Joel

Joel 1

20 verses · Minor Prophets · Old Testament

1Yahweh’s word that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.

2Hear this, you elders, And listen, all you inhabitants of the land. Has this ever happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers? 3Tell your children about it, and have your children tell their children, and their children, another generation. 4What the swarming locust has left, the great locust has eaten. What the great locust has left, the grasshopper has eaten. What the grasshopper has left, the caterpillar has eaten. 5Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it is cut off from your mouth. 6For a nation has come up on my land, strong, and without number. His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a lioness. 7He has laid my vine waste, and stripped my fig tree. He has stripped its bark, and thrown it away. Its branches are made white. 8Mourn like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth! 9The meal offering and the drink offering are cut off from Yahweh’s house. The priests, Yahweh’s ministers, mourn. 10The field is laid waste. The land mourns, for the grain is destroyed, The new wine has dried up, and the oil languishes. 11Be confounded, you farmers! Wail, you vineyard keepers; for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished. 12The vine has dried up, and the fig tree withered; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all of the trees of the field are withered; for joy has withered away from the sons of men. 13Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests! Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your God’s house. 14Sanctify a fast. Call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders, and all the inhabitants of the land, to the house of Yahweh, your God, and cry to Yahweh. 15Alas for the day! For the day of Yahweh is at hand, and it will come as destruction from the Almighty. 16Isn’t the food cut off before our eyes; joy and gladness from the house of our God? 17The seeds rot under their clods. The granaries are laid desolate. The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered. 18How the animals groan! The herds of livestock are perplexed, because they have no pasture. Yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate. 19Yahweh, I cry to you, For the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame has burned all the trees of the field. 20Yes, the animals of the field pant to you, for the water brooks have dried up, And the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

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What others are saying

4 commentators · 48 notes on this chapter

Matthew HenryEnglish Puritan / Nonconformist · 1708–17143

Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.

Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.

v. 1–7

It is a foolish fancy which some of the Jews have, that this Joel the prophet was the same with that Joel who was the son of Samuel (Sa1 8:2); yet one of their rabbin very gravely undertakes to show why Samuel is here called Pethuel. This Joel was long after…

v. 8–13

The judgment is here described as very lamentable, and such as all sorts of people should share in; it shall not only rob the drunkards of their pleasure (if that were the worst of it, it might be the better borne), but it shall deprive others of their…

v. 14–20

We have observed abundance of tears shed for the destruction of the fruits of the earth by the locusts; now here we have those tears turned into the right channel, that of repentance and humiliation before God. The judgment was very heavy, and here they are…

John GillParticular Baptist / High Calvinist · 1746–176320

The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.

Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.

v. 1

The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethuel. Who this Pethuel was is not known; Jarchi takes him to be the same with Samuel the prophet, who had a son of this name, 1 Samuel 8:2; and gives this reason for his being called Pethuel, because in his…

v. 2

Hear this, ye old men,.... What the prophet was about to relate, concerning the consumption of the fruits of the earth, by various sorts of creatures, and by a drought; and these are called upon to declare if ever the like had been known or heard of by them…

v. 3

Tell ye your children of it,.... Give them a particular account of it; describe the creatures and their number as near as you can; say when they begun and how long they continued, and what devastations they made, and what was the cause and reason of such a…

Keil & DelitzschGerman Lutheran, conservative-critical · 1861–18756

The technical one, and Old Testament only. Expect Hebrew grammar, textual argument, and direct engagement with nineteenth-century critical scholarship — closer to a scholarly apparatus than a devotional read. Where a modern critic claims a text is late or composite, this is where the conservative counter-argument was made.

Why this voice is here: Old Testament only, and heavy going — but the place to look when someone asserts a passage cannot mean what it appears to.

v. 1–4

Joe 1:1 contains the heading to the book, and has already been noticed in the introduction. Joe 1:2. "Hear this, ye old men; and attend, all ye inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing indeed happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers? Joe 1:1. Ye…

v. 5–7

In order that Judah may discern in this unparalleled calamity a judgment of God, and the warning voice of God calling to repentance, the prophet first of all summons the wine-bibbers to sober themselves, and observe the visitation of God. Joe 1:5. "Awake, ye…

v. 8–12

The whole nation is to mourn over this devastation. Joe 1:8. "Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. Joe 1:9. The meat-offering and the drink-offering are destroyed from the house of Jehovah. The priests, the servant of…

Jamieson, Fausset & BrownScottish Presbyterian / Reformed · 187119

The concise option. Three authors split the canon, so the voice shifts between sections. Expect brief, sober, conservative notes that resolve difficulties rather than dwelling on them — useful for orientation, thinner than Gill or Clarke where a passage is genuinely contested.

Why this voice is here: The quickest way to see what the mainstream Reformed reading of a passage is. Start here, then go to Gill or Clarke when it matters.

v. 2

A spirited introduction calling attention. old men--the best judges in question concerning the past (Deu 32:7; Job 32:7). Hath this been, &c.--that is, Hath any so grievous a calamity as this ever been before? No such plague of locusts had been since the ones…

v. 3

Tell ye your children--in order that they may be admonished by the severity of the punishment to fear God (Psa 78:6-8; compare Exo 13:8; Jos 4:7).

v. 4

This verse states the subject on which he afterwards expands. Four species or stages of locusts, rather than four different insects, are meant (compare Lev 11:22). Literally, (1) the gnawing locust; (2) the swarming locust; (3) the licking locust; (4) the…

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