2 Hear this, you elders, And listen, all you inhabitants of the land. Has this ever happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Hear this, ye old men - By reason of their age they had known and heard much; they had heard from their fathers, and their father's fathers, much which they had not known themselves. Among the people of the east, memories of past times were handed down from generation to generation, for periods, which to us would seem incredible. Israel was commanded, so to transmit the vivid memories of the miracles of God. The prophet appeals "to the old men, to hear," and, (lest, anything should seem to have escaped them) to the whole people of the land, to give their whole attention to this thing, which he was about to tell them, and then, reviewing all the evils which each had ever heard to have been inflicted by God upon their forefathers, to say whether this thing had happened in their days or in the days of their fathers.
Ye old men - Instead of הזקנים hazzekenim old men, a few MSS. have הכהנים haccohanim, ye priests, but improperly.
Hath this been in your days - He begins very abruptly; and before he proposes his subject, excites attention and alarm by intimating that he is about to announce disastrous events, such as the oldest man among them has never seen, nor any of them learnt from the histories of ancient times.
Hear this, ye (a) old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath (b) this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?
(a) Signifying the princes, the priests, and the governors.
(b) He calls the Jews to the consideration of God's judgments, who had now plagued the fruits of the ground for the space of four years, which was because of their sins, and to call them to repentance.
Hear this, ye old men,.... What the prophet was about to relate, concerning the consumption of the fruits of the earth, by various sorts of creatures, and by a drought; and these are called upon to declare if ever the like had been known or heard of by them; who by reason of age had the greatest opportunities of knowledge of this sort, and could remember what they had heard or seen, and would faithfully relate it: this maybe understood of elders in office, as well as in age;
and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land; or "earth", not of the whole earth; but of the land of Judea; who were more particularly concerned in this affair, and therefore are required to listen attentively to it:
hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? that is, not the selfsame thing, but anything equal to it; a judgment of the same kind and nature, and of the same degree. By this question it seems the like had never been in the memory of any man living; nor in former times, in the days of their ancestors, as could be averted upon report; or attested on the credit of annals, chronicles, or other methods of conveying the history of ages past. As for the plague of locusts in Egypt, though they were such as; never find been, nor would be there any more; yet such or greater, and more in number than those, might be in Judea; besides, they continued but a few, lays at most, these four years successively, as Kimchi observes; and who thinks that in Egypt there was but one sort of locusts, here four; but the passage he quotes in Psalm 78:46; contradicts him; to which may be added Psalm 105:34.
A spirited introduction calling attention.
old men--the best judges in question concerning the past (Deuteronomy 32:7; Job 32:7).
Hath this been, &c.--that is, Hath any so grievous a calamity as this ever been before? No such plague of locusts had been since the ones in Egypt. Exodus 10:14 is not at variance with this verse, which refers to Judea, in which Joel says there had been no such devastation before.
Old men - The oldest among you, who can remember things done many years ago.
*More commentary available at chapter level.