche, and so LXX ; "They shall seize upon the city"); they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief. In the first clause the comparison with an army still continues. The attack has succeeded, the city has been taken by assault, the victorious troops are running to and fro in the city; so far the locusts are fitly represented by an army vigorous in its advance, steady in its march, resistless in its assault, victorious in its attack, and masters of the captured city. The remainder of the ninth verse is not equally applicable to the figure and the fact in common, but belongs exclusively to the locusts themselves; they creep up the wall, climb up upon the houses, and find ingress even at the windows. "There is no road," says Jerome, "impassable to locusts. They penetrate into fields, and crops, and trees, and cities, and even the recesses of the bedchambers;" while Theodoret remarks of locusts that" not only when flying, but by creeping along the walls, they pass through the windows into the houses themselves." Thus there was no spot to which they could not find access, and no place secure from their assault. Yashoqqu. Aben Ezra and Kimchi both connect this word with shoq , a leg. The latter says, "It has the signification of shoq , a leg, and he mentions this word in respect to the locust, because its legs are long; and further, because it is continually going and seldom resting; and thus he (Isaiah) says, 'As the running to and fro of locusts shall he run upon them,' as if he said, 'a continual going up and down.'"