Joel 1 - Pulpit Commentary vs Calvin John

Joel 1

Joel 1:1

Verse 1. - The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethuel. The name Joel signifies "Jehovah is God," or "whose God is Jehovah." We read in Scripture of several of the same name, but the prophet is distinguished as "the son of Pethuel," a name signifying "the sincerity of God," or "godly simplicity." We are not certain of the exact period at which Joel prophesied, but he is generally believed to have been the earliest prophetic writer of the southern kingdom, and one of the earliest of the twelve minor prophets, while Jonah is generally thought to have been the earliest prophetic writer whose book has found a place in the sacred canon. It is at least certain that Joel preceded Amos, who begins his prophecy with a passage from Joel (comp. Joel 3:16 with Amos 1:2). and borrows from Joel another towards the close (comp. Joel 3:18 with Amos 9:13). Besides, Joel speaks, in the second chapter, of the plague of locusts as yet future; while Amos, in the fourth chapter of his prophecy, refers to it as past. He likewise prophesied before Isaiah, who also borrows, in Isaiah 13:6, a sentence which occurs in Joel 1:15.

Joel 1:2

Verses 2-7, - These verses describe the invasion of the locusts, with an exhortation to reflect on and lament for the calamity. Verse 2. - Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?

Joel 1:3

Verse 3. - Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. The prophet thus draws attention to the event which be is about to relate, or rather predict, a8 a calamity unknown in the memory of living men, unheard of in the days of their fathers, unparalleled in the past experience of their nation, and one affecting all the inhabitants of the land. He challenges the old men whose memory went furthest back, and whose experience had been longest and largest, to confirm his statements; he calls on the inhabitants of the land to consider an event in which they were all concerned, and to recognize the hand of God in a disaster in which all would be involved. But, though the visitation with which they are threatened had had no precedent or parallel among the generation then present, or that which preceded it, or for many long years before, it was not to remain without memorial or record in the time to come. To this end the prophet commands his countrymen of Judah to relate it to their children, to their grandchildren, and even to their great-grand-children. The expression reminds us of Virgil's -

"Yea, sons of sons, and those who shall from them be born." It reads like a reminiscence of what is recorded of one of the plagues - the plague of locusts - in Egypt, of which we read in Exodus 10:6, "Which neither thy fathers, nor thy fathers' fathers have seen, since the day they were upon the earth unto this day;" while the direction to have it transmitted by tradition seems an echo of what we read in the second verse of the same chapter: "That thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son's son, what things I have wrought in Egypt." Similarly, it is written in Psalm 78:5, 6, "He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children." The solemn manner in which the prophet draws attention to this by "Hear," "Give ear," and the earnestness with which he insists on the record of it being handed on from generation to generation, are intended to impress on the people the work of God in this visitation, its severity, the sin that caused it, and the call to repentance conveyed by it.

Joel 1:4

Verse 4. - That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the canker-worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten. Some interpreters consider, and rightly, we think, that the prophet enumerates in this verse four different species of locusts. The common or general name is arbeh, from rabhah, to be many; the gazam, or palmer-worm, is the gnawer, or biter, from a root (guzam) which signifies "to gnaw, bite, or cut off;" the yeleq, or canker-worm, is the licker, from yalaqlaqaq, to lick, or lick off; the chasil, or caterpillar, is the devourer, from chasal, to cut off. Thus we have the locust, or multitudinous one, the gnawer, the licker, and the devourer, either as

(1) four different species of locust; or

(2) the gnawer, licker, and devourer are poetical epithets of the locust, or multitudinous one.

These names do not denote the locust

(1) at different stages, according to Credner. Nor

(2) can we with propriety understand them allegorically, with Jerome, Cyril, and Theodoret, of the enemies of the Jews, whether

(a) the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Chaldeans,

(b) Medes and Persians,

(c) Macedonians and successors of Alexander, especially Antiochus, and

(d) the Romans;

or the hostile kings,

(a) Shalmaneser,

(b) Nebuchadnezzar,

(c) Antiochus, and

(d) the Romans;

or those other kings,

(a) Tiglath-Pileser,

(b) Shalma-neser,

(c) Sennacherib, and

(d) Nebuchadnezzar.

The most celebrated Hebrew commentators understand the passage of locusts in the proper and literal sense. Thus Rashi says, "The palmer-worm locust, cankerworm, and caterpillar are species of locusts; and the prophet prophesies about them that they will come; and they came in those days, and they devoured all the fruit of the trees and every herb of the field." Abon Ezra says, "This the prophet prophesied in reference to the locust which should come to destroy the land. In the days of Moses there was one kind of locust alone, but now, with the arbeh, there are the gazam and yeleq and chasil, and these three kinds are joined." He also quotes Japhet as saying "that gazam is equivalent to gozez, cutting, and the mere is like mere in chinmam reykam; and yeleq, that which licks (yiloq) with its tongue... and chasil of some signification (yachsele-nenu) as shall consume it." In like manner Kimohi gives the derivation of the words as follows: "Some say that gazam is so called because it cuts (gozez) the increase; and arbeh, because it is numerous in species; and yeleq, because it licks and depastures by licking the herb; and chasil, became it cuts the whole, from 'And the locust shall consume it' (Deuteronomy 28:38)." When, however, Kimchi distributes the comings of the locusts into four separate and successive years, we must reject his interpretation in that respect. He says, "What the gazam left in the first year, the locust ate in the second year; for the four kinds did not come in one year, but one after another in four years; and he says, ' I will restore to you the years the locust hath eaten.'"

Joel 1:5

Verse 5. - Three classes are called on to lament - the winebibbers, the husbandmen, and the priests. The verses before us (vers. 5-7) contain the prophet's appeal to the drunkards. Their sin had not alarmed them; the danger with which their soul was imperilled bad not aroused them; now, however, the heavy visitation that awaited them would affect them more vehemently, touching them more nearly. Deprived of the means of their favourite indulgence, they are urged to awake from their stupid slumber and perilous day-dream. They are summoned to weep, shedding silent but bitter tears, and howl, venting their so,row and disappointment in loud and long lamentation: Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine! He backs this exhortation by a most cogent and unanswerable reason - because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth. The word asis is explained by Kimchi thus: "Wine is called עסיס, and so every kind of drink that goes out (is pressed out) by bruising and treading is called עסיס, according to the meaning of the root עסס in Malachi 3:21.

Joel 1:6

Verse 6. - For a nation is come up upon my land, strong and without number. The loss of the wine and of the sweet juice of the grape would be a source of genuine sorrow to the drinkers of wine; that loss would be occasioned by the destruction of the vines. In this and the following verse the prophet explains the instrumentality by which that destruction would be brought about. The prophet, fully identifying himself with his countrymen, speaking in their name and as their representative, says "my land." Kimchi understands the suffix to "land," like "my vine" and "my fig tree" in the next verse, as referring either to the prophet himself or to the people of the land; while some refer it to Jehovah, the great Proprietor, who had given the land to his people for their inheritance while they observed his covenant and obeyed his commandments. The locusts ore called a nation, just as the "ants are a people not strong," and the "conies are" said to be "but a feeble folk." Kimchi lays that "every collection of living things is called a nation (qoy); accordingly the prophet applies 'nation' to the locust." Nor deem the weed "nation" thus applied support the allegorical sense any more than the Homeric -

"Even as go the swarms [literally nations]
of closely thronging bees." This army of locusts is characterized by the two qualities of strength and number. The preterite עָלָה, though past, really refers to the future, to express the certain occurrence of what is predicted; so with שָׂם in the following verse, of which Kimchi says, "The past is in place of the future;" and Aben Ezra more fully, "A thing that is decreed to take place is spoken of in the past." This army has peculiar weapons, yet nothing the less powerful. Whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek-teeth of a great lion; or, lioness. Different descriptive terms are applied to lions - the lion's whelp is גּוּר; the young lion, which, though young, is no longer a whelp, is כְּפִיר; also the lion, from its hoarseness at a certain age, is called שַׁחַלֹ; the lion, from its cry, is called by onomatopoeia, לָבִיּא; the lion, from its strength, is called לַיִשׁ; while the common name of a lion, derived probably from אָרָה, to pluck or tear, is אַרְיֵה. Having compared the invading locusts to an army powerful and countless, the prophet proceeds to speak of the weapons wielded by these warlike and hostile invaders. They are their teeth. While the common name for locust respects their multitude, the other names are of the nature of epithets, and all, as we have seen, derived from the vigour and voracity with which they use their teeth. Those teeth, so destructive, are compared to those of a lion and the molars or grinders of a great, stout, old lion or lioness, for the word has been translated in each of these ways.

Joel 1:7

Verse 7. - He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree (margin, laid my fig tree for a barking): he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white. We have here a detailed description of the destruction and devastation caused by this locust-army in its invasion of the land of Judah. The most valuable and most valued production of that land, the vine and fig tree, are ruined. The vine is laid waste, so that the vineyard becomes a wilderness:

(1) "he has barked the fig tree" (so Jerome, "Ficum meam decorticavit"); or rather,

(2) "he has broken the branches." The word קְצָפָח denotes a fragment or something broken, branches broken off, and so the LXX., "hath utterly broken (εἰς συγκλασμόν);" while

(3) Aben Ezra explains it, "Like foam on the face of the water, in which there is nothing;" i.e. a thing of nought. The locusts, by gnawing, had stripped off the bark, or by their excessive weight had broken off the branches. The next clause, which speaks of making it clean bare, is explained by the Chaldee of peeling off the bark, but that, according to the first rendering, has been already expressed. It is rather more than this - it is stripping off the leaves and fruits or flowers; the barked or broken branches and twigs of vine and fig tree are then cast away or down to the ground. And all that is left are the whitened branches from which the bark has been stripped off. The casting away or down to the earth may refer to the bark; thus Kimchi: "He removes the bark; and so Jonathan explains, 'He quite removes the bark and casts it away;' and the explanation is that he casts the bark to the earth when he eats the juicy parts between the bark and the wood; or the explanation may be that he eats the rind and casts the vine blossom to the earth, and, lo, it is bared." Some, again, understand it of what is uneatable, and others of the vine itself.

Joel 1:8

Verses 8-13. - The consequence of such ruin and havoc is great and general lamentation. The drunkards were first called on in the preceding verses to mourn, for the distress came first and nearest to them. But now the priests, the Lord's ministers, mourn; things inanimate, by a touching personification, join in the lamentation - the land mourneth; the husbandmen that till the ground mourn. Verse 8. - Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

1. The verb here, which is an ἅπαξ λεγόμενον, is

(1) imperative feminine; the subject must, of course, correspond. That subject has been variously supplied:

(a) the ground, according to Aben Ezra;

(b) naphshi, my soul, i.e. the prophet's address to himself;

(c) the daughter of Zion, or virgin daughter of Zion; but

(d) the congregation or people of Judah, as suggested in the Chaldee, is the real subject.

(2) The LXX. has θωρήνησον πρός με, evidently combining two readings, or rather two punctuations, of the same word, viz. אֵלַיִ, to me, and ךאלִי, lament.

2. The mourning is of the deepest, bitterest kind, like that of a virgin for the husband of her youth. It is either the case of a maiden betrothed to a youthful bridegroom, whom she sincerely loves, but he dies before they are married, and thus, instead of the wedding dress, she puts on the garment of mourning, the sackcloth of rough hair; or she has been married, and her husband, still in youth, is snatched away from her by death, and she is clothed in widow's weeds - in her case real weeds of woe, and outward tokens of sincere, not simulated, sorrow. The expression reminds us of Isaiah's "wife of youth," and of the Homeric expression frequently translated "virgin or youthful spouse," though more correctly "wedded wife." Such is the lamentation to which the people of Judah are called.

Joel 1:9

Verse 9. - The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the Lord; the priests, the Lord's ministers, mourn. While all the inhabitants of the land are called to lament, and have abundant cause for lamentation, different classes of society are specified, and the grounds of their sorrow particularized.

1. The meat offering and drink offering accompanied the morning and evening sacrifice, and that sacrifice, with its accompaniments, being an expression of gratitude to God by a daily presentation to him of the firstfruits of his own mercies, was a visible memorial of Jehovah's covenant with his people; while the fact of its being cut off implied the cessation or suspension of that covenant and the people's exclusion from the covenanted mercies of God.

2. But the ministering priests in particular had cause of mourning, indeed a twofold cause:

(1) their occupation was gone when there were no materials at hand wherewith to minister; their office could no longer last, as they wanted the appointed means for the discharge of its prescribed functions;

(2) their livelihood depended largely on those offerings in which they were allowed to have a share, but, when these ceased through failure of the means of supply, the support of the priests of necessity ceased also, or was so curtailed as to threaten the entire want of the means of subsistence.

Joel 1:10

Verse 10. - The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth. This verse is closely connected with the preceding, for the failure of the meat offerings and drink offerings was owing to the devastation of the country and the destruction of its crops by the locust-plague. The field was laid waste by them, nor was it a field here and there, or a solitary district; it was the whole land without exception or exemption that had cause to grieve, "if aught inanimate e'er grieves." This is expressed by one of those paronomasias of which the Hebrews were so fond, thus, shuddad sadheh, abhelah adhamah, equivalent to "field falls, ground grieves;" or "field fruitless, land laments." The oblation, or meat offering, consisted of flour mingled with oil; the libation, or drink offering, consisted of wine. There were also firstfruits of corn and wine and oil; while all the produce of the land was tithabla. Now, however, the corn was wasted and the oil languished; and therefore the meat offering had partially failed or entirely ceased; the new wine was dried up, and therefore the drink offering must needs have been given up. The mention of corn and wine and oil in particular is owing to their connection with the temple service, for the firstfruits, tithes, oblations, and libations depended largely upon them.

Joel 1:11

Verses 11, 12. - Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen. The verb from בּושׁ (formed from יַבֵשׁ), to be or feel ashamed, or turn pale with shame; חָפֵר is "to blush or turn red with shame." It is written defectively, to distinguish it from הובִישׁ, which occurs in the tenth verse and again in the twelfth, and which is the Hiph. of יָבֵשׁ, to be parched or dried up. Their hope was disappointed through the destruction of their wheat and barley - their most serviceable and valuable cereals; while disappointment of hope causes shame; hence we read of a "hope that maketh not ashamed, because it never disappoints as empty hopes do. Howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the harley; because the harvest of the field is perished. The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth. There is a transposition here which is a species of the figure ehiasmus, so called from the form of the Greek letter chi (χ). The husbandmen are put to shame on account of the destruction of the wheat and barley - the entire failure of their field crops and ruin of their harvest; while the vinedressers have reason to howl because of the loss of their vines and the languishing of their fig trees. The prophet, after particularizing the vine and fig tree, proceeds with the enumeration of other important fruit trees that had perished by the teeth of the locusts. The pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered. The pomegranate, though abundant in that region, had shared the fate of the fig and vine; even the palm tree, the date palm, though a vigorous tree and little subject to injury, having no juice in the leaves or fresh greenness in the rind, ceased to flourish; and the apple tree - the medicinal apple, as Virgil terms it - suffered in like manner. Nor was it the fruit trees only that were injured; the hardier forest or timber trees - all the trees of the field - shared in the calamity. Thus Jerome represents the prophet as asking, "Why should I speak of the corn, wine, oil, and barley? when even the fruits of the trees have been dried up, the fig trees have languished, with the pomegranate and palm and apple; and all trees, whether fruit-bearing or not, are consumed by the devastating locusts." Because joy is withered away from the sons of men. This clause is connected by" because" with "howl," the intermediate words being treated parenthetically or passed over. Joy here is either

(1) literal; while "withered" is figurative, and signifies "has ceased or been taken away;" or

(2) "joy" is figurative, denoting the means of joy, and" withered" may then be understood literally. The rain, from, is a pregnant construction, that is, "is withered from" being equivalent to "is withered and taken away from" the sons of men. Thus Kimchi: "Because joy is withered - is withered, as if he said, 'it has ceased because the products and the fruits are the joy of the sons of men,' and so Jonathan explains it, 'because joy has ceased;' or the meaning of 'withered' may be by way of figure."

Joel 1:12

Joel 1:13

Verse 13. - Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God. The invitation, or rather exhortation, here is to something more than lamentation and mourning; for, however natural in the circumstances, affliction itself could not avert or remove the calamity. They are urged, therefore, to repentance as well as lamentation. They were to assume the outward signs of the inward grace: they were to gird themselves with sackcloth, the outward symbol of their inward sorrow; next they were to enter the temple or house of God; they were to spend the night there in the attitude and garb of mourners; night and day they were to bewail their sins with humble, penitent, and contrite hearts. The priests are the persons first addressed, and that not only because, in discharge of their priestly functions as ministers of Jehovah and ministering at the altar, they had been specially touched by the present distress; but also because of their official position they were to present an example to the people whose leaders they were and on whose behalf they ministered (comp. 1 Corinthians 9:13, "Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar?"). Kimchi gives a correct exposition of this verse: "Gird, that is to say, gird on sackcloth, and he explains afterwards, pass the night in sackcloth, because even by night ye shall not remove the sackcloth from off you; perhaps Jehovah will have mercy upon you. And he says, 'ministers of the altar,' and adds, 'ministers of my God,' because the ministry was as the altar to God; and he connects the ministry to God - to the altar, as wherein they minister to Jehovah." For the meat offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God. This is the reason assigned for the urgent call to repentance; and it is much the same with that in the beginning of the ninth verse.

Joel 1:14

Verses 14-20. - After urging the priests to lead the way in the matter, he proceeds to summon all classes of the people, and particularly the elders, to engage in penitence, fasting, and solemn supplications, in order to avert the calamities that were impending, or to escape from them if they had already begun. Verse 14. - Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God, and cry unto the Lord. The command is addressed to the priests as the representatives and rulers of the people in all matters of religion; they communicated to the people the commands of Jehovah. This verse directs attention to three things - the duty commanded; the persons called upon to discharge it; and the place of its performance.

1. The duty required was a fast and a solemn assembly; and the priests are strictly enjoined to see to it that both these shall be duly announced and rightly observed. The fast was abstention from food in token of sorrow for sin; it was intended to be the external evidence of penitential sorrow for sin. The solemn assembly, or "day of restraint," as it stands in the margin, was a public meeting of the people for the purpose of solemn supplication that the Almighty might be entreated to deliver them from the sore calamity with which he had seen fit to visit them. It was a season during which they were restrained from all servile work, and attention given exclusively to humiliation and prayer.

2. The persons summoned for this purpose were the elders, those who were so both by age and office - the magistrates as examples to others, and as having been implicated in the sins from which they now suffered. With the word "elders" are joined all the inhabitants of the land - the whole of the people, poor ann rich alike; all had had their share in the national sin, all were sharers in the national suffering, and it therefore behoved all to repent of their sins and seek the Lord.

3. The place of assembly was the house of the Lord; that is, the temple, or that portion of it called "the court of the Israelites." Nor were they to assemble there without an errand; the purpose of their assembling in that sacred place was to supplicate the Lord to alleviate their distress, or rather remove it altogether. They were directed to cry mightily to the Lord; to cry unto him with vehement earnestness and importunate perseverance till he would be pleased to send relief. The proclamation of a fast was a common expedient, to which people, Jewish and Gentile, according to their respective light, resorted in the day of their difficulty and distress. We read of it on many occasions; for example, by King Jehoshaphat in prospect of a hostile attack by the allied armies of Moab, Ammon, and Edom; again in the reign of Jehoiakim; also by Ezra in the day of danger; and by the people of Nineveh in consequence of the preaching of Jonah.

Joel 1:15

Verse 15. - Alas for the day! for the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come. Some understand these words as suggested by the prophet to the people, that they might use them in their solemn and sorrowful appeal to the Almighty. This is favoured by the Syriac, which adds, "and say," as if the prophet prescribed to them the substance of their address. We prefer taking them as the prophet's own words, which he era-ploys to justify the urgency of the appeal contained in the two preceding verses to the ministers of religion, the priests, to the magistrates, the elders, and to all the mere-bets of the community, even all the inhabitants of the land. The day referred to is the time of the judgment that was coming on the land through the locusts. The day of the Lord, first mentioned, it is said, by Joel, is the day when he inflicts judgments on sinners, as in the present instance; it may be a presage of that judgment that brought ruin on their city, temple, and nation. It may be an emblem of that judgment that wound up their nation by the destruction of their capital, or even of the final judgment when God shall destroy impenitent sinners and deliver his saints. This day of the Lord comes suddenly, secretly, and irresistibly; and, when it comes, it is a destruction from the Almighty, or, according to the Hebrew paronomasia, keshod misshaddai, equivalent to "ruin from the Resistless." The day of God's anger against Judah is a presage of that day when, as Judge of all, Jew and Gentile, he will take vengeance on his enemies. Joel's prophetic glance reached onward and forward, not only to the close of the Jewish, but to the conclusion of the Christian, dispensation.

Joel 1:16

Verses 16-18. - These verses contain manifest proofs that the day of the Lord was coming, and coming as a destruction from the Almighty. Is not the meat cut off before our eyes? The food for daily sustenance, and the food for Divine service - the corn and wine and oil, as mentioned in ver. 10 - had vanished while they beheld the process of destruction, but could not binder it. "These locusts," says Thomson, in 'The Land and the Book,' "at once strip the vines of every leaf and cluster of grapes, and of every green twig. I also saw many large fig orchards 'clean bare,' not a leaf remaining; and, as the bark of the fig tree is of a silvery whiteness, the whole orchards, thus rifled of their green veils, spread abroad their branches 'made white' in melancholy nakedness to the burning sun." He then refers to the exclamation in ver. 15, and to that in the words before us, "Is not the meat cut off before our eyes?" and then proceeds," This is most emphatically true. I saw under my own eye not only a large vineyard loaded with young grapes, but whole fields of corn, disappear as if by magic, and the hope of the husbandman vanish like smoke." Yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God. Not only had the food necessary for the support of daily life perished - "The food of the sinners," says Jerome, "perishes before their eyes, since the crops they looked for are snatched away from their hands, and the locust anticipates the reaper," - but the offerings used in Divine worship had ceased. Owing to the destruction of the crops, the firstfruits, as a matter of course, failed; the thank offerings could not be procured. Consequently, the joy that usually accompanied the presentation of these and other offerings was also cut off. When the Hebrews of old brought their burnt offerings, sacrifices, tithes, heave offerings, vows, free-will offerings, and firstlings of herds and flocks, it was a joyful season, a time of rejoicing before the Lord, as we learn from Deuteronomy 12:7, "There ye shall eat before the Lord your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto, ye and your households." All this joy and gladness, so graciously associated with the worship of Jehovah, were now things of the past. The seed (margin, grains)is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered. This was a fearful aggravation of their calamity. Their present distress thus prolonged itself into the future, as there was no prospect of a crop in the following year to cheer them. The rotting of the seed that had been sown and carefully covered in the earth was occasioned by the drought. The visitation of locusts, as Stanley says, "came, like all such visitations, in the season of' unusual drought - a drought which passed over the country like flames of fire." The rotting of the seed, and the withering of the corn, if the mouldering seed germinated and put forth a blade at all, rendered barns useless, and granaries, or the larger storehouses, unnecessary. The barns were left to decay and tumble down; and the granaries were desolate, and so there was no further use for them. Several difficult expressions occur in this verse, Perudoth is from parad, to scatter about, or to sow broadcast, and hence signifies "scattered things," - seed or grain sown. עַבַשׁ is to dry up, moulder, wither; and is said of seeds that lose their germinating power Megraphoth are clods of earth, the root being garaph, to wash away (Judges 5:21); the noun, therefore, denotes a clod of earth rolled together by water and swept away. Otsaroth were the storehouses, but these were allowed to moulder away, as there was no reasonable prospect of a harvest or of grain to store in them. The mam-megurah or megurah, viz. the barns, had now become a useless appendage of the farmstead. How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate. The drought that preceded and accompanied the plague of locusts destroyed the pasture-grounds, and thus the herds of cattle were bewildered, being deprived of pasture and water; they were perplexed to know where to find food to satisfy the cravings of hunger, and water to quench their thirst; in their perplexity they sought both, but found neither. The flocks of sheep, too, that are more easily satisfied and accustomed to browse on grass shorter and sparser, were desolate for want of nourishment, or, as the word ashem may be translated, "expiate the sin of man," inasmuch as they suffered from its consequences. This also was true to the life, as Thomson assures us. After quoting this verse (18) he adds, "This is poetic, but true. A field over which this flood of desolation [the locusts] has rolled shows not a blade for even a goat to nip." What with the locusts devouring what appeared above ground, and the drought destroying the seeds sown under the surface, the havoc was complete; famine and distress afflicted both man and beast. In the progress of this visitation the cereals - corn, and wheat, and barley, and other grains - were ruined; the fruit trees - vine, and olive, and fig, and pomegranate. and apple, and palm - were destroyed. But not only were the herbs for the service of man eaten up, but the grass for the cattle perished. Stanley refers to it in the following eloquent words: "The purple vine, the green fig tree, the grey olive, the scarlet pomegranate, the golden corn, the waving palm, the fragrant citron, vanished before them; end the trunks and branches were left bare and white by their devouring teeth. What had been but a few moments before like the garden of Eden was turned into a desolate wilderness. The herds of cattle and flocks of sheep so dear to the shepherds of Judah, the husbandmen so dear to King Uzziah, were reduced to starvation. The flour and oil for the 'meat offerings' failed; even the temple lost its accustomed sacrifices." The remarks of Kimchi on some of the difficult or unusual words of this verse deserve attention. On עבשו he observes, "It is equivalent in meaning to עפשו, for the beth and the pe belong to the same organ." In his note on perudoth he says, "They are the grains of seed that are under the earth; and he says another curse will be that the seed will be destroyed and rotten under the earth, and shall not bud; and what shall bud, the locusts shall eat it. Or the grains of seed shall rot because of the rains which do not descend upon them, for there shall also be in like manner a great drought [literally, ' restraint of rain'] in those years." On the garners (otsaroth) being laid desolate, and the barns (mammeguroth) broken down, he observes on the former, "The garners for the produce are laid desolate, for there was nothing to bring into them, and, lo! they are laid desolate. In reference to the latter he says, "He (the prophets) repeats the matter in different words; for mammeguroth is the same as otsaroth, and so 'is the seed yet in the barn, megurah (Hosea 2:20), gives proof of this." And he accounts for their being broken down either "(1) because they brought nothing into them, or

(2) they were broken down because they had no caretaker to repair them after the custom from year to year, and so they fell and were destroyed." Of the perplexity of the herds he gives the following explanation: "He speaks collectively (i.e. the verb is singular, agreeing with the noun), and afterwards individually (the verb being plural); perplexed has the meaning of confusion, as a man who is confused in his knowledge, and does not know what to do, and so they (the herds) are confused in the land," in other words, they wandered up and down, and knew not where to go for drink or pasture. He (Kimchi) adds, in his further explanation. "that the flecks of sheep sometimes find pasture where the oxen do not find it, because that they (sheep) go up upon the mountains and upon the hills - a thing which the oxen do not in general do."

Joel 1:17

Joel 1:18

Joel 1:19

Verses 19, 20. - O Lord, to thee will I cry. In consideration of man and beast - creatures rational and irrational being subject to so much hardship and suffering - the prophet appeals in intense earnestness of spirit to God, and all the more so because of the encouragement of his own Word, as it is written, "Lord, thou preservest man and beast." For the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field. The fire and flame here referred to denote the fiery heat of the drought which burnt up the meadows and scorched the trees. Some seem to understand the terms literally, as applied to setting on fire the heath, or even the trees, in order to check the progress of the locusts or turn them aside by smoke and flame. This, however, is refuted by the following verse, which mentions the rivers of water being dried up: The beasts of the field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness. In like manner we read in Jeremiah 14:4-6, "Because the ground is chapt, for there was no rain in the earth, the ploughmen were ashamed, they covered their heads. Yea, the hind also calved in the field, and forsook it, because there was no grass. And the wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes did fail, because there was no grass." The various animals suffering from hunger and thirst express their distress in loud and lamentable, though inarticulate, cries. The Hebrew words which respectively denote the cries of the different animals are, according to Rashi, the following: ערג expresses the cry of deer; נהם (also שׁאג), to roar like lions; נעה, to low as oxen; צחל, to neigh like horses; ציפצופ (rather צִפְצִפ, fulfil), to twitter or chirp as birds. Further, the subject is plural, but the verb is singular, for the purpose of individualizing.

Joel 1:20

Joel 1

The word of Jehovah which came to Joel, the son of Pethuel. He names here his father; it is hence probable that he was a man well known and of some celebrity. But who this Pethuel was, all now are ignorant. And what the Hebrews hold as a general rule, that a prophet is designated, whenever his father’s name is added, appears to me frivolous; and we see how bold they are in devising such comments. When no reason for any thing appears to them, they invent some fable, and allege it as a divine truth. When, therefore, they are wont thus to trifle, I have no regard for what is held by them as a rule. But yet it is probable, that when the Prophets are mentioned as having sprung from this or that father, their fathers were men of some note.

Now what he declared by saying, that he delivered the word of the Lord, is worthy of being observed; for he shows that he claimed nothing for himself, as an individual, as though he wished to rule by his own judgment, and to subject others to his own fancies; but that he relates only what he had received from the Lord. And since the Prophets claimed no authority for themselves, except as far as they faithfully executed the office divinely committed to them, and delivered, as it were from hand to hand, what the Lord commanded, we may hence feel assured that no human doctrines ought to be admitted into the Church. Why? Because as much as men trust in themselves, so much they take away from the authority of God. This preface then ought to be noticed, which almost all the Prophets use, namely, that they brought nothing of their own or according to their own judgment, but that they were faithful dispensers of the truth intrusted to them by God.

And the word is said to have been to Joel; not that God intended that he alone should be his disciple, but because he deposited this treasure with him, that he might be his minister to the whole people. Paul also says the same thing, — that to the ministers of the Gospel was committed a message for Christ, or in Christ’s name, to reconcile men to God, (2Co 5:20;) and in another place he says, ‘He has deposited with us this treasure as in earthen vessels,’ (2Co 4:7.) We now understand why Joel says, that the word of the Lord was delivered to him, it was not that he might be the only disciple; but as some teacher was necessary, Joel was chosen to whom the Lord committed this office. Then the word of God belongs indeed indiscriminately to all; and yet it is committed to Prophets and other teachers; for they are, so to speak, as it were trustees (depositarii — depositories.)

As to the verb היה eie, there is no need of philosophizing so acutely as Jerome does: “How was the word of the Lord made?” For he feared lest Christ should be said to be made, as he is the word of the Lord. These are trifles, the most puerile. He could not, however, in any other way get rid of the difficulty but by saying that the word is said to be made with respect to man whom God addresses, and not with respect to God himself. All this, as ye must see, is childish; for the Prophet says here only, that the word of the Lord was sent to him, that is, that the Lord employed him as his messenger to the whole people. But after having shown that he was a fit minister of God, being furnished with his word, he speaks authoritatively, for he represented the person of God.

We now see what is the lawful authority which ought to be in force in the Church, and which we ought to obey without dispute, and to which all ought to submit. It is then only that this authority exists, when God himself speaks by men, and the Holy Spirit employs them as his instruments. For the Prophet brings not forward any empty title; he does not say that he is a high priest of the tribe of Levi, or of the first order, or of the family of Aaron. He alleges no such thing, but says that the word of God was deposited with him. Whosoever then demands to be heard in the Church, must of necessity really prove that he is a preacher of God’s word; and he must not bring his own devices, nor blend with the word any thing that proceeds from the judgment of his own flesh.

But first the Prophet reproves the Jews for being so stupid as not to consider that they were chastised by the hand of God, though this was quite evident. Hence they pervert, in my judgment, the meaning of the Prophet, who think that punishments are here denounced which were as yet suspended; for they transfer all these things to a future time. But I distinguish between this reproof and the denunciations which afterwards follow. Here then the Prophet reproaches the Jews, that having been so severely smitten, they did not gain wisdom; and yet even fools, when the rod is applied to their backs, know that they are punished. Since then the Jews were so stupid, that when even chastised they did not understand that they had to do with God, the Prophet justly reproves this madness. “Hear ”, he says, “ye old men; give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land, and declare this to your children ”. But the consideration of this passage I shall put off till tomorrow.



Hear this, ye old men; and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land: has this been in your days, and in the days of your fathers? This declare to your children and your children to their children, and their children to the next generation: the residue of the locust has the chafer eaten, and the residue of the chafer has the cankerworm eaten, and the residue of the cankerworm has the caterpillar eaten (2) I have in the last Lecture already mentioned what I think of this passage of the Prophet. Some think that a future punishment is denounced; but the context sufficiently proves that they mistake and pervert the real meaning of the Prophet; for, on the contrary, he reproves here the hardness of the people, — that they fell not their plagues. And as men are not easily moved by God’s judgments, the Prophet here declares that God had executed such a vengeance as could not be regarded otherwise than miraculous; as though he said, “God often punishes men, and it behaves them to be attentive as soon as he raises up his finger. But common punishments are wont to be unheeded; men soon forget those punishments to which they have been accustomed. God has, however, treated you in an unusual manner, having openly as it were put forth his hand from heaven, and brought on you punishments nothing less than miraculous. Ye must then be more than stupid, if ye perceive not that you are smitten by God’s hand.” This is the true meaning of the Prophet, and may be easily gathered from the words.

Hear, ye old men, he says. He expressly addresses the old, because experience teaches men much; and the old, when they see any thing new or unusual, must know, that it is not according to the ordinary course of things. He who has past his fiftieth or sixtieth year, and sees something new happening which he had never thought of, doubtless acknowledges it as the unusual work of God. This is the reason why the Prophet directs here his discourse to the old; as though he said, “I will not terrify you about nothing; but let the old hear, who have been accustomed for many years to many revolutions; let them now answer me, whether in their whole life, which has been an age on the earth, have they seen any such thing ” We now perceive the design of the Prophet; for he intended to awaken the Jews that they might understand that God had put forth his hand from heaven, and that it was impossible to ascribe what they had seen with their eyes to chance or to earthly causes, but that it was a miracle. And his object was to make the Jews at length ashamed of their folly in not having hitherto been attentive to God’s punishments, and in having always flattered themselves, as though God slept in heaven, when yet he so violently thundered against them, and intended by an extraordinary course to move them, that they might at last perceive that they were summoned to judgment.

He afterwards adds, And all ye inhabitants of the land. Had the Prophet addressed only the old, some might seize on some pretext for their ignorance; hence he addressed and from the least to the greatest; and this he did, that the young might not exempt themselves from blame in proceeding in their obstinacy and in thus mocking God, when he called them to repentance. Hear, he says, all ye inhabitants of the land; has this been in your days or in the days of your fathers? He says first, has such a thing been in your days, for doubtless what happens rarely deserves a greater consideration. It is indeed true that foolish men are blind to the daily works of God; as the favor of God in making his sun to rise daily is but little thought of by us. This happens through our ingratitude; but our ingratitude is doubled, and is much more base and less excusable, when the Lord works in an unwonted manner, and we yet with closed eves overlook what ought to be deemed a miracle. This dullness the Prophet now reproves, Has such a thing, he says, “happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers? Ye can recall to mind what your fathers have told you. It is certain that for two ages no such thing has happened. Your torpidity then is extreme, since ye neglect this judgment of God, which from its very rareness ought to have awakened your minds.”



(2) All these are different kinds of locusts. There are in Hebrew ten names for them, designative probably of so many kinds. There are four here: גזם, gizam, the young locust; ארבה, arebe, so called from their number, one on the wing; ילק, ilak, one of the hairy bristly kind; and λψσ᾿, chesil, one unfledged. Following the probable ideal meaning of the words, we may give them these names, —the cutter, the multiplier, the licker, and the devourer. — Ed.



He then adds, Tell it to your children, your children to their children, their children to the next generation. In this verse the Prophet shows that the matter deserved to be remembered, and was not to be despised by posterity, even for many generations. It appears now quite clear that the Prophet threatens not what was to be, as some interpreters think; it would have been puerile: but, on the contrary, he expostulates here with the Jews, because they were so slothful and tardy in considering God’s judgments; and especially as it was a remarkable instance, when God employed not usual means, but roused, and, as it were, terrified men by prodigies. Of this thentell: for עליה olie means no other thing than ‘tell or declare this thing to your children;’ and further, your children to their children. When any thing new happens, it may be, that we are at first moved with some wonder; but our feeling soon vanishes with the novelty, and we disregard what at first caused great astonishment. But the Prophet here showed, that such was the judgment of God of which he speaks, that it ought not to have been overlooked, no, not even by posterity. Let your children, he says, declare it to those after them, and their children to the fourth generation: it was to be always remembered.



He adds what that judgment was, — that the hope of food had for many years disappointed them. It often happened, we know, that locusts devoured the standing corn; and then the chafers and the palmer worms did the same: these were ordinary events. But when one devastation happened, and another followed, and there was no end; when there had been four barren years, suddenly produced by insects, which devoured the growth of the earth; — this was certainly unusual. Hence the Prophet says, that this could not have been chance; for God intended to show to the Jews some extraordinary portent, that even against their will they might observe his hand. When any thing trifling happens, if it be rare, it will strike the attention of men; for we often see that the world makes a great noise about frivolous things. But this wonder, says the Prophet, “ought to have produced effect on you. What then will ye do, since ye are starving, and the causes are evident; for God has cursed your land, and brought these insects, which have consumed your food before your eyes. Since it is so, it is surely the time for you to repent; and you have been hitherto very regardless having overlooked God’s judgments, which have been so remarkable and so memorable.” Let us now proceed.



The Prophet adds this verse for the sake of amplifying; for when God sees men either contemptuously laughing at or disregarding his judgments, he derides them; and this mode the Prophet now adopts. ‘Ye drunkards,’ he says, ‘awake, and weep and howl.’ In these words he addresses, on the subject in hand, those who had willfully closed their eyes to judgments so manifest. The Jews had become torpid, and had covered themselves over as it were with hardness; it was then necessary to draw them forth as by force into the light. But the Prophet accosts the drunkards by name; and it is probable that this vice was then very common among the people. However that might be, the Prophet by mentioning this instance shows more convincingly, that there was no pretense for passing by things, and that the Jews could not excuse their indifference if they took no notice; for the very drunkards, who had degenerated from the state of men, did themselves feel the calamity, for the wine had been cut off from their mouth. And this expression of the Prophet, “Awake ”, ought to be noticed; for the drunkards, even while awake, are asleep, and also spend a great portion of time in sleep. The Prophet had this in view, that men, though not endued with great knowledge, but even void of common sense, could no longer flatter themselves; for the very drunkards, who had wholly suffocated their senses, and had become thus estranged in their minds, did yet perceive the judgment of God; though drowsiness held them bound, they were yet constrained to awake at such a manifest punishment. What then does this ignorance mean, when ye see not that you are smitten by God’s hand?

To the same purpose are the words, Weep and howl. Drunkards, on the contrary, give themselves up to mirth, and intemperately indulge themselves; and there is nothing more difficult than to make them to feel sorrow; for wine so infatuates their senses, that they continue to laugh in the greatest calamities. But the Prophet says, Weep and howl, ye drunkards! What then ought sober men to do? He then adds, Cut off is the wine from your mouth. He says not, “The use of wine is taken away from you; ” but he says, from your mouth. Though no one should think of vineyards or of winecellars or of cups, yet they shall be forced, willing or unwilling, to feel the judgment of God in their mouth and in their lips. This is what the Prophet means. We then see how much he aggravates what he had said before: and we must remember that his object was to strike shame into the people, who had become thus torpid with regard to God’s judgments.

As to the word עסיס osis, some render it new wine. עסס osas is to press; and hence עסיס osis is properly the wine that is pressed in the wine-vat. New wine is not what is drawn out of the bottle, but what is pressed out as it were by force. But the Prophet, I have no doubt, includes here under one kind every sort of wine. Let us go on.



Of what some think, that punishment, not yet inflicted, is denounced here on the people, I again repeat, I do not approve; but, on the contrary, the Prophet, according to my view, records another judgment of God, in order to show that God had not only in one way warned the Jews of their sins, that he might restore them to a right mind; but that he had tried all means to bring them to the right way, though they proved to have been irreclaimable. After having then spoke of the sterility of the fields and of other calamities, he now adds that the Jews had been visited with war. (3) Surely famine ought to have touched them, especially when they saw that evils, succeeding evils, had happened for several years contrary to the usual course of things, so that they could not be imputed to chance. But when God brought war upon them, when they were already worn out with famine, must they not have been more than insane in mind, to have continued astonied at God’s judgments and not to repent? Then the meaning of the Prophet is, that God had tried, by every means possible, to find out whether the Jews were healable, and had given them every opportunity to repent, but that they were wholly perverse and untamable.

Then he says, Verily a nation came up. The particle כי ki is not to be taken as a causative, but only as explanatory, Verily, or surely, he says, a nation came up; though an inference also is not amiss, if it be drawn from the beginning of the verse: ‘Hear, ye old men, and tell your children;’ what shall we tell? even this, that a nation, etc. But in this form also כי ki would be exegetical, and the sense would be the same. This much as to the meaning of the passage.

A nation, then, came up over my land. God here justly claims the land of Canaan as his own heritage, and does so designedly, that the Jews might more clearly know that he was angry with them; for their condition would not have been worse than that of other nations, had not God resolved to punish them for their sins. There is here then an implied comparison between Judea and other countries, as though the Prophet said, “How comes it, that your land is wasted by wars and many other calamities, while other countries are at rest? This land is no doubt sacred to God, for he has chosen it for himself, that he might rule in it; he has here his own habitation: it then must be that there is some cause for God’s wrath, as your land is so miserably wasted, when other lands enjoy tranquillity.” We now perceive what the Prophet means. A nation, he says, came up upon my land, and what then? God could surely have prevented this; he could have defended his own land, of which he was the keeper, and which was under his protection: how then had it happened that enemies with impunity inundated this land, having marched into it and utterly laid it waste, except that it had been forsaken by the Lord himself?

A nation, he says, came up upon my land, strong and without number; and further, who had the teeth of a lion, the jaw-bones of a young lion. The nations had no strength which God could not in an instant have broken down, nor had he need of mighty auxiliaries, for he could by a nod only have reduced to nothing whatever men might have attempted: when, therefore, the Assyrians so impetuously assailed the Jews they were necessarily exposed to the wantonness of their enemies, for they were unworthy of being protected, as hitherto, by the hand of God.



(3) But most commentators consider these two verses as containing a more particular description of the devastations produced by the locusts mentioned before. That they are called “a nation” is according to prophetic style, and what has been done by heathen poets: the wasting of the vine and the barking of the fig-tree seem more suitable to this view. It is true that נוי, nation, and not וזם people, as in Pro 30:25, is here used; but, as Dr. Henderson observes, it seems to have been selected on purpose “to prepare the minds of the Jews for the allegorical use made of these insects in chapter 2.” — Ed.



He afterwards adds, that his vine had been exposed to desolation and waste, his fig-tree to the stripping of the bark. God speaks not here of his own vine, as in some other places, in which he designates his Church by this term; but he calls everything on earth his own, as he calls the whole race of Abraham his children: and he thus reproaches the Jews for having reduced themselves to such wretchedness through their own fault; for they would have never been spoiled by their enemies, had not God, who was wont to defend then, previously rejected them; for there was nothing in their land which he did not claim as his own; as he had chosen the people, so he had consecrated the land to himself. Whatsoever, then, enlisted in Judea, was, as it were, sacred to God. Now when both the vines and the fig-trees were exposed to the depredations of the unbelieving, it was certain that God no longer ruled there. How so? Even because the Jews had expelled him. He afterwards enlarges on the same subject; for what follows, By denuding he has denuded it and cast it away, is not a mere narrative; the Prophet here declares not simply what had taken place; but as we have already said, adduces more proof, and tries to awaken the drowsy senses of the people, yea, to arouse them from that lethargy by which the minds of all had been seized; hence it is that he uses in his teaching so many expressions. This is the reason why he says that the vine and the fig-tree had been denuded, and also that the leaves had been taken away, that the branches had been made bare and white; so that there remained neither produce nor growth.

Many interpreters join these three verses with the former, as if the Prophet now expressed what he had said before of the palmer worm, the chafer, and the locust; for they think that he spake allegorically when he said that all the fruits of the land had been consumed by the locusts and the chafers. They therefore add, that these locusts, or chafers, or the palmer worms, were the Assyrians, as well as the Persian and the Greeks, that is, Alexander of Macedon and the Romans: but this is wholly a strained views so that there is no need of a long argument; for any one may easily perceive that the Prophet mentions another kind of punishments that he might in every way render the Jews inexcusable who were not roused by judgments so multiplied, but remained still obstinate in their vices. Let us now proceed.



The Prophet now addresses the whole land. Lament, he says; not in an ordinary way, but like a widow, whose husband is dead, whom she had married when young. The love, we know, of a young man towards a young woman, and so of a young woman towards a young man, is more tender than when a person in years marries an elderly woman. This is the reason that the Prophet here mentions the husband of her youth; he wished to set forth the heaviest lamentation, and hence he says “The Jews ought not surely to be otherwise affected by so many calamities, than a widow who has lost her husband while young, and not arrived at maturity, but in the flower of his age.” As then such widows feel bitterly their loss, so the Prophet has adduced their case.

The Hebrews often call a husband בעל bol, because he is the lord of his wife and has her under his protection. Literally it is, “For the lord of her youth;” and hence it is, that they also called their idols בעלים bolim, as though they were as we have often said in our comment on the Prophet Hosea, their patrons.

The sum of the whole is, That the Jews could not have continued in an unconcerned state, without being void of all reason and discernment; for they were forced, willing or unwilling, to feel a most grievous calamity. It is a monstrous thing, when a widow, losing her husband when yet young, refrains from mourning. Now then, since God had afflicted his land with so many evils, he wished to bring on them, as it were, the grief of widowhood. It follows —



Here, in other words, the Prophet paints the calamity; for, as it has been said, we see how great is the slowness of men to discern God’s judgments; and the Jews, we know, were not more attentive to them than we are now. It was, therefore, needful to prick them with various goads, as the Prophet now does, as though he said, “If ye are not now concerned for want of food, if ye consider not even what the very drunkards are constrained to feel, who perceive not the evil at a distance, but taste it in their lips — if all these things are of no account with you, do at least look on the temple of God, which is now destitute of its ordinary services; for through the sterility of your fields, through so great a scarcity, neither bread nor wine is offered. Since then ye see that the worship of God has ceased, how is it ye yourselves still remain? Why is it that ye perceive not that God’s fury is kindled against you? For surely except God had been most grievously offended, he would at least have had some regard for his own worship; he would not have suffered his temple to remain without sacrifices.”

The Jews, we know, daily poured their libations, and offered meat-offerings. When, therefore, Joel mentions מנחה meneche and libation, he doubtless meant to show that the worship of God was nearly abolished. But God would have never permitted such a thing, had he not been grievously offended by the sins of men. Hence the indifference, or rather the stupidity of the people, is more clearly proved, inasmuch as they perceived not the signs of God’s wrath made evident even in the very temple. It follows —



The Prophet goes on here with the same subject, and uses these many words to give more effect to what he said; for he knew that he addressed the deaf, who, by long habit, had so hardened themselves that God could effect nothing, at least very little, by his word. This is the reason why the Prophet so earnestly presses a subject so evident. Should any one ask what need there was of so many expressions, as it seems to be a needless use of words; I do indeed allow that all that the Prophet wished to say might have been expressed in one sentence, as there is here nothing intricate: but it was not enough that what he said should be understood, except the Jews applied it to themselves, and perceived that they had to do with God; and to make this application they were not disposed. It is not then without reason that the Prophet labors here, and enforces the same thing in many words.

Hence he says, The field is wasted, and the land mourns; for the corn has perished, for dried up has the wine, for destroyed has been the oil. And by these words he intimates that they seeing saw nothing; as though he said, “Let necessity extort mourning from you; ye are indeed starving, all complain of want, all deplore the need of bread and wine; and yet no one of you thinks whence this want is, that it is from the hand of God. Ye feel it in your mouth, ye feel it in your palate, ye feel it in your throat, ye feel it in your stomach; but ye feel it not in your heart.” In short, the Prophet intimates that the Jews were void of right understanding; they indeed deplored their famine, but they were like brute beasts, who, when hungry, show signs of impatience. So the Jews mourned, because their stomach disquieted them; but they knew not that the cause of their want and famine was their sins. It afterwards follows —



The Prophet says nothing new here, but only strengthens what he had said before, and is not wordy without reason; for he intends here not merely to teach, but also to produce an effect: And this is the design of heavenly teaching; for God not only wishes that what he says may be understood, but intends also to penetrate into our hearts: and the word of God, we know, consists not of doctrine only, but also of exhortations, and threatenings, and reproofs. This plan then the Prophet now pursues: Ye husband men, he says, be ashamed, and ye vinedressers, howl; for perished has the harvest of the field. The sum of the whole is, that the Jews, as we have already said, could by no excuse cover their indifference; for their clamor was everywhere heard, their complaints everywhere resounded, that the land had become a waste, that they were themselves famished that they were afflicted with many calamities; and yet no one acknowledged that God, who visited them for their sins, was the author. But what remains I shall put off until to-morrow.



The Prophet now concludes his subjects which was, that as God executed judgments so severe on the people, it was a wonder that they remained stupefied, when thus reduces to extremities. The vine, he says, has dried up, and every kind of fruit; he adds the fig-tree, afterwards the רמון remun, the pomegranate, (for so they render it,) the palm, the apple-tree, (4) and all trees. And this sterility was a clear sign of God’s wrath; and it would have been so regarded, had not men either wholly deceived themselves, or had become hardened against all punishments. Now this αναὶσθησὶα (insensibility) is as it were the very summit of evils; that is, when men feel not their own calamities, or at least understand not that they are inflicted by the hand of God. Let us now proceed —

(4) Of the three foregoing trees we may add this account:

The pomegranate, רמון, grows about 20 feet high, has a straight stem and spreading branches, and bears large red blossoms. Its fruit is about the size of an orange, and is delicious and cooling.

The palm or date-tree, תמר, is sometimes as high as 100 feet, and remarkably straight. Its fruit grows in clusters under its leaves, and is in taste very sweet. Palm branches were emblems of victory.

What is called here the apple-tree, תפוח, was no doubt the citron-tree. The word is derived from נפה, to breathe, on account of the extreme fragrance it emits. — Ed.



Now the Prophet begins to exhort the people to repentance. Having represented them as grievously afflicted by the hand of God, he now adds that a remedy was at hand, provided they solicited the favor of God; and at the same tine he denounces a more grievous punishment in future; for it would not have been enough that they had been reminded of their calamities and evils, except they also feared in time to come. Hence the Prophet, that he might the more move them, says, that the hand of God was still stretched out, and that there was something worse nigh at hand, except they of themselves anticipated it. This is the purport of the whole. I now come to the words.

Be girded, lament and howl, he says,ye priests, the ministers of the altar The verb חגרו chegeru may be explained in two ways. Some understand it thus “Gird yourselveswith sackcloth; ” for shortly after he says with sackcloth, or in sackcloth. But we may take it as simply meaning, gird yourselves, that is, Hasten; for this metaphorical expression often occurs. As to the drift of the passage, there is but little difference, whether we read, “Gird yourselves with sackcloth,” or, “Hasten.” And he addresses the priests, though a common and general exhortation to the whole people afterwards follows. But as God made them the leaders of his people, it behaved them to afford others an example. It is the common duty of all the godly to pray for and to further the salvation of their brethren; but it is a duty especially enjoined on the ministers of the word and on pastors. So also, when God calls those to repentance who preside over others, they ought to lead the way, and for two reasons; — first, because they have not been in vain chosen by the Lord for this end, that they might outshine others, and be as luminaries; — secondly, because they who bear any public office ought to feel a double guilty when the Lord visits public sins with judgment. Private men indeed sin; but in pastors there is the blame of negligence, and still more, when they deviate even the least from the right way, a greater offense is given. Rightly then does the Prophet begin with the priests, when he bids the whole people to repent. And he not only bids them to put on sackcloth, but commands them also, as we shall see, to proclaim a fast, and then to call an assembly: ye priests, he says, be girded, and put on sackcloth, wail, howl, and pass the night in sackcloth; and then he calls them the ministers of the altar and the ministers of God, but in a different sense; for the Prophet does not substitute the altar for God, as he would thus have formed an idol; but they are called the ministers of the altar, because they offered there sacrifices to God. They are indeed with strict propriety the ministers of God; but as the priests, when they sacrificed, stood in the presence of God, and as the altar was to them as it were the way of access to him, they are called the ministers of the altar. He calls them, at the same time, the ministers of God, and, as it has been stated, they are properly so called.

But he says here אלהי alei (my God.) The iod, my, is by some omitted, as if it were a servile letter, but redundant. I, however, doubt not but that the Prophet here mentions Him as his God; for he thus intended to claim more authority for his doctrine. His concern or his contest was with the whole people; and they, no doubt, in their usual ways proudly opposed against him the name of God as their shield. “What! are we not the very people of God?” Hence the Prophet, in order to prove this presumption false, sets forth God as being on his side. He therefore says, ‘The ministers of my God.’ Had any one objected and said, that he was in common the God of the whole people, the Prophet had a ready answer, — “I am specially sent by Him, and sustain his person, and plead the cause which he has committed to me: He is then my God and not yours.” We now then see the Prophet’s meaning in this expression. He now adds, for cut off is offering and libation from the house of our God. He confesses Him at the same time to be their God with reference to the priesthood; for nothing, we know, was presumptuously invented by the Jews, as the temple was built by Godly command, and sacrifices were offered according to the rule of the law. He then ascribes to the priesthood this honor, that God ruled in the temple; for God, as we have already said, approved of that worship as having proceeded from his word: and to this purpose is that saying of Christ, ‘We know what we worship.’ But yet the priests did not rightly worship God; for though their external rites were according to the command of God, yet as their hearts were polluted, it is certain that whatever they did was repudiated by God, until, being touched with the fear of his judgment, they fled to his mercy, as the Prophet now exhorts them to do.



He afterwards adds, sanctify a fast, call an assembly, gather the old, all the inhabitants of the land. קדש kodash means to sanctify and to prepare; but I have retained its proper meaning, sanctify a fast; for the command had regard to the end, that is, sanctification. Then afast proclaim — for what purpose? That the people might purge themselves from all their pollutions, and present themselves pure and clean before God. Call an assembly. It appears that there was a solemn convocation whenever a fast was proclaimed among the people: for it was not enough for each one privately at home to abstain from food, except all confessed openly, with one mouth and one consent, that they were guilty before God. Hence with a fast was connected a solemn profession of repentance. The uses and ends of a fast, we know, are various: but when the Prophet here speaks of a solemn fast, he doubtless bids the people to come to it suppliantly, as the guilty are wont to do, who would deprecate punishment before a judge, that they may obtain mercy from him. In the second chapter there will be much to say on fasting: I only wish now briefly to touch on the subject.

He afterwards bids the old to be gathered, and then adds, All the inhabitants of the land. But he begins with the old, and justly so, for the guilt of the old is always the heaviest. But this word relates not to age as in a former instance. When he said yesterday, ‘Hear ye, the aged,’ he addressed those who by long experience had learnt in the world many things unknown to the young or to men of middle age. But now the Prophet means by the old those to whom was intrusted the public government; and as through their slothfulness they had suffered the worship of God and all integrity to fall into decay, rightly does the Prophet wish them to be leaders and precursors to the people in their confession of repentance; and further, it behaved them, on account of their office, as we have said of the priests, to lead the way. Joel at the same time shows that the whole people were implicated in guilt, so that none could be excepted, for he bids them all to come with the elders.

Call them, he says,to the house of Jehovah your God, and cry ye to Jehovah. We hence learn why he had spoken of fasting and of sackcloth, even that they might humbly deprecate God’s wrath; for fasting of itself would have been useless, and to put on sackcloth, we know, is in itself but an empty sign: but prayer is what the Prophet sets here in the highest rank, and fasting is only an appendage, and so is sackcloth. Whosoever then puts on sackcloth and withholds prayer, is guilty of mockery; and no one can derive any good from mere fasting; but when fasting and sackcloth are added to prayer, and are as it were handmaids, then they are not uselessly practiced. We may then observe, that the end of fasting and sackcloth was no other, than that the priests together with the whole people, might present themselves suppliantly before God, and confess themselves worthy of destruction, and that they had no hope except from his gratuitous mercy. This is the meaning.



It now follows, Alas the day! for nigh is the day of Jehovah. Here the Prophet, as it was at first stated, threatens something worse in future than what they had experienced. He has hitherto been showing their torpidity; now he declares that they had not yet suffered all their punishments, but that there was something worse to be feared, except they turned seasonably to God. And he now exclaims, as though the day of Jehovah was before his eyes, and he calls it the day of Jehovah, because in that day God would stretch-forth his hand to execute judgment; for while he tolerates men or bears with their sins, he seems not to rule in the world. And though this mode of speaking is common enough in Scripture, it ought yet to be carefully noticed; for all seem not to understand that God calls that his own day, when he will openly shine forth and appear as the judge of the world: but as long as he spares us, his face seems to be hidden from us; yea, he seems not to govern the world. The Prophet therefore declares here that the day of the Lord was at hand; for it cannot be, but that the Lord must at length rise up and ascend his throne to punish men, though for a time he may connive at them. But the interjection, expressive of grief, intimates that the judgment, of which the Prophet speaks, was not to be despised, for it would be dreadful; and he wished to strike terror into the Jews, for they were too secure. And he says, The day is nigh, that they might not procrastinate, as they were wont to do, from day to day: for though men be touched by God’s judgments they yet even desire time to be prolonged to them, and they come very tardily to God. Hence the Prophet, that he might correct this their great slothfulness, says that the day was nigh.

He adds, כשד משדי יבוא kashed meshadi ibu ‘as a desolation from the Almighty will it come.’ The word שדי shadi signifies a conqueror; but it proceeds from the verb שדד shadad; and this in Hebrew means “to desolate,” or “to destroy.” The powerful and the conqueror is called שדי shadi; and hence they call God שדי shadi, on account of his power. Some derive it from udder: then they call God שדי shadi as though Scripture gave him this name, because from him flows all abundance of good things as from a fountain. But I rather refer this name to his strength and power, for the Jews, we know, gloried in the name of God as one armed to defend their safety. Whenever then the Prophets said that God was שדי shadi, the people laid hold on this as a ground for false confidence, “God is almighty, we are then secure from all evils.” But yet this confidence was not founded on the promises: and it was, we know, an absurd and profane presumption to have thus abused the name of God. Since then the Jews foolishly pricked themselves on this, that God had adopted them for his people, the prophet says here, “There will come a desolation from the Almighty;” that is, “God is Almighty, but ye are greatly deceived in thinking that your safety is secured by his power; for he will, on the contrary, be opposed to you, inasmuch as ye have provoked his wrath.” It follows —



He repeats the same thing as before, for he reproaches the Jews for being so slow to consider that the hand of God was against them. Has not the meat, he says, been cut off before our eyes? joy and exultation from the house of our God? Here he chides the madness of the Jews, that they perceived not things set before their eyes. He therefore says that they were blind in the midst of light, and that their sight was such, that seeing they saw nothing: they surely ought to have felt distressed, when want reached the temple. For since God had commanded the first-fruits to be offered to him, the temple ought not by any means to have been without its sacrifices; and though mortals perish a hundred times through famine and want, yet God ought not to be defrauded of his right. When, therefore, there was now no offering nor libation, how great was the stupidity of the people not to feel this curse, which ought to have wounded them more than if they had been consumed a hundred times by famine? We see then the design of the Prophet’s words, that is, to condemn the Jews for their stupidity; for they considered not that a most grievous judgment was brought on them, when the temple was deprived of its usual sacrifices.

He afterwards adds, that joy and gladness were taken away: for God commanded the Jews to come to the temple to give thanks and to acknowledge themselves blessed, because he had chosen his habitation among them. Hence this expression is so often repeated by Moses, ‘Thou shalt rejoice before thy God;’ for by saying this, God intended to encourage the people the more to come cheerfully to the temple; as though he said, “I certainly want not your presence, but I wish by my presence to make you glad.” But now when the worship of God ceased, the Prophet says, that joy had been also abolished; for the Jews could not cheerfully give thanks to God when his curse was before their eyes, when they saw that he was their adversary, and also when they were deprived of the ordinances of religion. We now then perceive why the Prophet joins joy and gladness with oblations: they were the symbols of thanksgiving.



He shows the cause of the evil, Rotted have the grains in the very furrows. For they call seeds פרדות peredut from the act of scattering. He then calls grains by this name, because they are scattered; and he says that they rotted in the fields when they ought to have germinated. He then adds, The granaries halve become desolated and the barns have been pulled down; for there was no use for them. Hence we conclude, that sterility had become most grievousand perpetual; for if the people had been only afflicted by famine for a few harvests or for one year, the Prophet would not have spoken thus. The famine must then have been, as it has been already stated for a long time. Let us now proceed —



The Prophet amplifies his reproof, that even oxen as well as other animals felt the judgment of God. There is then here an implied comparison between the feeling of brute animals and the insensibility of the people, as though he said, “There is certainly more intelligence and reason in oxen and other brute animals than in you; for the herds groan, the flocks groan, but ye remain stupid and confounded. What does this mean?” We then see that the Prophet here compares the stupidity of the people with the feeling of animals, to make them more ashamed.

How, he says, has the beast groaned? The question serves to show vehemence; for if he had said in the form of a narrative, that the animals groaned, that the cattle were confounded, and that the flocks perished, the Jews would have been less affected; but when he exclaims and, moved with astonishment, speaks interrogatively, How does the beast groan? He, no doubt, wished to produce an effect on the Jews, that they might perceive the judgment of God, which they had before passed by with their eyes closed, though it was quite manifest. It follows —



When the Prophet saw that he succeeded less than he expected, leaving the people, he speaks of what he would do himself, I will cry to thee, Jehovah. He had before bidden others to cry, and why does he not now press the same thing? Because he saw that the Jews were so deaf and listless as to make no account of all his exhortations: he therefore says, “I will cry to thee, Jehovah; for they are touched neither by shame nor by fear. Since they throw aside every regard for their own safety, since they account as nothing my exhortations I will leave them, and will cry to thee;” which means this, — “I see, Lord, that all these calamities proceed from thy hand; I will not howl as profane men do, but I will ascribe them to thee; for I perceive thee to be acting as a judge in all the evils which we suffer.” Having then before declared that the Jews were more tardy than brute animals and having reproached them for feeling less acutely than oxen and sheep, the Prophet now says, that though they all remained obstinate, he would yet do what a pious man and a worshipper of God ought to do,I will cry to thee — Why? Because the fire has consumed the pastures, or the dwellings, of the wilderness.

He here again gives an awful record of God’s judgments. Though the heat may burn up whole regions, yet we know that pasture-lands do not soon wither, especially on mountains; and of such cold pastures he speaks here. We know that however great may be the fertility of mountains, yet coolness prevails there, and that, in the greatest drought, the mountainous regions are ever green. But the Prophet tells us here of an unusual thing, that the dwellings of the wilderness were burnt up. Some render נאות naut pastures; others, dwellings: but as to the meaning, we may read either; for the Prophet refers here to cold and humid regions, which never want moisture in the greatest heats. Some render the word, the beautiful or fair spots of the wilderness, but improperly. He doubtless means pastures, or dwellings, or folds. The fire then has consumed the dwellings, or pastures of the wilderness. This was not usual; it did not happen according to the ordinary course of nature: it then follows that it was a miracle. This is the reason why the Prophet says, that it was now time to cry to God; for it did not appear to be fortuitous, that the heat had burnt up regions which were moist and well watered. The flame, he sayshath burnt up all the trees of the field.



He afterwards adds The beasts of the field will also cry (for the verb is in the plural number;) the beasts then will cry. The Prophet expresses here more clearly what he had said before that though the brute animals were void of reasons they yet felt God’s judgment, so that they constrained men by their example to feel ashamed, for they cried to God: the beasts then of the field cry. He ascribes crying to them, as it is elsewhere ascribed to the young ravens. The young ravens, properly speaking, do not indeed call on God; and yet the Psalmist says so, and that, because they confess, by raising up their bills, that there is no supply for their want except God supports them. So also the Prophet mentions here the beasts as crying to God. It is indeed a figure of speech, called personification; for this could not be properly said of beasts. But when the beasts made a noise under the pressure of famine, was it not such a calling on God as their nature admitted? As much then as the nature of brute animals allows, they may be said to seek their food from the Lord, when they send forth lamentable cries and noises, and show that they are oppressed with famine and want. When, therefore, the Prophet attributes crying to beasts, he at the same time reproaches the Jews with their stupidity, that they did not call on God. “What do you mean,” he says. “See the brute animals; they show to you what ought to be done; it is at least a teaching that ought to have effect on you. If I and the other prophets have lost all our labor, if God has in vain performed the office of a teacher among you, let the very oxen at least be your teachers; to whom indeed it is a shame to be disciples, but it is a greater shame not to attend to what they teach you; for the oxen by their example lead you to God.”

We now perceive how much vehemence there is in the Prophet’s words, when he says, Even the beasts of the field will cry to God; for the streams of waters have dried up, and the fire has consumed the dwellings, or the pastures of the wilderness. He again teaches what I have lately stated, that sterility proceeded from the evident judgment of God, and that it ought to have struck dread into men, for it was a sort of miracle. When, therefore the courses of waters dried up on the mountains, how could it be deemed natural? אפיקים aphikim mean courses of waters or valleys through which the waters run. The Prophet here refers, no doubt, to those regions which, through the abundance of water, always retain their fertility. When, therefore, the very valleys were burnt up, they ought surely to own that something wonderful had happened. On this account, he ascribes crying to herds and brute animals, and not any sort of crying, but that by which they called on God. What remains we shall defer till to-morrow.