It has laid waste my vines: The pronoun It here and in the third line refers to the locusts as a group, while Good News Translation and New English Bible have the more natural pronoun “They,” referring to the locusts as many individuals.

Laid waste (Good News Translation “destroyed”) renders a general term in Hebrew. It does not specify how or by what means the destruction is done, but it is often used of an army destroying a city completely.

For the pronoun my, see the comments on the previous verse.

Vines renders a Hebrew word that always means “grapevines” (Good News Translation). Translators often find it hard to find an equivalent term for “grapevine.” The word or descriptive phrase used to express it may depend on how they have dealt with “wine” in Joel 1.5. A “grapevine” is a tall plant with long branches, which produces fruit (the grapes), from which wine is made. A long descriptive phrase may be too clumsy here and may reduce the impact of the message. A borrowed term from an international or trade language may be the answer, but it should be well understood. The grapevine and wine are important symbols in the Hebrew and the Christian traditions, and elsewhere translators will have had to deal with these terms. Previous solutions may be applied here, although the symbolic value is not central in their meaning in this context.

And splintered my fig trees: The word for splintered occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. It seems to involve either the snapping off or the splintering of branches. The sound of millions of locusts eating the plants would have made a noise like that of splintering and falling branches. Good News Translation says “chewed up,” which is one way of expressing this kind of destruction, although it does not mean that the locusts consumed the trunk and large branches. To avoid misunderstanding, translators may want to be more specific and render this line as “and chewed up the branches of my fig trees.”

Fig trees are an important fruit-bearing tree, providing one of the chief crops of Palestine. The fig is a brown, sweet, fleshy fruit, with the flower hidden inside the fruit. A small wasp enters a hole at the bottom to pollinate the flower. The fruit is somewhat pear-shaped, widening out at the bottom. It is about 4 to 7 centimeters (1.5 to 2.5 inches) in length. The leaves are shaped like a human hand, providing excellent shade. In many parts of Africa people are familiar with wild fig trees, which in many ways meet the above description.

It has stripped off their bark and thrown it down: After the locusts ate all the green leaves, they attacked the bark of the fig trees; pieces of the bark fell to the ground, which is described as being thrown … down. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch says “even the bark they have gnawed off.”

Their branches are made white describes the small branches of the grapevines. Because the locusts have eaten the bark, the bare, white wood can be seen. New Revised Standard Version has “their branches have turned white.” In some languages translators may have to express made white as “laid bare,” or perhaps use a figurative expression such as “left naked.”

This verse has the form of a chiasmus: the first line refers to grapevines, the second and third lines to fig trees, and the fourth line once more to grapevines. This is not reflected in most translations. If it is felt necessary or helpful to keep the references to the two plants distinct following the Hebrew model, then line one can be combined with line four, and line two can be combined with line three as follows:

• It has laid waste my vines;
their branches are made white;
it has splintered my fig trees;
it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down.

However, even though the Hebrew poetic form separates the destruction of the grapevines and the fig trees, the description combines the two, almost as if the grapevines and the fig trees were the same plants, so that when the bark (of the fig trees) was removed, the white wood (of the grapevines) appeared. Therefore in some languages the Good News Translation model will carry the meaning most effectively.

Quoted with permission from de Blois, Kees & Dorn, Louis. A Handbook on Joel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2020. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .