Isaiah 33:4 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Bible Comments

Your spoil, that treasure which you have raked together by spoiling divers people, shall be gathered by the Jews at Jerusalem, when you shall be forced to flee away with all possible speed, leaving your spoils behind you. Like the gathering of the caterpillar; either,

1. Passively, with as much ease, and in as great numbers, as caterpillars are gathered and destroyed. Or rather,

2. Actively, as appears from the next clause; as caterpillars or locusts (for the word signifies either) gather and devour all the fruits of the earth; which was a common plague in those countries. As the running to and fro of locusts; as locusts, especially when they are sent and armed by commission from God, come with great force, and run hither and thither, devouring all the fruits of the earth, wheresoever they find them.

Isaiah 33:4

4 And your spoil shall be gathered like the gathering of the caterpiller: as the running to and fro of locusts shall he run upon them.