Joel 1

1 The word of the LORD that came to Joel son of Pethuel.

An Invasion of Locusts

2 Hear this, you elders; listen, all who live in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your ancestors?

3 Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.

4 What the locust swarm has left the great locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left the young locusts have eaten; what the young locusts have left other locusts^[a] have eaten.

5 Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine; wail because of the new wine, for it has been snatched from your lips.

6 A nation has invaded my land, a mighty army without number; it has the teeth of a lion, the fangs of a lioness.

7 It has laid waste my vines and ruined my fig trees. It has stripped off their bark and thrown it away, leaving their branches white.

8 Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth grieving for the betrothed of her youth.

9 Grain offerings and drink offerings are cut off from the house of the LORD. The priests are in mourning, those who minister before the LORD.

10 The fields are ruined, the ground is dried up; the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the olive oil fails.

11 Despair, you farmers, wail, you vine growers; grieve for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field is destroyed.

12 The vine is dried up and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, the palm and the apple^[b] tree— all the trees of the field—are dried up. Surely the people’s joy is withered away.

A Call to Lamentation

13 Put on sackcloth, you priests, and mourn; wail, you who minister before the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you who minister before my God; for the grain offerings and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God.

14 Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD.

15 Alas for that day! For the day of the LORD is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty.^[c]

16 Has not the food been cut off before our very eyes— joy and gladness from the house of our God?

17 The seeds are shriveled beneath the clods.^[d]The storehouses are in ruins, the granaries have been broken down, for the grain has dried up.

18 How the cattle moan! The herds mill about because they have no pasture; even the flocks of sheep are suffering.

19 To you, LORD, I call, for fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness and flames have burned up all the trees of the field.

20 Even the wild animals pant for you; the streams of water have dried up and fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness.

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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.

Taken from Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (Concise)

Cross References 51

1. S Jeremiah 1:2
2. Acts 2:16
3. Hosea 5:1
4. Joel 2:16
5. S Hosea 4:1
6. Joel 2:2
7. S Exodus 10:2; Psalms 78:4
8. S Psalms 71:18
9. S Exodus 10:14
10. S Exodus 10:5
11. S Exodus 10:15; S Deuteronomy 28:39; Amos 7:1; Nahum 3:15
12. Joel 3:3
13. S Isaiah 24:7
14. Psalms 105:34; Joel 2:2,11,25
15. Revelation 9:8
16. Isaiah 5:6
17. Amos 4:9
18. ver 13; Isaiah 22:12; Amos 8:10
19. S Hosea 9:4; Joel 2:14,17
20. S Isaiah 22:12
21. S Isaiah 5:6; S Isaiah 24:4; S Jeremiah 3:3
22. S Hosea 9:2
23. S Numbers 18:12
24. S Job 6:20; Jeremiah 14:3-4; Amos 5:16
25. S Exodus 9:31
26. S Isaiah 17:11
27. S Isaiah 15:6
28. S Exodus 28:33
29. S Isaiah 16:8; Haggai 2:19
30. S Genesis 37:34; S Jeremiah 4:8
31. Joel 2:17
32. ver 9; S Hosea 9:4; Joel 2:14
33. S 2 Chronicles 20:3
34. S Hosea 4:1
35. John 3:8
36. 2 Chronicles 20:4
37. S Isaiah 2:12; Jeremiah 30:7; S Jeremiah 46:10; S Ezekiel 30:3; Malachi 4:5
38. Isaiah 13:6,9; Joel 2:1,11,31; Joel 3:14; Amos 5:18; Zephaniah 1:14; Zechariah 14:1
39. S Genesis 17:1
40. Isaiah 3:7
41. S Psalms 51:8
42. Deuteronomy 12:7
43. S Isaiah 17:10-11
44. S Genesis 47:4
45. S Jeremiah 9:10
46. Psalms 50:15
47. S Psalms 97:3; Amos 7:4
48. S Jeremiah 9:10
49. S Psalms 42:1; S Psalms 104:21
50. 1 Kings 17:7
51. Joel 2:22

Footnotes 4

[a]. The precise meaning of the four Hebrew words used here for locusts is uncertain.
[b]. Or possibly "apricot"
[c]. Hebrew "Shaddai"
[d]. The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.

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.