shew that the prophet does not intend real locusts, but symbolical ones. His reasoning is just; though his application is, I think, wrong. Real locusts do not come from the north, but breed in the warm regions of the south *. They are used therefore with singular propriety by St. John, who (as Mede and Bp. Newton justly observe) has borrowed many particulars of his description from Joel, to typify the vast armies of the Saracens. In the Apocalypse however the antitypical locusts come, like their types, from the south and south-east: consequently the Apostle had no occasion to specify the particular quarter of the heavens; that point, nothing being said to the contrary, would be sufficiently determined by the natural history of the symbol t. But Joel wished to describe a horde of rapacious northern invaders under the same imagery. Hence both the decorum of the type, and the right understanding of the prediction, required, that he should particularly specify that the locusts should come from the north; thus tacitly, though plainly, insinuating, that he meant not any literal locusts.

Here then Chandler has a fresh difficulty to encounter: and in what manner does he endeavour to remove it? Kimchi, who like himself supposes the locusts to be literal ones, somewhat unthinkingly adopts the natural and obvious interpretation of the passage; and says, that the prophet calls the locust the northern one, because it came to them from the northern quarter. But this exposition is by no means satisfactory, because real locusts do not come from the north. Chandler therefore adopts the gloss of Bochart, who had before him understood the locusts of Joel in a literal sense, and who must also before him have felt the refractoriness of this passage. "The north

*

Speaking of the remarkable accordance of the apocalyptic locusts with the Saracens, Mr. Daubuz observes, that "the Saracens have made inroads into all those parts of Christendom where the natural locusts are wont to be seen and known to do mischief, and no where else: and that too in the same proportion. Where the locusts are seldom seen, there the Saracens stayed little : where the natural locusts are often seen, there the Saracens abode most: and, where they breed most, there the Saracens had their beginning, and greatest power." Mr. Mede observes, like Mr. Daubuz, that the locusts bred much in Arabia.

In a similar manner, he symbolizes the various irruptions of the northern nations by a storm of hail, without specifying from what quarter that storm came, because the north is the region of snow and hail.

ern one," says he, "is that part of the locusts, which is on the northern side of the city; and the barren and dry land, into which the Lord will drive them, is Arabia which lies to the south of Judea, and where they would die for want of food." Are we to suppose then, if literal locusts be intended, that there were none on the south side of the city? And if, as common sense obliges us to conclude no less than the very full and ample description of the prophet, there undoubtedly were; why are those on the northern side alone noticed, while nothing is said respecting those on the southern side? Nor is this all: the two seas, as both Bochart, Kimchi, and Chandler, allow, are the dead sea and the Mediterranean sea. How then could the locusts be between these two seas, if they were driven far into the desarts of Arabia †? In short, I can consider such an interpretation in no other light than that of a mere struggle to get quit of a difficulty. The northern one is evidently a sweeping expression, denoting either the king of the locusts at the head of his armies, or the whole body of the locusts themselves. And I am persuaded, that any one, who reads the passage unbiassed by system, will conclude, that the northern locusts, which lay waste the whole land of Judea, are certain locusts, which come out of the north; and that, when he recollects that locusts are ordinarily bred in the south, he will say with Jerome, that the epithet northern is added to shew that the prophet did not intend real locusts.

Supposing then that the locusts, caterpillers, cankerworms, and palmer-worms, which composed the vast army described by Joel, are to be understood, not literally, but symbolically; the next point to be considered is

Kimchi thinks, perhaps also the lake of Gennesareth.

†The land barren and desolate is certainly the land between the seas, or Palestine; not Arabia. This land had been made barren and desolate by the ravages of the locust-army. The removing to a distance must be taken in a qualified and limited sense; for the place, to which the symbolical locusts are to be removed, is between the seas of Palestine, no less than the glorious holy mountain itself (compare Dan. xi. 45.). We learn from St. John, that this place is Megiddo, descriptively termed by Joel the valley of the Lord's judgment; which is about forty miles from Jerusalem, and which, though it may be considered as lying between the dead sea and the Mediterranean, is (to speak with more geographical accuracy) situate between the Mediterranean and the sea of Gennesareth.

the period to which we are to assign this tremendous invasion of Judea. Grotius thinks, as we have seen, that the successive invasions of Phul, Tiglathphilasar, Salmanasar, and Sennacherib, are intended*. St. Jerome supposes, that the Chaldeans and Assyrians are the symbolical locust-army. Mr. Mede adopts the opinion of Jeromet. Abarbanel conjectures, that not only the Chaldeans, who carried away the ten tribes, are meant; but likewise the Babylonians, who destroyed the first temple, and the Romans, who destroyed the second ‡. Kimchi observes, that some of the Rabbies expound the verse, in which the destruction of the locust-army is foretold, as relating to the days of the Messiah: and he thinks, that the Chaldee Paraphrast interprets the locusts to mean princes, and people, and kingdoms, because he apprehended that these things were to come to pass in the days of the Messiah §. The last of these opinions, provided we understand the days of the second advent, is, I believe, the true one. As for the others, I cannot discover, that any one of them at all accords with the prophecy, excepting perhaps that which applies it to the invasion and

I think him no less wrong in this part of his opinion, than in his application of the prophecy to a period during which Judah was existing as a kingdom. These four tribes of animals are plainly represented as composing only one army, the different divisions of which, after they have jointly entered Palestine, spread themselves over the face of the whole country, and rival each other in mischievousness and rapacity. “That which the palmer-worm hath left, hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left, hath the canker-worm eaten; and that which the canker-worm hath left, hath the caterpiller eaten-A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them." The ravages of a hostile army, sometimes advancing in one great body, and sometimes dividing itself into detachments, could not have been painted more to the life. There cannot be a better comment upon the prophecy than the conduct of the locusts of Antichrist in the course of their various campaigns. Every part of the European continent within their reach has been plundered and laid waste by them. They have been uniformly subsisted at the expense of the wretched inhabitants. And I doubt not, whenever their appointed time for invading Palestine shall arrive, that the same deeds of havock and barbarity will be there also re-acted. Could the poet, who wished to describe the universal conduct of the French, have pitched upon more apposite images to symbolize those barbarians, than locusts, caterpillers, canker-worms, and palmer-worms? See my Dissert. on the 1260 years. Vol. ii. p. 331. (2d edit. p. 367.).

+ Comment. Apoc. p. 467.

Boch. Hieroz. P. i. L. iv. C. 5. p. 480.

The reader will find all these authors cited by Chandler himself, except Mede and Abarbanel, to whom I have therefore given references.

destruction of Sennacherib. It is to be observed, that Joel does not merely foretell an invasion, but likewise the destruction of the invaders; and that too in a region which he very particularly specifies, the land of Palestine between the eastern sea and the western sea. Now the Chaldeans, who carried away the ten tribes, were successful in their enterprize, instead of experiencing a total overthrow. So likewise were the Babylonians, who destroyed the first temple. And so were the Romans, who destroyed the second. None of these perished in Palestine between the two seas: how is it possible then that they can be meant by the locust-army? Sennacherib undoubtedly did fail in his expedition, and his army was miraculously destroyed near Libnah* which is situated between the two seas: I am willing moreover to allow, that his overthrow may be considered as the type of the yet future overthrow of Antichrist in the same bismarine region, though not precisely in the same place: but I think it sufficiently evident, that the prophecy can only have received a sort of inchoate accomplishment in that event, even granting that it at all relates to it, which is by no means clearly certain. Joel himself fixes the accomplishment of the whole of his prophecy to a certain era, which he calls the great day of the Lord. All things contained in it are to come to pass either immediately before this great day, or in this great day. He beholds the approach of the locustarmy; and exclaims, Alas for the day! for the day of the Lord is at hand. He sees them commence their wild career of havock, and occasion tremendous revolutions in the political heavens; and again exclaims, The day of the Lord is great and very terrible ‡. He briefly touches upon their destruction between the two seas, and predicts the subsequent happy state of Israel both in temporals and spirituals; and declares, that those revolutions shall take place before the great and terrible day of the Lord come . Lastly, when calling together the multitudes of the nations to the valley of judgment he declares that the day of the Lord in that valley is near; and that it shall be marked, not only by another

* 2 Kings xix. 8.

Joel ii, 11.

† Joel i. 15.

Joel ii. 10, 20, 23, 28, 31.

and most awful revolution, a revolution about to be experienced in their turn by the causers of revolutions, but likewise by the roaring of the Lord out of Zion, by his dwelling in his holy mountain, by his suffering hostile strangers no more to pass through Jerusalem, and by his conferring upon his people every kind of blessing *. It is evident therefore, that the great day of the Lord must, as it is used by Joel, mean the period in which the locustarmy should be destroyed, and the nations be cut off in the valley of concision: and it is further evident from Joel's (as it were) anxious repetition of the phrase, that, since the locust-army and the army of the nations are both to be overthrown in the same great day, they must consist of the very same persons; in other words, that the last chapter of Joel contains only an enlarged description of the already mentioned overthrow of the locust-army between the two seas. It moreover appears, that the great day of the Lord comprehends not only the destruction of the nations, but likewise the grant of much temporal and spiritual happiness to the Jews.

What period then are we to understand by this great day? Chandler most arbitrarily denies, that the prophet uses the term throughout his prediction in the same sense; a denial, to which, according to his scheme, he was necessarily led by St. Peter's application of a part of the prophecy to the day of pentecost †. Accordingly he tells us, that the great day of the Lord, with which the locusts are connected, means nothing more than the time of calamity and distress which their ravages occasioned; and therefore a day, supposing the locusts to be natural ones, long since past: but that the great day of the Lord connected with the effusion of the Spirit, means the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. In both cases I

believe him to be mistaken, at least so far mistaken as he confines the great day in the second case to the sacking of Jerusalem. Let the expression mean what it may, it is only reasonable to suppose, that Joel, who four times uses it in the course of a very short prediction, uses it always in the same sense. And, if this be allowed, it Acts ii, 16-21.

Joel iii. 14-21.