What Does Joel 1:6 Mean in the King James?

For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion.

Joel 1:6 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The locust swarm is pictured as both a nation and a lion, making the devastation collective in scale and predatory in force.

THE MEANING

A devouring force rises over the ground you call yours: immense, beyond counting, and armed with a lion’s teeth. The verse holds the threat at full size, a nation-like mass with a predator’s bite, consuming what stands before it.

THE ROOT

עָצוּם

ʿāṣûm

GROWS FROM

עָצַם

ʿāṣam

To grow strong or become numerous.

The root carries both might and increase, so “strong, and without number” gathers force and multitude into one image. This is not merely a powerful enemy but a mass whose strength seems to swell beyond counting.

ALSO GROWS

ʿāṣam: To grow mighty or numerous.

עָצַם

This verbal form holds together the verse’s two descriptions: the force is strong and beyond number.

ʿetsem: Bone; the body’s hard substance.

עֶצֶם

This related form gives the root a physical edge: the force is pictured with the weight and substance of a body, not as an abstraction.

THE PATTERN

Scripture portrays overwhelming harm as a mouth that consumes people, land, and provision.

There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men.

Proverbs 30:14 · KJVLike Joel’s lion-toothed force, this passage makes destructive power visible through teeth that consume.

And they shall eat up thine harvest, and thy bread, which thy sons and thy daughters should eat: they shall eat up thy flocks and thine herds: they shall eat up thy vines and thy fig trees: they shall impoverish thy fenced cities, wherein thou trustedst, with the sword.

Jeremiah 5:17 · KJVThe devouring threat reaches across the land’s food, animals, vines, and defended places.

And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.

Revelation 9:8 · KJVThe lion’s teeth return as the image of a force whose danger is expressed through its capacity to tear and consume.

THE THREAD

A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.

Joel 2:2 · KJV

“Strong” in both verses comes from ⁨עָצַם⁩ (ʿāṣam), a root that can carry might and multitude. Joel 2:2 expands the image into a force so vast that the verse calls it unlike any other.

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