Joel 2:13-17

13 Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.

14 Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing— grain offerings and drink offerings for the LORD your God.

15 Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly.

16 Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber.

17 Let the priests, who minister before the LORD, weep between the portico and the altar. Let them say, “Spare your people, LORD. Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’ ”

Joel 2:13-17 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOEL 2

In this chapter a further account is given of the judgment of the locusts and caterpillars, or of those who are designed by them, Joe 2:1-11; the people of the Jews are called to repentance, humiliation, and fasting, urged from the grace and goodness of God, his jealousy and pity for his people, and the answer of prayer that might he expected from him upon this, even to the removal of the calamity, Joe 2:12-20; a prophecy of good things, both temporal and spiritual, in the times of the Messiah, is delivered out as matter and occasion of great joy, Joe 2:21-27; and another concerning the effusion of the Spirit, which was fulfilled an the day of Pentecost, Joe 2:28-29; and the chapter is concluded with the judgments and desolations that should come upon the land of Judea after this, for their rejection of Christ, though the remnant according to the election of grace should be delivered and saved from the general destruction, Joe 2:30-32.

Cross References

• 1. Psalms 51:17; Psalms 34:18; Isaiah 57:15
• 2. S Genesis 37:29; S Numbers 14:6; Job 1:20
• 3. S Isaiah 19:22
• 4. S Deuteronomy 4:31
• 5. Exodus 34:6; S Psalms 86:5,15
• 6. S Jeremiah 18:8; John 4:2
• 7. Jeremiah 26:3; John 3:9
• 8. Amos 5:15; John 1:6
• 9. Jeremiah 31:14; Haggai 2:19; Zechariah 8:13; Malachi 3:10
• 10. S Joel 1:13
• 11. S Numbers 10:2
• 12. ver 1
• 13. S 2 Chronicles 20:3; Jeremiah 36:9
• 14. S Exodus 32:5; Numbers 10:3; Joel 1:14
• 15. S Exodus 19:10,22
• 16. Joel 1:2
• 17. Psalms 19:5
• 18. Joel 1:13
• 19. S Isaiah 22:12
• 20. Ezekiel 8:16; Matthew 23:35
• 21. Deuteronomy 9:26-29; Psalms 44:13
• 22. S 1 Kings 9:7; S Job 17:6
• 23. S Psalms 42:3