Joel 1:2

2 Listen to this, you leaders! Open your ears, all inhabitants of this land! Nothing like this has ever happened in your lifetime or in your ancestors' lifetime.

Joel 1:2 Meaning and Commentary

Joel 1:2

Hear this, ye old men
What the prophet was about to relate, concerning the consumption of the fruits of the earth, by various sorts of creatures, and by a drought; and these are called upon to declare if ever the like had been known or heard of by them; who by reason of age had the greatest opportunities of knowledge of this sort, and could remember what they had heard or seen, and would faithfully relate it: this maybe understood of elders in office, as well as in age; and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land;
or "earth", not of the whole earth; but of the land of Judea; who were more particularly concerned in this affair, and therefore are required to listen attentively to it: hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?
that is, not the selfsame thing, but anything equal to it; a judgment of the same kind and nature, and of the same degree. By this question it seems the like had never been in the memory of any man living; nor in former times, in the days of their ancestors, as could be averted upon report; or attested on the credit of annals, chronicles, or other methods of conveying the history of ages past. As for the plague of locusts in Egypt, though they were such as; never find been, nor would be there any more; yet such or greater, and more in number than those, might be in Judea; besides, they continued but a few, lays at most, these four years successively, as Kimchi observes; and who thinks that in Egypt there was but one sort of locusts, here four; but the passage he quotes in ( Psalms 78:46 ) ; contradicts him; to which may be added ( Psalms 105:34 ) .

Joel 1:2 In-Context

1 This is what the LORD said to Joel, son of Pethuel.

2 Listen to this, you leaders! Open your ears, all inhabitants of this land! Nothing like this has ever happened in your lifetime or in your ancestors' lifetime.

3 Tell your children about it. Have your children tell their children. Have your grandchildren tell their children.

4 What young locusts leave, mature locusts will eat. What mature locusts leave, adult locusts will eat. What adult locusts leave, grasshoppers will eat.

5 Wake up and cry, you drunks! Cry loudly, you wine drinkers! New wine has been taken away from you.