“Wake up!
You drunkards!
Weep!
Wail!
All you wine-drinkers!
The sweet wine
Is cut off
From your mouth.
A nation has invaded
My land.
It is powerful.
It is innumerable.
Its teeth are
Lions’ teeth.
It has the fangs
Of a lioness.
It has laid waste
My vines.
It has splintered
My fig trees.
It has stripped off
Their bark.
It has thrown it down.
Their branches
Have turned white.”
Joel noted that the attack of the locust grasshoppers was very severe, like the invasion of another country. He wanted the drunkards to wake up and weep. All those wine-drinkers should wail. They were going to have their sweet wine cut off from them. The powerful, innumerable invasion of the grasshoppers in his land was like the fangs of a lion’s teeth. This attack had laid waste the vines and the fig trees. This plague of locusts had splintered and stripped off the bark of the trees. They had thrown the trees to the ground, as the branches of the trees turned white.
Eugene Finnegan Bible Project 