Joel 2:4

The appearance of them [is] as the appearance of horses,.... in their running, as Jarchi and Kimchi interpret it; they came with, as much swiftness and eagerness, with as much fierceness and courage,

The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses. Not literal, but figurative locusts.

The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; their carriage, for fierceness, agility, and irresistibleness, is like that of horses trained up to the wars, of which , &c. And as horsemen, so shall they run: this gives light to the former expression, and by it we see these locusts are not resembled to the horse for shape, but for their nimbleness in motion. And as were these types, so should the armies which were typified be also.

Joe 2:4 The appearance of them [is] as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run.Ver. 4. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses, and as horsemen] i.e. the locusts and other insects come on amain; they march with much nimbleness and swiftness. A horse is a warlike creature, full of terror; so swift in service, that the Persians dedicated him to their god, the sun, as the swiftest creature to the swiftest god, ωσπερτοταχιστοντωταχυτατω (Pausan.). See Job 41:20 Proverbs 21:31. In Persia they do all almost on horseback; they buy, sell, confer, but especially fight on horseback to this day. So they did of old, and so did the Chaldeans, from whom they took the monarchs. These were horsemen, and not as horsemen; the place, therefore, is properly and principally to be understood of the locusts. Confer Revelation 9:7.

(4) As the appearance of horses.—So also are locusts described in the Revelation: “And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle” (from this likeness the Italians call a locust cavalletta) . . . “and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots, of many horses running to battle” (Revelation 9:7; Revelation 9:9).

Verse 4. The appearance of horses] The head of the locust is remarkably like that of the horse; and so Ray on Insects describes them: Caput oblongum, equi instar, prona spectans - "They have an oblong head, like to that of a horse, bending downward." On this account the Italians call them cavaletta, cavalry. Bochart remarks, from an Arabic writer, that the locusts resemble ten different kinds of animals: 1. The HORSE in its head. 2. The ELEPHANT in its eyes. 3. The BULL in its neck. 4. The STAG in its horns. 5. The LION in its breast. 6. The SCORPION in its belly. 7. The EAGLE in its wings. 8. The CAMEL in its thighs. 9. The OSTRICH in its feet. And 10. The SERPENT in its tail. Vid. Hieroz., vol. ii., p. 475, edit. 1692. But its most prominent resemblance is to the horse, which the prophet mentions; and which the Arabic writer puts in the first place, as being the chief.

2–11. The signs of the approaching Day. A day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness] So Zephaniah 1:15. Four synonyms are combined, for the purpose of emphasizing the darkness, which the prophet has in view. Darkness is, in Hebrew poetry, a common figure for calamity (comp. on Amos 5:18); but here, no doubt, the image is suggested by the fact that a flight of locusts, as it approaches, presents the appearance of a black cloud, which, as it passes, obscures the sun, and even sometimes darkens the whole sky. Speaking of a ‘column of locusts,’ which appeared in India, a writer says, ‘it was so compact that, like an eclipse, it completely hid the sun; so that no shadow was cast by any object, and some lofty tombs, not more than 200 yards distant, were rendered quite invisible’ (ap. Kirby on Entomology, Letter VI.). “Our attention has often been attracted by the sudden darkening of the sun in a summer sky, accompanied by the peculiar noise which a swarm of locusts always makes moving through the air” (Van Lennep, Bible Lands, p. 315; comp. the illustration, p. 317). Many other observers speak similarly; cf. below, p. 87 ff. As the dawn spread upon the mountains, a people great and strong!] The words as the dawn &c. are to be connected with what follows, not with what precedes (which belongs rather to Joe 2:1); and the allusion is probably to the glimmering brightness produced by the reflexion of the sun’s rays from the wings of the locusts, which the prophet compares poetically to the early dawn as it first appears upon the mountains. “The day before the locusts arrived, we were certain that they were, approaching from a yellow reflexion produced by their yellow wings in the heavens. As soon as this was observed, no one doubted that a vast swarm of locusts was at hand” (from a description quoted by Credner, p. 274). Of a flight of locusts in the Sinai peninsula, the Rev. F. W. Holland writes, “They soon increased in number, and as their glazed wings glanced in the sun, they had the appearance of a snow-storm. Many settled on the ground, which was soon in many places quite yellow with them, and every blade of green soon disappeared” (ap. Tristram, N.H.B[35] p. 316). “Their flight may be likened to an immense snow storm, extending from the ground to a height at which our visual organs perceive them only a minute, darting scintillations …, a vast cloud of animated specks, glittering against the sun. On the horizon they often appear as a dust tornado, riding upon the wind like an ominous hail-storm, eddying and whirling about and finally sweeping up to and past you, with a power that is irresistible” (C. V. Riley, The Rocky Mountain Locust, p. 85 f.). [35] .H.B. … H. B. Tristram, Natural History of the Bible (1868).a great people and a strong] terms applied elsewhere to a human nation (Exodus 1:9; Deuteronomy 7:1 : comp. on ch.

The appearance of them, is as the appearance of horses - “If you carefully consider the head of the locust,” says Theodoret, a Bishop in Syria, “you will find it exceedingly like that of a horse.”

4. As… horses — The head of the locust bears a strong resemblance to the head of a horse, as Theodoret (c.