Yoel 2:12-17

12 Therefore also now, saith Hashem, turn ye back to Me with all your lev, and with tzom, and with weeping, and with mourning;

13 And rend your lev, and not your garments, and turn unto Hashem Eloheichem; for He is channun (gracious) and rachum (merciful), slow to anger, and of rav chesed, and He relents from sending calamity.

14 Who knoweth but that He will return and have pity, and leave behind Him a brocha; even a minchah and a nesekh unto Hashem Eloheichem?

15 Blow the shofar in Tziyon, sanctify a tzom, call an atzarah (solemn assembly);

16 Gather the people, set apart as kodesh the kahal (congregation), assemble the zekenim, gather the olalim, even those nursing at the breast; let the choson go forth of his cheder, and the kallah out of her chuppah (canopy).

17 Let the kohanim, the mesharetim of Hashem, weep between the Ulam and the Mizbe’ach, and let them say, Spare Thy people, Hashem, and make not Thine nachalah (inheritance) an object of scorn, a byword among the Goyim. Why should they say among the peoples, Where is their G-d?

Yoel 2:12-17 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOEL 2

In this chapter a further account is given of the judgment of the locusts and caterpillars, or of those who are designed by them, Joe 2:1-11; the people of the Jews are called to repentance, humiliation, and fasting, urged from the grace and goodness of God, his jealousy and pity for his people, and the answer of prayer that might he expected from him upon this, even to the removal of the calamity, Joe 2:12-20; a prophecy of good things, both temporal and spiritual, in the times of the Messiah, is delivered out as matter and occasion of great joy, Joe 2:21-27; and another concerning the effusion of the Spirit, which was fulfilled an the day of Pentecost, Joe 2:28-29; and the chapter is concluded with the judgments and desolations that should come upon the land of Judea after this, for their rejection of Christ, though the remnant according to the election of grace should be delivered and saved from the general destruction, Joe 2:30-32.