Joel 1

1 The word of Yahweh that came to Joel son of Pethuel.

A Lament Over the Land

2 Hear this, O elders, and give ear, all the inhabitants of the land. Has this happened in your days? Or the days of your ancestors?

3 Tell it to your children, and your children to their children, and their children to the following 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 Wake up, drunkards, and weep! Wail, all drinkers of wine, over the new wine, for it is cut off from your mouth.

6 Because a nation has {invaded}^[a] my land, strong {and beyond counting}.^[b] Its teeth [are] the teeth of a lion, and its fangs [are those] of a lioness.

7 It has made my vine a desolation, and my fig tree a completely splintered stump. It has stripped them bare and thrown [them] down; their branches have turned white.

8 Lament like a virgin girded in sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

9 The offering and libation are withheld from the house^[c] of Yahweh. The priests mourn, the ministers of Yahweh.

10 The field is destroyed; the earth mourns because [the] grain is destroyed, [the] new wine dries up, [the] olive oil languishes.

11 Be ashamed, farmers; Wail, vinedressers, over [the] wheat and over [the] barley, because [the] harvest of the field is ruined.

12 The vine withers and the fig tree droops. The pomegranate tree, and also the palm tree, the apple tree --all the trees of the field--are dried up. Indeed, joy is dried up among the sons of men.

13 Gird yourselves and lament, O priests! Wail, [O] ministers of [the] altar! Come spend the night in sackcloth, [O] ministers of my God, because offering and libation are withheld from the house of your God.

14 Solemnize a fast! Call an assembly! Gather [the] elders, all [of] the inhabitants of the land [in] the house of Yahweh your God, and cry out to Yahweh.

15 Ah! For the day! For the day of Yahweh is near. It will come like destruction from Shaddai.^[d]

16 [Is] not food cut [off] before our eyes, from the house of our God, joy and gladness?

17 The seeds shrivel under their clods; the storehouses are desolate. The grain storage places are destroyed because grain has dried out.

18 How [the] beasts^[e] groan; the herds of cattle wander around because there is no pasture for them; [the] flocks of sheep are in distress.

19 To you, [O] Yahweh, I cry out, because fire has devoured the pastures of the desert, and flames^[f] burned all the trees of the field.

20 Also, the beasts of [the] field long for you, because the courses of water are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the desert.

Joel 1 Commentary

Chapter 1

From the desolations about to come upon the land of Judah, by the ravages of locusts and other insects, the prophet Joel exhorts the Jews to repentance, fasting, and prayer. He notices the blessings of the gospel, with the final glorious state of the church.

A plague of locusts. (1-7) All sorts of people are called to lament it. (8-13) They are to look to God. (14-20)

Verses 1-7 The most aged could not remember such calamities as were about to take place. Armies of insects were coming upon the land to eat the fruits of it. It is expressed so as to apply also to the destruction of the country by a foreign enemy, and seems to refer to the devastations of the Chaldeans. God is Lord of hosts, has every creature at his command, and, when he pleases, can humble and mortify a proud, rebellious people, by the weakest and most contemptible creatures. It is just with God to take away the comforts which are abused to luxury and excess; and the more men place their happiness in the gratifications of sense, the more severe temporal afflictions are upon them. The more earthly delights we make needful to satisfy us, the more we expose ourselves to trouble.

Verses 8-13 All who labour only for the meat that perishes, will, sooner or later, be ashamed of their labour. Those that place their happiness in the delights of sense, when deprived of them, or disturbed in the enjoyment, lose their joy; whereas spiritual joy then flourishes more than ever. See what perishing, uncertain things our creature-comforts are. See how we need to live in continual dependence upon God and his providence. See what ruinous work sin makes. As far as poverty occasions the decay of piety, and starves the cause of religion among a people, it is a very sore judgment. But how blessed are the awakening judgments of God, in rousing his people and calling home the heart to Christ, and his salvation!

Verses 14-20 The sorrow of the people is turned into repentance and humiliation before God. With all the marks of sorrow and shame, sin must be confessed and bewailed. A day is to be appointed for this purpose; a day in which people must be kept from their common employments, that they may more closely attend God's services; and there is to be abstaining from meat and drink. Every one had added to the national guilt, all shared in the national calamity, therefore every one must join in repentance. When joy and gladness are cut off from God's house, when serious godliness decays, and love waxes cold, then it is time to cry unto the Lord. The prophet describes how grievous the calamity. See even the inferior creatures suffering for our transgression. And what better are they than beasts, who never cry to God but for corn and wine, and complain of the want of the delights of sense? Yet their crying to God in those cases, shames the stupidity of those who cry not to God in any case. Whatever may become of the nations and churches that persist in ungodliness, believers will find the comfort of acceptance with God, when the wicked shall be burned up with his indignation.

Footnotes

• [a]. Literally "come up against"
• [b]. Literally "without number"
• [c]. Or "temple"
• [d]. Often translated "the Almighty"
• [e]. Hebrew "beast"
• [f]. Hebrew "flame"

Chapter Summary

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.