Joel 1:6

"For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number; his teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the jaw-teeth of a lioness."

"For a nation ..." This expression, of course, has been made a basis of advocating a symbolical interpretation of the locusts. Such a personification of locusts is in keeping with the Biblical description of ants and conies as "folk" and "people" (Proverbs 30:25-27), and it is interpreted here as metaphorical description of the locusts. However, there very well may be here an overtone of the wider application of the locust invasion that appears in Joel 2.

As Kennedy said, "Viewed collectively, they were like an invading army. Such indeed is the suggestion of the phrase has come up against my land (cf. 2 Kings 18:13)."[18] Barnes was probably correct in his understanding that:

Here it is used, in order to include at once, the irrational invader, guided by a Reason above his own, and the heathen conqueror. For this enemy is come up upon my land, the Lord's land.[19]