Joel 1:10

10 The country is made bare of people. The earth mourned; for wheat is destroyed. Wine is shamed, and oil was sick, either failed. (The land is made bare of people. The earth mourned, for the corn, or the grain, is destroyed. The wine is dried up, and the oil languished, or failed.)

Joel 1:10 Meaning and Commentary

Joel 1:10

The field is wasted
By the locust, that eat up all green things, the grass and herbs, the fruit and leaves of trees; and also by the Chaldeans trampling on it with their horses, and the increase of which became fodder for them: the land mourneth;
being destitute, nothing growing upon it, and so looked dismally, and of a horrid aspect; or the inhabitants of it, for want of provision: for the corn is wasted;
by the locusts, and so by the Assyrian or Chaldean army, before it came to perfection: the new wine is dried up:
in the grape, through the drought after mentioned: or, "is ashamed" F18; not answering the expectations of men, who saw it in the cluster, promising much, but failed: the oil languisheth;
or "sickens" F19; the olive trees withered; the olives fell off, as the Targum, and so the oil failed: the corn, wine, and oil, are particularly mentioned, not only as being the chief support of human life, as Kimchi observes, and so the loss of them must be matter of lamentation to the people in general; but because of these the meat and drink offerings were, and therefore the priests in particular had reason to mourn.


FOOTNOTES:

F18 (vybwh) "erubuit", Tigurine version, Mercer, Liveleus; "puduit", Drusius, Tarnovius; "pudefit", Cocceius.
F19 (llma) "infirmatum est", Montanus. So some in Vatablus.

Joel 1:10 In-Context

8 Wail thou, as a virgin girded with a sackcloth on the husband of her time of marriage. (Wail thou, like a virgin clothed with a sackcloth for her husband, at the time of her marriage.)
9 Sacrifice and moist sacrifice perished from the house of the Lord; and priests, the ministers of the Lord, mourned. (There is no grain or wine to offer in the House of the Lord; and the priests, the ministers of the Lord, mourned.)
10 The country is made bare of people. The earth mourned; for wheat is destroyed. Wine is shamed, and oil was sick, either failed. (The land is made bare of people. The earth mourned, for the corn, or the grain, is destroyed. The wine is dried up, and the oil languished, or failed.)
11 The earth-tillers be shamed, the vine-tillers yelled on wheat and barley; for the ripe corn of the field is perished. (The earth-tillers despaired, the vine-tillers mourned for the wheat and the barley; for the harvest of the field hath perished.)
12 The vinery is shamed; and the fig tree was sick. The pomegranate tree, and the palm tree, and the fir tree, and all the trees of the field dried up; for joy is shamed from the sons of men. (The vines be dried up, and the fig trees languished, or failed. The pomegranate tree, the palm tree, the fir tree, and all the trees of the field have dried up; and joy is gone away from among the people.)
Copyright © 2001 by Terence P. Noble. For personal use only.