Waste or confusion is, [משואה ,שאה], derived from the same root, may be rendered desolation. The two next words, “darkness” and “thick darkness,” occur in Joel 2:2. In the same passage we have also “the day of cloudiness and of entire darkness,” literally, bare or naked darkness; for the word is, [ערפל], derived, as I conceive, from [ער], bare, and [אפל], thick darkness. There is a gradation in the words used in each line; the second word is stronger than the first.—Ed.