The earth shall quake before them,.... The inhabitants of it, because of the desolating judgments they bring with them, and those enemies that are signified by them:
the heavens shall tremble; being obscured by them:
the sun and moon shall be dark; the locusts sometimes come in such large numbers as to intercept the rays of the sun. Pliny t says they sometimes darken it; and though some thought they did not fly in the night, because of the cold; this he observes is owing to their ignorance, not considering that they pass over wide seas to distant countries; and this will account for it how the moon also may be darkened by them, and the stars, as follows:
and the stars shall withdraw their shining; though all this may be understood in a figurative sense of the great consternation that all sorts of persons should be in at such calamities coming upon the land, either by locusts, or by enemies; as the king, queen, nobles, and the common people of the land, signified by sun, moon, and stars, heaven and earth.
t Ibid. (Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 29.)