Joel 1:14

14 Sanctify a fast, proclaim a service, gather the elders all the inhabitants of the land into the house of your God, and cry earnestly to the Lord,

Joel 1:14 Meaning and Commentary

Joel 1:14

Sanctify yea a fast
This is spoken to the priests, whose business it was to appoint a fast, as the Targum renders it; or to set apart a time for such religious service, as the word signifies; and to keep it holy themselves, and see that it was so kept by others: Kimchi interprets it, prepare the people for a fast; give them notice of it, that they may be prepared for it: call a solemn assembly;
of all the people of the land later mentioned: or, "proclaim a restraint" ^F23; a time of ceasing, as a fast day should be from all servile work, that attendance may be given to the duties of it, prayer and humiliation: gather the elders:
meaning not those in age, but in office: [and] all the inhabitants of the land;
not the magistrates only, though first and principally, as examples, who had been deeply concerned in guilt; but the common people also, even all of them: [into] the house of the Lord your God;
the temple, the court of the Israelites, where they were to go and supplicate the Lord, when such a calamity as this of locusts and caterpillars were upon them; and where they might hope the Lord would hear them, and remove his judgments from them, ( 1 Kings 8:37 ) ; and cry unto the Lord;
in prayer, with vehemence and earnestness of soul.

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FOOTNOTES:

F23 (hrue warq) "vocate retentionem", Montanus; "proclamate diem interdicti", Junius & Tremellius, Heb. "interdictum", Piscator; "edicite coetum cum cessatione", Cocceius.

Joel 1:14 In-Context

12 The vine is dried up, and the fig-trees are become few; the pomegranate, and palm-tree, and apple, and all trees of the field are dried up: for the sons of men have have abolished joy.

13 Gird yourselves , and lament, ye priests: mourn, ye that serve at the altar: go in, sleep in sackcloths, ye that minister to God: for the meat-offering and drink-offering are withheld from the house of your God.

14 Sanctify a fast, proclaim a service, gather the elders all the inhabitants of the land into the house of your God, and cry earnestly to the Lord,

15 Alas, Alas, Alas for the day! for the day of the Lord is nigh, and it will come as trouble upon trouble.

16 meat has been destroyed before your eyes, joy and gladness from out of the house of your God.