Joel 1:11

11 Be ashamed, you farmers,^[a] wail, you vinedressers,^[b] over the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished.

Joel 1:11 Meaning and Commentary

Joel 1:11

Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen
Tillers of the land, who have took a great deal of pains in cultivating the earth, dunging, ploughing, and sowing it; confusion may cover you, because of your disappointment, the increase not answering to your expectations and labours: howl, O ye vinedressers;
that worked in the vineyards, set the vines, watered and pruned them, and, when they had done all they could to them, were dried up with the drought, or devoured by the locusts, as they were destroyed by the Assyrians or Chaldeans; and therefore had reason to howl and lament, all their labour being lost: for the wheat and for the barley: because the harvest of the field is
perished;
this belongs to the husbandmen, is a reason for their shame and blushing, because the wheat and barley were destroyed before they were ripe; and so they had neither wheat nor barley harvest. The words, by a transposition, would read better, and the sense be clearer, "thus, be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen, for the wheat and for the barley: because the harvest" "howl, O ye vine dressers"; for what follows:

Joel 1:11 In-Context

9 Grain and drink offerings have been cut off from the house of the Lord; the priests, who are ministers of the Lord, mourn.

10 The fields are destroyed; the land grieves; indeed, the grain is destroyed; the new wine is dried up; and the olive oil fails.

11 Be ashamed, you farmers, wail, you vinedressers, over the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished.

12 The grapevine is dried up, and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, the date palm, and the apple- all the trees of the orchard-have withered. Indeed, human joy has dried up.

13 Dress [in sackcloth] and lament, you priests; wail, you ministers of the altar. Come and spend the night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, because grain and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God.

Footnotes

• [a]. Jr 14:4; 51:23; Am 5:16
• [b]. Or The farmers are dismayed, the vinedressers wail