Joel 2:12-17

A Call to Repentance

12 "And even now," {declares} Yahweh, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, and weeping, and wailing."

13 Rend your hearts and not your garments, and return to Yahweh your God, because he [is] gracious and compassionate, {slow to anger} and great in loyal love, and relenting from harm.

14 Who knows [whether] he will turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, an offering and a libation, for Yahweh your God?

15 Blow [the] trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call an assembly;

16 gather [the] people, consecrate [the] assembly; assemble [the] elders, gather [the] children, even those [who are] breast-feeding; let [the] bridegroom come out from his private room, and [the] bride from her canopy.

17 Between the colonnade and the altar, let the priests, the ministers of Yahweh, weep. And let them say, "Take pity, Yahweh, on your people. Do not make your inheritance a reproach, a byword among [the] nations. Why should they say among the nations, 'Where [is] their God?'"

Joel 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.

Footnotes

• [a]. Literally "a declaration of"
• [b]. Hebrew "heart"
• [c]. Or "patient"; literally "long of anger"
• [d]. Hebrew "Shofar"