Joel 2:6

Green's Literal Translation

Before their face, the people shall be pained; all faces collect heat.

Parallel Translations

Easy-to-Read Version
Before this army, people shake with fear. Their faces become pale from fear.

New American Standard Bible
Before them the people are in anguish; All faces turn pale.

New Century Version
When they see them, nations shake with fear, and everyone's face becomes pale.

New English Translation
People writhe in fear when they see them. All of their faces turn pale with fright.

Update Bible Version
At their presence the peoples are in anguish; all faces are waxed pale.

Webster's Bible Translation
Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness.

Amplified Bible
Before them the people are in anguish; All faces become pale [with terror].

English Standard Version
Before them peoples are in anguish; all faces grow pale.

World English Bible
At their presence the peoples are in anguish. All faces have grown pale.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Puplis schulen be turmentid of the face therof, alle facis schulen be dryuun in to a pot.

English Revised Version
At their presence the peoples are in anguish: all faces are waxed pale.

Berean Standard Bible
Nations writhe in horror before them; every face turns pale.

Contemporary English Version
The very sight of them is frightening.

American Standard Version
At their presence the peoples are in anguish; all faces are waxed pale.

Bible in Basic English
At their coming the people are bent with pain: all faces become red together.

Complete Jewish Bible
At their presence the peoples writhe in anguish, every face is drained of color.

Darby Translation
Before them the peoples are in anguish: all faces turn pale.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
At their presence the peoples are in anguish; all faces have gathered blackness.

King James Version (1611)
Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blacknesse.

New Living Translation
Fear grips all the people; every face grows pale with terror.

New Life Bible
Nations suffer in front of them. All faces turn white.

New Revised Standard
Before them peoples are in anguish, all faces grow pale.

Geneva Bible (1587)
Before his face shal the people tremble: all faces shal gather blackenesse.

George Lamsa Translation
Before their presence the people shall tremble; all faces shall be dismayed and confounded.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Because of him, shall peoples', be in anguish, - all faces, have withdrawn their colour.

Douay-Rheims Bible
At their presence the people shall be in grievous pains: all faces shall be made like a kettle.

Revised Standard Version
Before them peoples are in anguish, all faces grow pale.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
Before his face shall the people tremble, the countenaunce of all folkes shall waxe [blacke] as a pot.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Before them shall the people be crushed: every face shall be as the blackness of a caldron.

Good News Translation
As they approach, everyone is terrified; every face turns pale.

Christian Standard Bible®
Nations writhe in horror before them;all faces turn pale.

Hebrew Names Version
At their presence the peoples are in anguish. All faces have grown pale.

King James Version
Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness.

Lexham English Bible
From before them nations writhe, all faces turn pale.

Young's Literal Translation
From its face pained are peoples, All faces have gathered paleness.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
The folke shalbe afrayed of him, all faces shal be as blacke as a pot.

New King James Version
Before them the people writhe in pain;All faces are drained of color. [fn]

New American Standard Bible (1995)
Before them the people are in anguish; All faces turn pale.

Legacy Standard Bible
Before them the peoples are writhing;All faces turn pale.

Contextual Overview

¹ Blow a ram's horn in Zion, and shout an alarm in My holy mountain. Let all those living in the land tremble. For the day of Jehovah approaches; it is near, ² a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, as the dawn spread out on the mountains, a great and a strong people. There has never been the like, nor shall there ever be again to the years of many generations; ³ a fire devours before it, and a flame burns behind it. The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them is a desolate wilderness; yea, also there is no escape to them. ⁴ Their appearance is like horses; and as horsemen, so they run. ⁵ They shall leap like the noise of chariots on the tops of the mountains, like the noise of flames of fire that devour the chaff, as a strong people set in order for battle. ⁶ Before their face, the people shall be pained; all faces collect heat. ⁷ They shall run as mighty ones; they shall go up the wall as men of war. And they each go on his way, and they do not change their paths. ⁸ And each does not press his brother; they each go in his paths. And if they fall behind their weapon, they shall not be cut off. ⁹ They shall rush on the city; they shall run on the wall; they shall climb up on the houses; they shall enter in by the windows, like a thief. ¹⁰ The earth shall quake before them, the heavens shall shake. The sun and moon shall grow dark, and the stars shall gather in their light.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

all: Psalms 119:83, Isaiah 13:8, Jeremiah 8:21, Jeremiah 30:6, Lamentations 4:8, Nahum 2:10

blackness: Heb. pot

Reciprocal: Jeremiah 14:2 - they

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Before their face the people shall be much pained,.... Or, "at their presence"; at the sight of them they shall be in pain, as a woman in travail; into such distress an army of locusts would throw them, since they might justly fear all the fruits of the earth would be devoured by them, and they should have nothing left to live upon; and a like consternation and pain the army of the Assyrians or Chaldeans upon sight filled them with, as they expected nothing but ruin and destruction from them:

all faces shall gather blackness; like that of a pot, as the word m signifies; or such as appears in persons dying, or in fits and swoons; and this here, through fear and hunger; see Nahum 2:10.

m פארור "fuliginem", Montanus; "luridum ollae colorem", Tigurine version, Tarnovius; "ollam pro nigore ollae", Drusius.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Before their face the people shall be much pained - The locust being such a scourge of God, good reason have men to be terrified at their approach; and those are most terrified who have most felt the affliction. In Abyssinia, some province of which was desolated every year, one relates , “When the locusts travel, the people know of it a day before, not because they see them, but they see the sun yellow and the ground yellow, through the shadow which they cast on it (their wings being yellow) and immediately the people become as dead, saying, ‘we are lost, for the Ambadas (so they call them) are coming.’ I will say what I have seen three times; the first was at Barva. During three years that we were in this land, we often heard them say, ‘such a realm, such a land, is destroyed by locusts:’ and when it was so, we saw this sign, the sun was yellow, and the shadow on the earth the same, and the whole people became as dead.” “The Captain of the place called Coiberia came to me with men, Clerks, and Brothers (Monks) to ask me, for the love God, to help them, that they were all lost through the locusts.” : “There were men, women, children, sitting among these locusts, the young brood, as stupefied. I said to them ‘why do you stay there, dying? Why do you not kill these animals, and avenge you of the evil which their parents have done you? and at least when dead, they will do you no more evil.’ They answered, that they had no courage to resist a plague which God gave them for their sins. We found the roads full of men, women, and children, (some of these on foot, some in arms) their bundles of clothes on their heads, removing to some land where they might find provisions. It was pitiful to see them.”

Burkhardt relates of South Arabia , “The Bedouins who occupy the peninsula of Sinai are frequently driven to despair by the multitudes of locusts, which constitute a land-plague. They remain there generally for forty or fifty days, and then disappear for the rest of the year.” Pliny describes their approach , “they overshadow the sun, the nations looking up with anxiety, lest they should cover their lands. For their strength suffices, and as if it were too little to have passed seas, they traverse immense tracts, and overspread them with a cloud, fatal to the harvest.”

All faces shall gather blackness - Others, of high-authority, have rendered, shall “withdraw (their) beauty” . But the word signifies to collect together, in order that what is so collected should be present, not absent ; and so is very different from another saying, the stars shall withdraw their shining Joel 2:10; Joel 3:15. The “their” had also needed to be expressed.) He expresses how the faces contract a livid color from anxiety and fear, as Jeremiah says of the Nazarites, “Their visage is darker than blackness” (Lamentations 4:8, see Margin). : “The faces are clothed with lurid hue of coming death; hence they not only grow pale, but are blackened.” A slight fear drives the fresh hue from the cheek: the livid hue comes only with the deepest terror. So Isaiah says; “they look amazed one to the other; faces of flame are their faces” Isaiah 13:8.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 6. All faces shall gather blackness. — Universal mourning shall take place, because they know that such a plague is irresistible.