Joel 1:5

5 Awake, ¹drunkards, and weep; And wail, all you wine drinkers, On account of the sweet wine That is ²cut off from your mouth.

Joel 1:5 Meaning and Commentary

Joel 1:5

Awake, ye drunkards, and weep: and howl, all ye drinkers of
wine
Who are used to neither, either to awake or to howl, being very prone to drowsiness upon their drinking bouts, and to mirth and jollity in them; but now should be awake, and sober enough, not as being a virtue in them, but through want of wine; and for the same reason should howl, as follows: because of the new wine, for it is cut off from your mouth;
the locusts having spoiled the vines and eaten the grapes, no new wine could be made, and so none could be brought in cups to their mouths; nor they drink it in bowls, as they had used to do; and which, being sweet and grateful to their taste, they were wont to drink in great abundance, till they were inebriated with it; but now there was a scarcity, their lips were dry, but not their eyes. The word, Kimchi says, signifies all liquor which is squeezed by bruising or treading.

Joel 1:5 In-Context

3 Tell your sons about it, And let your sons tell their sons, And their sons the next generation.

4 What the gnawing locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; And what the swarming locust has left, the creeping locust has eaten; And what the creeping locust has left, the stripping locust has eaten.

5 Awake, drunkards, and weep; And wail, all you wine drinkers, On account of the sweet wine That is cut off from your mouth.

6 For a nation has invaded my land, Mighty and without number; Its teeth are the teeth of a lion, And it has the fangs of a lioness.

7 It has made my vine a waste And my fig tree splinters. It has stripped them bare and cast them away; Their branches have become white.

Cross References

• 1. Joel 3:3
• 2. Isaiah 32:10