Bible Strands
Joel 1:4
What the devouring locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust has left, the young locust has eaten; and what the young locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet addresses Judah’s leadership and citizens during a severe agricultural crisis, commanding them to recount the devastation to future generations. He immediately follows this with a direct summons to wine drinkers to weep because their supply has been completely severed.
The words — יֶתֶר (yeter) denotes the "remainder" left behind, while גָּזָם (gazon), אַרְבֶּה (arbeh), and יֶלֶק (yeleq) name successive swarms of locusts. The verb אָכַל (akal) repeatedly marks each swarm consuming what the previous one spared.
The thread — This four-stage locust sequence reappears in Joel 2:25 where God pledges to repay the years consumed by these exact swarms. Similar divine judgments using locusts to strip crops are recorded in Amos 4:9 and Psalms 78:46.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition of total, inescapable judgment where no layer of defense or survival remains. It requires the reader to accept that human complacency cannot outlast a complete divine stripping of provision.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.
Cross-references
- Joel 2:25 I will repay you for the years eaten by locusts—the swarming locust, the young locust, the destroying locust, and the devouring locust—My great army that I sent against you.
- Amos 4:9 “I struck you with blight and mildew in your growing gardens and vineyards; the locust devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.
- Psalms 78:46 He gave their crops to the grasshopper, the fruit of their labor to the locust.
- Amos 7:1 This is what the Lord GOD showed me: He was preparing swarms of locusts just after the king’s harvest, as the late spring crop was coming up.
- Exodus 10:4 But if you refuse to let My people go, I will bring locusts into your territory tomorrow.
- Deuteronomy 28:38 You will sow much seed in the field but harvest little, because the locusts will consume it.
- Isaiah 33:4 Your spoil, O nations, is gathered as by locusts; like a swarm of locusts men sweep over it.
- Psalms 105:34 He spoke, and the locusts came—young locusts without number.
- Exodus 10:12 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt, so that the locusts may swarm over it and devour every plant in the land—everything that the hail has left behind.”
- 2 Chronicles 7:13 If I close the sky so there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send a plague among My people,