Joel 1:5

5 Awake, you drunkards, and weep, and 1wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of 2the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth.

Joel 1:5 Meaning and Commentary

Joel 1:5

Awake, ye drunkards, and weep: and howl, all ye drinkers of
wine
Who are used to neither, either to awake or to howl, being very prone to drowsiness upon their drinking bouts, and to mirth and jollity in them; but now should be awake, and sober enough, not as being a virtue in them, but through want of wine; and for the same reason should howl, as follows: because of the new wine, for it is cut off from your mouth;
the locusts having spoiled the vines and eaten the grapes, no new wine could be made, and so none could be brought in cups to their mouths; nor they drink it in bowls, as they had used to do; and which, being sweet and grateful to their taste, they were wont to drink in great abundance, till they were inebriated with it; but now there was a scarcity, their lips were dry, but not their eyes. The word, Kimchi says, signifies all liquor which is squeezed by bruising or treading.

Joel 1:5 In-Context

3 Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation.
4 What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.
5 Awake, you drunkards, and weep, and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth.
6 For a nation has come up against my land, powerful and beyond number; its teeth are lions' teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness.
7 It has laid waste my vine and splintered my fig tree; it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down; their branches are made white.

Cross References 2

  • 1. [Isaiah 24:11]
  • 2. Joel 3:18; Isaiah 49:26; Amos 9:13
The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.