Joel 2:3
Before the face thereof a devouring fire, and behind it a burning flame: the land is like a garden of pleasure before it, and behind it a desolate wilderness, neither is there any one that can escape it.
Open Joel 2:3 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Ante faciem ejus ignis vorans, et post eum exurens flamma. Quasi hortus voluptatis terra coram eo, et post eum solitudo deserti, neque est qui effugiat eum.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- τὰ ἔμπροσθεν αὐτοῦ πῦρ ἀναλίσκον, καὶ τὰ ὀπίσω αὐτοῦ ἀναπτομένη φλόξ· ὡς παράδεισος τρυφῆς ἡ γῆ πρὸ προσώπου αὐτοῦ, καὶ τὰ ὄπισθεν αὐτοῦ πεδίον ἀφανισμοῦ, καὶ ἀνασωζόμενος οὐκ ἔσται αὐτῷ.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- לְפָנָיו֙ אָ֣כְלָה אֵ֔שׁ וְאַחֲרָ֖יו תְּלַהֵ֣ט לֶֽהָבָ֑ה כְּגַן עֵ֨דֶן הָאָ֜רֶץ לְפָנָ֗יו וְאַֽחֲרָיו֙ מִדְבַּ֣ר שְׁמָמָ֔ה וְגַם פְּלֵיטָ֖ה לֹא הָ֥יְתָה לּֽוֹ
Haydock's commentary
Flame. They destroy all by their bite, chap. i. 12. (Calmet) (Theodoret)
Pleasure. Hebrew, "Eden." So luxuriant was Palestine.
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 Gregory Nazianzen On His Father's Silence, Because of the Plague of Hail
6. Terrible is an unfruitful season, and the loss of the crops. It could not be otherwise, when men are already rejoicing in their hopes, and counting on their all but harvested stores. Terrible again is an unseasonable harvest, when the farmers labour with heavy hearts, sitting as it were beside the grave of their crops, which the gentle rain nourished, but the wild storm has rooted up, whereof the mower filleth not his hand, neither he that bindeth up the sheaves his bosom, nor have they obtained the blessing which passers-by bestow upon the farmers. …