Joel 1:6
For a nation is come up upon my land, strong and without number: his teeth are like the teeth of a lion: and his cheek teeth as of a lion's whelp.
Open Joel 1:6 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Gens enim ascendit super terram meam, fortis et innumerabilis : dentes ejus ut dentes leonis, et molares ejus ut catuli leonis.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὅτι ἔθνος ἀνέβη ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν μου ἰσχυρὸν καὶ ἀναρίθμητον, οἱ ὀδόντες αὐτοῦ ὀδόντες λέοντος, καὶ αἱ μύλαι αὐτοῦ σκύμνου·
- Hebrew (WLC)
- כִּֽי גוֹי֙ עָלָ֣ה עַל אַרְצִ֔י עָצ֖וּם וְאֵ֣ין מִסְפָּ֑ר שִׁנָּיו֙ שִׁנֵּ֣י אַרְיֵ֔ה וּֽמְתַלְּע֥וֹת לָבִ֖יא לֽוֹ
Haydock's commentary
Nations. Some understand the Assyrians or Chaldeans. But locusts are here styled a nation, Proverbs xxx. 25.
Lion. Such locusts are described, Apocalypse ix. 8. (Calmet)
"In India they are said to be three feet long, and their legs and thighs are used for saws when dried." (Pliny, [Natural History?] xi. 29.)
They were attacked by regular troops in Syria. (Pliny, [Natural History?] xi. 29.)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom, Matthew I. 17
17. How then are we to be freed from this pest? If we can drink a potion that is able to kill the worms within us and the serpents. “And of what nature,” it will be asked, “may this potion be, that hath such power?” The precious Blood of Christ, if it be received with full assurance,(for this will have power to extinguish every disease); and together with this the divine Scriptures carefully heard, and almsgiving added to our hearing; for by means of all these things we shall be enabled to mortify the affections that mar our soul. And then only shall we live; for now surely we are in no better state than the dead: forasmuch as it cannot be, that while those passions live, we should live too, but we must necessarily perish. And unless we first kill them here, they will be sure to kill us in the other life; or rather before that death they will exact of us, even here, the utmost penalty. …