It is only thus that the כי can be accounted for; it states the reason, only when the pastures of the wilderness are not understood literally. _The fruits of the trees are mentioned here as the ordinary food of the beasts of the field._ _Hitzig_, it is true, remarks on this: "That many beasts of the field feed upon fruits of trees which they gather up, and that, _e.g._, foxes eat grapes also." But the point at issue here is the ordinary food; and Gen. i. 29, 30, where the trees are given to man, and the grass to the beasts, is decisive as to the literal or figurative interpretation. Under the image of unclean beasts--especially wild beasts--the Gentiles appear also in Acts xi. 6.--Nor can "the rivers of water" (ver. 20) be understood literally. The water of rivers, brooks, and fountains, is, in Scripture, the ordinary figure for the sources of sustenance, of thriving, wealth, and prosperity; compare remarks on Rev. viii. 10. Chap. ii. 2 is to be considered as indicating the reason which induced Joel to choose this figurative representation. The words, "There hath not been anything the like from eternity, neither may there be any more after it, even to the years of all generations," are borrowed, almost verbally, from Exod. x. 14. The prophet thereby indicates that he transfers the past, in its individual definiteness, to the future, which bears a substantial resemblance to it. What was then said of the plague of locusts especially, is here applied to the calamity thereby prefigured. From among all the judgments upon the Covenant-people (for these alone are spoken of), this judgment is the highest and the last; and such the prophet could say, only if the whole sum of divine judgments, up to their consummation, represented [Pg 315] itself to his inner vision under the image of the devastation by locusts. The absurdities into which men are led by the hypothesis of a later origin of the Pentateuch, are here seen in a remarkable instance--viz., in the assertion of _Credner_, that the passage in Exodus is an imitation of that of Joel. The verse immediately following, "As the garden of Eden (_i.e._, Paradise) the land is before him," has an obvious reference to Genesis, not only to Gen. ii. 8, but also to xiii. 10, where the vale of Siddim, before the divine judgment, is compared to the garden of Jehovah--to Paradise.