Like Buffalo Bill or Crocodile Dundee, Joel is remembered for his confrontation with wild animals. Not mammals or reptiles. Locusts. Joel makes us think of these voracious insects. They were not man-eaters but they ate anything crunchable that came their way. And they did it in vast numbers. No crop was secure when locust battalions were on the move.
Joel’s contribution to the Jewish scriptures is a package of energetic poetry. Like Virgil with his ‘Arms and the man I sing’ Joel pitches in without hesitation. ‘Wake up, you drunkards and weep!’ he begins. And there was plenty to make a man weep. A super-swarm of locusts was blasting the vegetation. People and priests should be mourning the onslaught. The fig-trees had been stripped of their bark. Every tree was dried up. The harvest was lost. The invaders raced along the walls, climbed into houses, entered like thieves through the windows. The poet’s energy shows no remission. No wonder a line of his poetry has become part of our speech-hoard. We commonly refer to the years that the locust has eaten.
Joel’s view of the locusts reminds us in its surging power of Byron’s ‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’. The locusts are hurtling like a cavalry charge. ‘Great is the day of the Lord and most terrible; who can endure it?’
All is lost. But no. The Lord has good things in store for his people despite all this. He will recompense them for the years that the locusts have eaten. Joel looks to God’s stupendous mercy. He will pour out his spirit upon his people. All shall be well.
When we are knocked down, we do well if we get up again. When we are shut out, we do well to make a come-back. The losses can be made good. We all need encouragement to start again when we are overwhelmed. As well we might do when we think of the time we have lost and the resources we have wasted. To reverse the thundering destruction of a multitude of locusts may be beyond us mere human beings but ‘the Lord is a refuge for his people, a defence for Israel.’ By the grace of God we can triumph.
PETERLEE WEEKLY
St Cuthbert’s people get together weekly for Bible study. This is one of the many activities of a parish church in the new town of Peterlee, Co. Durham. The Vicar is Elaine Edith Jones. The church was built in 1957. In May 2021 Peterlee experienced a protest movement when mammoth telegraph poles were erected to carry the latest online signals. Previously all such services in the new town had been buried.
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