Joel 1:11

11 Grieve, you farmers; cry, you that take care of the vineyards, because the wheat, the barley, yes all the crops are destroyed.

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 There is no grain or wine to offer in the Temple; the priests mourn because they have no offerings for the Lord.

10 The fields are bare; the ground mourns because the grain is destroyed, the grapes are dried up, and the olive trees are withered.

11 Grieve, you farmers; cry, you that take care of the vineyards, because the wheat, the barley, yes all the crops are destroyed.

12 The grapevines and fig trees have withered; all the fruit trees have wilted and died. The joy of the people is gone.

13 Put on sackcloth and weep, you priests who serve at the altar! Go into the Temple and mourn all night! There is no grain or wine to offer your God.