Joel 1:20

20 Even the wild animals cry to you because the watercourses are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

Joel 1:20 Meaning and Commentary

Joel 1:20

The beasts of the field cry also unto thee
As well as the prophet, in their way; which may be mentioned, both as a rebuke to such who had no sense of the judgments upon them, and called not on the Lord; and to express the greatness of the calamity, of which the brute creatures were sensible, and made piteous moans, as for food, so for drink; panting thorough excessive heat and vehement thirst, as the hart, after the water brooks, of which this word is only used, ( Psalms 42:1 ) ; but in vain: for the rivers of waters are dried up;
not only springs, and rivulets and brooks of water, but rivers, places where were large deep waters, as Aben Ezra explains it; either by the Assyrian army, the like Sennacherib boasts ( Isaiah 37:25 ) ; and is said to be done by the army of Xerxes, wherever it came; or rather by the excessive heat and scorching beams of the sun, by which such effects are produced: and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness;
(See Gill on Joel 1:19); and whereas the word rendered pastures signifies both "them" and "habitations" also; and, being repeated, it may be taken in one of the senses in ( Joel 1:19 ) ; and in the other here: and so Kimchi who interprets it before of "tents", here explains it of grassy places in the wilderness, dried up, as if the sun had consumed them.

Joel 1:20 In-Context

18 How the animals groan! The herds of cattle wander about because there is no pasture for them; even the flocks of sheep are dazed.

19 To you, O Lord, I cry. For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flames have burned all the trees of the field.

20 Even the wild animals cry to you because the watercourses are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.