Joel 1

The Devastation of Locusts

1 The ¹word of the LORD that came to ²Joel, the son of Pethuel:

2 ³Hear this, O ⁴elders, And listen, all inhabitants of the land. ⁵Has anything like this happened in your days Or in your fathers' days?

3 ⁶Tell your sons about it, And let your sons tell their sons, And their sons the next generation.

4 What the ⁷gnawing locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; And what the ⁸swarming locust has left, the creeping locust has eaten; And what the creeping locust has left, the ⁹stripping locust has eaten.

5 Awake, ¹⁰drunkards, and weep; And wail, all you wine drinkers, On account of the sweet wine That is ¹¹cut off from your mouth.

6 For a ¹²nation has ^[a]invaded my land, Mighty and without number; ¹³Its teeth are the teeth of a lion, And it has the fangs of a lioness.

7 It has ¹⁴made my vine a waste And my fig tree ^[b]splinters. It has stripped them bare and cast them away; Their branches have become white.

8 ¹⁵Wail like a virgin ¹⁶girded with sackcloth For the bridegroom of her youth.

9 The ¹⁷grain offering and the drink offering are cut off From the house of the LORD. The ¹⁸priests mourn, The ministers of the LORD.

10 The field is ¹⁹ruined, ²⁰The land mourns; For the grain is ruined, The new wine dries up, Fresh oil ^[c]fails.

11 ^[d]21Be ashamed, O farmers, Wail, O vinedressers, For the wheat and the barley; Because the ²²harvest of the field is destroyed.

12 The ²³vine dries up And the fig tree ^[e]fails; The ²⁴pomegranate, the ²⁵palm also, and the ^[f]26apple tree, All the trees of the field dry up. Indeed, ²⁷rejoicing dries up From the sons of men.

13 ²⁸Gird yourselves with sackcloth And lament, O priests; ²⁹Wail, O ministers of the altar! Come, ³⁰spend the night in sackcloth O ministers of my God, For the grain offering and the drink offering Are withheld from the house of your God.

Starvation and Drought

14 ³¹Consecrate a fast, Proclaim a ³²solemn assembly; Gather the elders And all the inhabitants of the land To the house of the LORD your God, And ³³cry out to the LORD.

15 ³⁴Alas for the day! For the ³⁵day of the LORD is near, And it will come as ³⁶destruction from the ^[g]Almighty.

16 Has not ³⁷food been cut off before our eyes, Gladness and ³⁸joy from the house of our God?

17 The ^[h]39seeds shrivel under their ^[i]clods; The storehouses are desolate, The barns are torn down, For the grain is dried up.

18 How ⁴⁰the beasts groan! The herds of cattle wander aimlessly Because there is no pasture for them; Even the flocks of sheep ^[j]suffer.

19 ⁴¹To You, O LORD, I cry; For ⁴²fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness And the flame has burned up all the trees of the field.

20 Even the beasts of the field ^[k]43pant for You; For the ⁴⁴water brooks are dried up And fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

Joel 1 Commentary

Chapter 1

From the desolations about to come upon the land of Judah, by the ravages of locusts and other insects, the prophet Joel exhorts the Jews to repentance, fasting, and prayer. He notices the blessings of the gospel, with the final glorious state of the church.

A plague of locusts. (1-7) All sorts of people are called to lament it. (8-13) They are to look to God. (14-20)

Verses 1-7 The most aged could not remember such calamities as were about to take place. Armies of insects were coming upon the land to eat the fruits of it. It is expressed so as to apply also to the destruction of the country by a foreign enemy, and seems to refer to the devastations of the Chaldeans. God is Lord of hosts, has every creature at his command, and, when he pleases, can humble and mortify a proud, rebellious people, by the weakest and most contemptible creatures. It is just with God to take away the comforts which are abused to luxury and excess; and the more men place their happiness in the gratifications of sense, the more severe temporal afflictions are upon them. The more earthly delights we make needful to satisfy us, the more we expose ourselves to trouble.

Verses 8-13 All who labour only for the meat that perishes, will, sooner or later, be ashamed of their labour. Those that place their happiness in the delights of sense, when deprived of them, or disturbed in the enjoyment, lose their joy; whereas spiritual joy then flourishes more than ever. See what perishing, uncertain things our creature-comforts are. See how we need to live in continual dependence upon God and his providence. See what ruinous work sin makes. As far as poverty occasions the decay of piety, and starves the cause of religion among a people, it is a very sore judgment. But how blessed are the awakening judgments of God, in rousing his people and calling home the heart to Christ, and his salvation!

Verses 14-20 The sorrow of the people is turned into repentance and humiliation before God. With all the marks of sorrow and shame, sin must be confessed and bewailed. A day is to be appointed for this purpose; a day in which people must be kept from their common employments, that they may more closely attend God's services; and there is to be abstaining from meat and drink. Every one had added to the national guilt, all shared in the national calamity, therefore every one must join in repentance. When joy and gladness are cut off from God's house, when serious godliness decays, and love waxes cold, then it is time to cry unto the Lord. The prophet describes how grievous the calamity. See even the inferior creatures suffering for our transgression. And what better are they than beasts, who never cry to God but for corn and wine, and complain of the want of the delights of sense? Yet their crying to God in those cases, shames the stupidity of those who cry not to God in any case. Whatever may become of the nations and churches that persist in ungodliness, believers will find the comfort of acceptance with God, when the wicked shall be burned up with his indignation.

Cross References

• 1. Jeremiah 1:2; Ezekiel 1:3; Hosea 1:1
• 2. Acts 2:16
• 3. Hosea 4:1; Hosea 5:1
• 4. Job 8:8; Joel 1:14
• 5. Jeremiah 30:7; Joel 2:2
• 6. Exodus 10:2; Psalms 78:4
• 7. Deuteronomy 28:38; Joel 2:25; Amos 4:9
• 8. Nahum 3:15, 16
• 9. Isaiah 33:4
• 10. Joel 3:3
• 11. Isaiah 32:10
• 12. Joel 2:2, 11, 25
• 13. Revelation 9:8
• 14. Isaiah 5:6; Amos 4:9
• 15. Isaiah 22:12
• 16. Joel 1:13; Amos 8:10
• 17. Hosea 9:4; Joel 1:13; Joel 2:14
• 18. Joel 2:17
• 19. Isaiah 24:4, 7
• 20. Jeremiah 12:11
• 21. Jeremiah 14:4; Amos 5:16
• 22. Isaiah 17:11; Jeremiah 9:12
• 23. Joel 1:10; Habakkuk 3:17
• 24. Haggai 2:19
• 25. Song of Songs 7:8
• 26. Song of Songs 2:3
• 27. Isaiah 16:10; Isaiah 24:11; Jeremiah 48:33
• 28. Jeremiah 4:8; Ezekiel 7:18
• 29. Jeremiah 9:10
• 30. 1 Kings 21:27
• 31. Joel 2:15, 16
• 32. Leviticus 23:36
• 33. Jonah 3:8
• 34. Isaiah 13:9; Jeremiah 30:7; Amos 5:16
• 35. Joel 2:1, 11, 31
• 36. Isaiah 13:6; Ezekiel 7:2-12
• 37. Isaiah 3:7; Amos 4:6
• 38. Deuteronomy 12:7; Psalms 43:4
• 39. Isaiah 17:10, 11
• 40. 1 Kings 8:5; Jeremiah 12:4; Jeremiah 14:5, 6; Hosea 4:3
• 41. Psalms 50:15; Micah 7:7
• 42. Jeremiah 9:10; Amos 7:4
• 43. Psalms 104:21; Psalms 147:9; Joel 1:18
• 44. 1 Kings 17:7; 1 Kings 18:5

Footnotes

• [a]. Lit "come up against"
• [b]. Or "a stump"
• [c]. Lit "wastes away"
• [d]. Or "The farmers are ashamed, The vinedressers wail"
• [e]. Lit "wastes away"
• [f]. Or "apricot"
• [g]. Heb "Shaddai"
• [h]. Or "dried figs"
• [i]. Or "shovels"
• [j]. Lit "bear punishment"
• [k]. Lit "long for"

Chapter Summary

INTRODUCTION TO JOEL

In some Hebrew Bibles this prophecy is called "Sepher Joel", the Book of Joel; in the Vulgate Latin version, the Prophecy of Joel; and in the Syriac version, the Prophecy of the Prophet Joel; and the Arabic version, the Prophet Joel; and so the Apostle Peter quotes him, Ac 2:16. His name, according to Hillerus {a}, signifies "the Lord is God"; but others derive it from lay, which in "Hiphil" is lyawh, and signifies "he willed, acquiesced, or is well pleased, so Abarbinei; and hence Schmidt thinks it answers to Desiderius or Erasmus. According to Isidorus {b}, he was born at Bethoron, in the tribe of Reuben, and died and was buried there; and so says Pseudo-Epiphanius {c}. In what age he lived is not easy to say. Aben Ezra expressly affirms there is no way to know it; and so R. David Ganz {d} says, his time we know not; and likewise Abarbinel. Some think he prophesied about the same time Hoses did, after whom he is next placed; and so Mr. Whiston {e} and, Mr. Bedford {f} make him to prophesy much about the same time with Isaiah and Hoses, about eight hundred years before Christ; but, in the Septuagint version, this book is in the fourth order, and not Hoses, but Amos and Micah, are placed before him; and so the author of Juchasin {g} puts the prophets in this order, first Hoses, then Amos, next Isaiah, then Micah, and after him Joel. Some of the Jewish writers, as Jarchi, Kimchi, and Abendana relate, make Joel contemporary with Elisha, and say he prophesied in the, lays of Jehoram the son of Ahab, when the seven years' famine called for came upon the land, 2Ki 8:1. Both in Seder Olam Rabba and Zuta {h} he is placed in the reign of Manasseh; and so in Hilchot Gedolot, as Jarchi observes. And it seems indeed as if he prophesied after the ten tribes were carried captive, which was in the sixth year of Hezekiah's reign, since no mention is made of Israel but with respect to future times, only of Judah and Jerusalem, But, be it when it will that he prophesied, there is no doubt to be made of the authenticity of this book, which is confirmed by the quotations of two apostles out of two: Peter and Paul, Ac 2:16, Ro 10:13.

{a} Onomast. Sacr. p. 856. {b} De Vita & Mart. Sanct. c. 4. {c} De Vita Proph. c. 14. {d} Tzemach David, par. 1. fol. 14. 2. {e} Chronological Tables, cent. 7. and 8. {f} Scripture Chronology, B. 6. c. 2. p. 646. {g} Fol. 12. 1, 2. {h} P. 55, 105. Ed. Meyer.

\\INTRODUCTION TO JOEL 1\\

This chapter describes a dreadful calamity upon the people of the Jews, by locusts and, caterpillars, and drought. After the title of the book, Joe 1:1; old men are called upon to observe this sore judgment to their children, that it might be transmitted to the latest posterity, as that the like to which had not been seen and heard of, Joe 1:2-4; and drunkards to awake and weep, because the vines were destroyed, and no wine could be made for them, Joe 1:5-7; and not only husbandmen and vinedressers, but the priests of the Lord, are called to mourn, because such destruction, was made in the fields and vineyards, that there were no meat nor drink offering brought into the house of the Lord, Joe 1:8-13; wherefore a general and solemn fast is required throughout the land, because of the distress of man and beast, Joe 1:14-18; and the chapter is concluded with the resolution of the prophet to cry unto the Lord, on account of this calamity, Joe 1:19,20.