Joel 1:1-8

1

2 Older leaders, listen to this message. Listen to me, all you who live in the land. Nothing like this has ever happened during your lifetime or during your ancestors' lifetimes.

3 Tell your children about these things, let your children tell their children, and let your grandchildren tell their children.

4 What the cutting locusts have left, the swarming locusts have eaten; what the swarming locusts have left, the hopping locusts have eaten, and what the hopping locusts have left, the destroying locustsn have eaten.

5 Drunks, wake up and cry! All you people who drink wine, cry! Cry because your wine has been taken away from your mouths.

6 A powerful nation has come into my land with too many soldiers to count. It has teeth like a lion, jaws like a female lion.

7 It has made my grapevine a waste and made my fig tree a stump. It has stripped all the bark off my trees and left the branches white.

8 Cry as a young woman cries when the man she was going to marry has died.

Joel 1:1-8 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOEL

In some Hebrew Bibles this prophecy is called "Sepher Joel", the Book of Joel; in the Vulgate Latin version, the Prophecy of Joel; and in the Syriac version, the Prophecy of the Prophet Joel; and the Arabic version, the Prophet Joel; and so the Apostle Peter quotes him, Ac 2:16. His name, according to Hillerus {a}, signifies "the Lord is God"; but others derive it from lay, which in "Hiphil" is lyawh, and signifies "he willed, acquiesced, or is well pleased, so Abarbinei; and hence Schmidt thinks it answers to Desiderius or Erasmus. According to Isidorus {b}, he was born at Bethoron, in the tribe of Reuben, and died and was buried there; and so says Pseudo-Epiphanius {c}. In what age he lived is not easy to say. Aben Ezra expressly affirms there is no way to know it; and so R. David Ganz {d} says, his time we know not; and likewise Abarbinel. Some think he prophesied about the same time Hoses did, after whom he is next placed; and so Mr. Whiston {e} and, Mr. Bedford {f} make him to prophesy much about the same time with Isaiah and Hoses, about eight hundred years before Christ; but, in the Septuagint version, this book is in the fourth order, and not Hoses, but Amos and Micah, are placed before him; and so the author of Juchasin {g} puts the prophets in this order, first Hoses, then Amos, next Isaiah, then Micah, and after him Joel. Some of the Jewish writers, as Jarchi, Kimchi, and Abendana relate, make Joel contemporary with Elisha, and say he prophesied in the, lays of Jehoram the son of Ahab, when the seven years' famine called for came upon the land, 2Ki 8:1. Both in Seder Olam Rabba and Zuta {h} he is placed in the reign of Manasseh; and so in Hilchot Gedolot, as Jarchi observes. And it seems indeed as if he prophesied after the ten tribes were carried captive, which was in the sixth year of Hezekiah's reign, since no mention is made of Israel but with respect to future times, only of Judah and Jerusalem, But, be it when it will that he prophesied, there is no doubt to be made of the authenticity of this book, which is confirmed by the quotations of two apostles out of two: Peter and Paul, Ac 2:16, Ro 10:13.

{a} Onomast. Sacr. p. 856. {b} De Vita & Mart. Sanct. c. 4. {c} De Vita Proph. c. 14. {d} Tzemach David, par. 1. fol. 14. 2. {e} Chronological Tables, cent. 7. and 8. {f} Scripture Chronology, B. 6. c. 2. p. 646. {g} Fol. 12. 1, 2. {h} P. 55, 105. Ed. Meyer.

\\INTRODUCTION TO JOEL 1\\

This chapter describes a dreadful calamity upon the people of the Jews, by locusts and, caterpillars, and drought. After the title of the book, Joe 1:1; old men are called upon to observe this sore judgment to their children, that it might be transmitted to the latest posterity, as that the like to which had not been seen and heard of, Joe 1:2-4; and drunkards to awake and weep, because the vines were destroyed, and no wine could be made for them, Joe 1:5-7; and not only husbandmen and vinedressers, but the priests of the Lord, are called to mourn, because such destruction, was made in the fields and vineyards, that there were no meat nor drink offering brought into the house of the Lord, Joe 1:8-13; wherefore a general and solemn fast is required throughout the land, because of the distress of man and beast, Joe 1:14-18; and the chapter is concluded with the resolution of the prophet to cry unto the Lord, on account of this calamity, Joe 1:19,20.