BIG IDEA:
THE DEVASTATION OF THE IMMEDIATE LOCUST PLAGUE AWAKENS WEEPING AND WAILING AND CRYING OUT TO GOD
INTRODUCTION:
Daniel Epp-Tiessen: Some stories are so meaningful and important to a community or group of people that they must be passed on from generation to generation. The opening passage in Joel seeks to grab the reader’s attention by announcing that the book will tell just such a story, with a message for the ages. Elders and inhabitants of the land are summoned to listen as Joel asks whether such a thing has ever happened in the memory of either the living or the dead (1:2). The suspense is heightened as the text continues to withhold the crucial information regarding what this unprecedented event actually is. But it is of such magnitude and critical importance that readers must tell every succeeding generation about it (1:3).
James Limburg: In reading the Book of Joel, one gets the impression of a man of great sensitivity. He has been impressed by the sound of a bride’s weeping (1:8). He has heard the groans of starving cattle and describes them as perplexed, dismayed, even crying to the Lord (1:18, 20). He has noticed the suffering of boys and girls in times of warfare (3:3).
Tchavdar Hadjiev: The chapter is a tapestry of traditional images of natural disaster, conflated together so that the prophecy can be read and applied by future generations regardless of their specific circumstances. It is not the concrete historical details but the theological significance of the events that is of paramount importance.
Leslie Allen: The little country of Judah has been overwhelmed by crisis. It is Joel’s responsibility to relate the human catastrophe to the purpose of God. As part of this task he interprets the crisis as constituting a dire need for divine help. He points toward the temple and so toward God. Christian countries have in the past held national days of prayer, when citizens have flocked to the churches and in earnest supplication besought God’s saving mercy. So in Israel there was a tradition of holding special services of national lament in response to a variety of misfortunes. Judg. 20:26 describes such a service prompted by military defeat, a day of fasting, weeping, and sacrificing at the sanctuary of Bethel. A similar service is alluded to many centuries later in Jer. 14, this time by way of reaction to a severe drought; rites of fasting, sacrificing, and prayers of lament were performed by the people gathered at Jerusalem. It is Joel’s conviction that the time is ripe for the community to meet in Jerusalem to hold such a service of lamentation in the temple. He reminds the people of the serious nature of the calamity that has come upon the country and makes it his basis for an appeal for a national time of lamentation.
I. (:1-3) DEVASTATION UNPARALLELED
A. (:1) Introduction of the Prophet = Joel
“The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel”
Historical Context / Dating Issues:
Thomas Constable: some scholars advocate an early pre-exilic date during the reign of King Jehoshaphat (872-848 B.C.) or possibly his grandson, King Joash (835-796 B.C.). Arguments in favor of this period include the position of Joel in the Hebrew canon; it appears among other prophetic writings of this period. Also the enemies of Israel that Joel named (Tyre, Sidon, Philistia [cf. 2 Chron. 21:16-17], Egypt [cf. 1 Kings 14:15-16], and Edom [cf. 2 Kings 8:20-22]; 3:2-7, 19) were enemies of Israel during this time. The prominence Joel gave to Judah’s priests and elders rather than to her king—Joash was a boy king under the influence of Jehoiada, the high priest, early in his reign—is a further argument for this view.
Amos 4:9 with dating reference to Uzziah, king of Judah in 1:1 = more of a mid pre-exilic date (early eighth century)
David Baker: The Hebrew term lying behind “the LORD” is yhwh, the personal name of Israel’s God. Technical studies refer to the name as the Tetragrammaton, that is, the four-letter word par excellence. Its pronunciation is not known, since between the Testaments it stopped being pronounced, being replaced by the Hebrew word for “Lord” (ʾādôn). From here it passed through Greek (kyrios = “Lord”) to most of our English translations, which also use “Lord,” though often done in small caps as “LORD.” The New Jerusalem Bible is rare among English translations in presenting the form correctly as “Yahweh.”
The difference between the “Yahweh” and the term “Lord” can at times be significant since Yahweh, a personal name, indicates an intimacy and covenant whereas “Lord” suggests a relationship of hierarchical and power differentiation. In other words, Israel is addressed by their God, with whom they are on a first-name basis, rather than by one who holds himself aloof because of his superior position. Yahweh plays the key role in the book, his name occurring more than any other word (thirty-three times). He is also the Author of the book, or at least the one inspiring its message. We know much more about him, not only from this book but also from the rest of Scripture, than we know about the book’s human author.
Lloyd Ogilvie: The word of Yahweh came not merely to communicate information, but as a word of power, an agent to accomplish the purpose of God in difficult times. The word came “to” Joel, but was not to stop there. It was a word for Joel’s generation and beyond (1:3), continuing to accomplish God’s purpose long after Joel had left the scene. This is the quality of all of God’s word given to us in the Bible (2 Tim. 3:16–17), but seldom is it so explicit as in the opening verses of Joel.
Thomas Constable: the son of Pethuel (lit. “Persuaded of God,” “Openheartedness of God,” or “Sincerity of God“).
B. (:2a) Call for Attention
Lloyd Ogilvie: Joel begins his communication of the Lord’s Word with an impassioned call to attention. The call to hear and give ear marks the message to follow as especially crucial, worthy of undivided attention. First Joel addresses the elders, the leaders of the community. He wants to make sure that they understand God’s word for their position of responsibility and influence in the community. But Joel does not rely upon them alone to communicate the message. He also addresses all the inhabitants of the land. This is a message for all the people of Judah and Jerusalem. A vital connection needed to be made between something that happened and what the Lord wanted to say to His people.
- Directed to the Leaders
“Hear this, O elders”
James Nogalski: By evoking covenant curse imagery, this prophetic composition calls the community to recognize the dangers confronting it and functions as the mirror image of the covenant curses in Deut 28–29. Whereas Deut 28–30 addresses Yahweh’s people on the far side of the Jordan and admonishes them about the importance of covenant obedience when they enter the land, Joel calls the community to see the curses happening in the land as a sign to return to Yahweh. In Deuteronomy, the curse is proleptic; in Joel, it is happening.
- Directed to the People
“And listen, all inhabitants of the land”
Devastation targeted against the land which is the source of all material prosperity in their agrarian culture
James Nogalski: The commands reflect classic synonymous parallelism where the two verbs (hear, lend an ear) are followed closely by the vocative subject (elders, inhabitants of the land). Synonymous parallelism does not mean that the two parts of the command are identical. In actuality, the verbs function here as virtual synonyms, but the two subjects serve as a merism (polar opposites that express a totality). These subjects address two different groups, the leadership and the general population, but taken together they signify that what follows affects everyone in the entire country.
C. (:2b) Uniqueness of the Devastation – extent, severity …
“Has anything like this happened in your days
Or in your fathers’ days?”
David Baker: The message starts with rhetorical questions (cf. 1:16; 3:4), which draw the audience into the message from the beginning, seeking a response rather than asking for actual information. When the audience’s thinking is thus engaged, they are already invested in receiving the rest of the message.
Lloyd Ogilvie: He challenges them to analyze the present situation and compare it with past events, and thus to recognize the extraordinary quality of what was happening to them. This recalls some of the descriptions of the extraordinary events during the Exodus (Ex. 10:6, 14; Deut. 4:32–35).
Duane Garrett: The point of the verse is that this locust plague is no ordinary misfortune; it is unique. The alert reader sees an echo of Deut 4:32–34 here. In that text Moses asked if anyone could remember anything since creation so wonderful as the election of Israel. Joel used the same rhetorical device to point out that God had done a new thing that was as uniquely terrible as the election of Israel was uniquely wonderful. In the locust plague he had undone creation itself. This was the day of the Lord.
Leslie Allen: After the imperatives he stimulates his audience further by posing rhetorical questions, a stylistic device also used by Isaiah after similar invitations to listen. The crisis in which the state is engulfed is unprecedented. He challenges his hearers to cull a parallel from personal experience or from the traditions of their national history. Indeed, momentous history is being written in their own times, as the prophet implies in his call to pass on an account of what has happened to their children for posterity to remember. “Never before and never again” is the dramatic style by which the prophet describes the exceptional nature of the tragic experience the people have been living through. His purpose is to drive them to perceive some meaning in this nadir of unique disaster and to relate it and themselves to the providential purposes of God. Their encounter with the extraordinary demands a special religious response to the divine Maker of history.
Biblehub: This rhetorical question is designed to provoke reflection and acknowledgment of the unprecedented nature of the events being described. It suggests a calamity so severe that it surpasses any previous experiences of the current generation. This could refer to the locust plague described later in the book, which serves as both a literal disaster and a metaphor for impending judgment. The uniqueness of the event is meant to awaken the people to the seriousness of their situation.
D. (:3) Testimony to Succeeding Generations
“Tell you sons about it,
And let your sons tell their sons,
And their sons the next generation.”
Tchavdar Hadjiev: As Jeremias (2007: 12) rightly observes, the motif of telling the future generations about the mighty deeds of the Lord is common in Old Testament literature (Pss 22:30–31; 44:1; 48:13; 78:1–4). It plays an important role in the exodus tradition (Exod. 12:26–27; 13:8, 14), especially in the narrative about the locust plague (Exod. 10:2). The point of remembering what God has done in the past is to develop an attitude of trust, obedience and adoration (Deut. 6:20–25; Pss 22:4–5; 79:13). Therefore, what is to be passed onto the children is the story of how the community turned to the Lord with weeping (2:12–17) in a time of great suffering (1:4 – 2:11) and how God delivered and blessed them (2:18–27).
II. (:4) DEVASTATION DESCRIBED
from Surprising Enemy — Four Waves of Locust Attacks
(Different types of locusts or describing waves of attacks)
Duane Garrett: The impact of the verse is that the wrath of Yahweh is inescapable; those who think they have avoided one stage of the calamity are caught by another. In this Joel 1:4 is like Amos 5:19: “It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him.” The expositor of Joel, rather than give his congregation a lesson in entomology, would do well to drive home this lesson. Also the emphasis on the last remaining bits of food being consumed by the locusts reflects the story of the plague of locusts in Egypt during the exodus. What God had once done to his enemies he was now doing to Jerusalem.
A. Army of Gnawing Locusts
“What the gnawing locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten”
Daniel Epp-Tiessen: In the ancient Near East, locusts were among the most feared of natural disasters because they could eat all the grain crops of subsistence farmers, defoliate fruit trees and grapevines, and consume the vegetation that livestock depended on. Locust hordes meant malnutrition, illness, and starvation. Not surprisingly, locusts are a feared natural disaster or form of divine punishment in the Bible (Exod 10:3-20; Deut 28:38; Judg 6:3-6; 7:12; 1 Kings 8:37; 2 Chron 6:28; 7:13; Pss 78:46; 105:34-35; Jer 46:23; Amos 7:1-3; Nah 3:15; Rev 9:1-11).
B. Army of Swarming Locusts
“What the swarming locust has left, the creeping locust has eaten”
Thomas Constable: Four different words for “locusts” appear in this verse (and in 2:25), but a total of nine occur in the Old Testament. These words have led some interpreters to conclude that four subspecies of locusts are in view. Others believe that locusts in four stages of maturity are meant. It seems better, however, to view “these piranhas of the sky” as coming in four waves: gnawing, swarming, creeping, and stripping—as they devoured the vegetation.
C. Army of Creeping Locusts
“What the creeping locust has left, the stripping locust has eaten”
D. Army of Stripping Locusts
Lloyd Ogilvie: It was the degree of the destruction that made the locust attack in Joel’s time an extraordinary event. Yet Joel’s main burden was not to have his people pass on the report of a locust infestation. It was primarily what the locust plague exposed about the people’s relationship to God. They had drifted from Him and were ill-prepared to face the crisis. The significance of this extraordinary event is developed in the rest of the word of the Lord to Joel.
Tchavdar Hadjiev: The piling of near synonyms combined with the skillful use of repetition creates the overall impression of the enormity of the locust plague, a disaster of breathtaking magnitude.
John Goldingay: Locusts are a type of grasshopper that is mostly harmless but sometimes breeds abundantly, swarms from place to place, and consumes everything that grows in an area. The four nouns for locust might denote different species, though it’s odd that the regular word for “locust” comes second, and one wonders whether Joel would expect his audience to be that expert in entomology. More likely he simply uses a variety of words for the insects, like an English speaker referring to flies, wasps, mosquitos, and hornets; Hebrew has several other words that are sometimes translated locust (see, e.g., Amos 7:1). The point in the list is to convey the dimensions of the disaster and the relentless sequence of destructive invaders. The repetition of “leavings” conveys how the locusts have demonstrated their devastating capacity to consume crops. Though the idea that the locust plague is unprecedented may be an exaggeration, the hyperbole indicates the monumental nature of what has happened.
Anthony Gelston: Almost two-thirds of Joel is concerned with a plague of locusts. These insects are notorious for their tendency to multiply and for their systematic feeding in large groups, leaving whole areas stripped of vegetation. To a fragile natural economy like that of ancient Israel they represented a serious threat to human subsistence, and it is only in modern times that effective countermeasures such as the aerial spraying of insecticides have emerged. One of the plagues of Egypt at the time of the Exodus consisted of locusts (Exod 10:1–20), while they figure in the list of natural disasters associated with famine in the prayer attributed to Solomon at the dedication of the temple (1 Kgs 8:37). A plague of locusts was thus seen as a natural disaster fit to occasion a religious response in the form of a communal fast, while it was always possible that it might be interpreted as a divine judgment on the people for their sins. A good example may be seen in the first of Amos’s visions (7:1–3), where the threatened judgment takes the form of a plague of locusts, in response to which the prophet intercedes that the plague may be averted since it would threaten the survival of the people.
III. (:5-13) DEVASTATION LAMENTED
Robert Chisholm: This section contains four units (vv. 5-7, 8-10, 11-12, 13), each of which includes a call proper (vv. 5a, 8, 11a, 13a) followed by the reasons for sorrow (vv. 5b-7, 9-10, 11b-12, 13b). The personified land (or city?) as well as some of the groups most severely affected by the plague (drunkards, farmers, priests) were addressed.
Thomas Constable: Joel called on four different groups of people to mourn the results of the locust invasion: drunkards (vv. 5-7), Jerusalemites (vv. 8-10), farmers (vv. 11-12), and priests (v. 13). In each section there is a call to mourn followed by reasons to mourn.
A. (:5-7) Lamented by Wine Lovers
- (:5) Call Addressed to 2 Different Categories of Offenders
a. Alcoholics – Using wine as an Escape
“Awake, drunkards, and weep”
Lloyd Ogilvie: This group may be blind to the present distress because of their intoxication, but they will be wide awake when their supply of wine is exhausted without any way to replenish it. Not only drunkards, but all drinkers of wine are called to wail in lament, because the “new wine” is cut off. This refers to the juice just taken from the winepress, before it has turned to wine. The locust plague has denuded the vine and blocked its production.
b. Sophisticated Pleasure Seekers
“And wail, all you wine drinkers”
c. Same Deprivation
“On account of the sweet wine that is cut off from your mouth.”
Nothing wrong with drinking the fruit of the vine
Leon Wood: called attention not only to the debased nature of society but to the people’s insensitivity to their own condition, a moral decadence that if unchecked would bring on national disaster. Times of ease too often result in dissipation.
- (:6) Characteristics of Invading Forces
“For a nation has invaded my land, Mighty and without number;
Its teeth are the teeth of a lion, And it has the fangs of a lioness.”
Trent Butler: Lions are another image of fierceness and fear. Locusts had neither teeth nor fangs. Neither did an enemy army, but the locusts attacking the land and the army attacking the nation gave the impression of being fierce and fearful in the Judean psyche. The prophet thus piled up poetic imagery to create an emotional aura of dread, fear, helplessness, distress, and disaster.
David Baker: The attackers are devastating—“powerful” in strength and numbers (Joel 2:2, 5, 11; cf. Ex. 1:9; Zech. 8:22) and “without number” as they were in Egypt (Ps. 105:34; cf. 2 Chron. 12:3; Ps. 104:25; Jer. 46:23). Their ferocity is also accentuated, comparing their teeth to those of known killers, the lion (1 Kings 13:24; 20:36; cf. Job 4:10; Rev. 9:8) and lioness (Deut. 33:20; Hos. 13:8). The regular term for “tooth” (šen) is used first. The second, parallel term (metalleʿôt) is rarer, occurring only in conjunction with the former (Job 29:17; Prov. 30:14; cf. Ps. 58:7, with a reordering of two letters). A use of both terms in the Dead Sea material compares them with sword and spear (1QHa 13:10), sharp, offensive weapons of war.
- (:7) Consequences of Devastating Calamity
“It has made my vine a waste, And my fig tree splinters.
It has stripped them bare and cast them away;
Their branches have become white.”
Tchavdar Hadjiev: The vine and the fig trees appear together as a proverbial image of security and blessing (2 Kgs 18:31; Mic. 4:4) which is here reversed. Three times the first-person singular pronoun appears (my land, my vines, my fig trees). The speaker could be God, but more likely the pronoun refers to the prophet who is identifying himself with his audience and their plight (see the first-person singular in v. 19).
Biblehub: it has stripped off the bark and thrown it away —
Stripping off the bark signifies a complete stripping away of protection and vitality, leaving the tree vulnerable and exposed. This can be seen as a metaphor for the removal of God’s protection over Israel due to their disobedience. The act of throwing it away suggests a disregard for what was once valuable, highlighting the consequences of turning away from God. This imagery is reminiscent of the stripping away of blessings and protection when the covenant is broken, as seen in Deuteronomy 28.the branches have turned white —
The branches turning white indicates death and desolation, as the life-giving sap is no longer present. This can symbolize the spiritual death that results from sin and separation from God. The whiteness of the branches may also suggest a form of leprosy, a condition often associated with sin and impurity in biblical times. This imagery serves as a stark warning of the consequences of unrepentant sin, urging the people to return to God for restoration and healing.
B. (:8-10) Lamented by Worship Leaders
- (:8) Contradictory Deprivation
“Wail like a virgin girded with sackcloth
for the bridegroom of her youth.”
Thomas Constable: The next entity called to mourn appears to be Jerusalem. The gender of “Wail” is feminine (singular), and Jerusalem is often compared to a virgin daughter in the Old Testament (e.g., 2 Kings 19:21; Lam. 1:15; cf. Joel 2:1, 15, 23, 32).
Lloyd Ogilvie: Sackcloth was a coarse garment made of goat or camel hair, which was often worn as a sign of mourning. A virgin mourning for her husband seems to us a contradiction in terms. Scholars have generally agreed that this points to a time of death after engagement but before the wedding. The extreme sorrow of a woman in that bitter moment indicates the intensity of the lament to which Joel calls his people in their present distress.
Leslie Allen: Joel claims that a tragedy has befallen the city which must evoke a demonstration of bitter grief. The tragedy is comparable with a personal bereavement. In the ancient Near East, marriage took place in two stages, the first of which was betrothal, an act more binding than the modern engagement. Although the consummation of marriage was delayed till after the second stage, so close a bond did betrothal create that the betrothed man could be called “husband,” as more literally here, and the betrothed woman could be called “wife.” One can imagine the anticipation of a betrothed girl as she looked forward to the wedding and life shared with the man who was already her own—and the bitter frustration of his being snatched from her waiting arms by death. The poet depicts a scene of acute pathos. Instead of donning the customary embroidered, gaily colored wedding robes and enjoying the usual merrymaking, she puts on her widow’s weeds of sackcloth and wails a dirge. Amos had drawn a similar analogy of wearing sackcloth in mourning for an only son to illustrate intense grief.
- (:9) Cessation of Sacrifices
“The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off
From the house of the Lord.
The priests mourn, the ministers of the Lord.”
Leslie Allen: Although various rites of sacrifice would be affected, principal reference is probably being made to the traditional daily ritual in which every morning and evening the sacrifice of a lamb as a burnt offering was accompanied by an offering of meal moistened with oil and by a libation of wine. Shortage of supplies of important ingredients made these divinely ordained services impossible. The clock of religious routine, which it was the duty of each generation of Israelites to keep ticking, had to be allowed to run down and stop. Members of other cultures in which ritual traditions do not play a compulsive part can hardly understand the overtones of emotional horror with which the simple statement is invested for Joel and especially for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, across whose lives fell the shadow of the adjacent temple.
- (:10) Complete Devastation
“The field is ruined, the land mourns;
For the grain is ruined, the new wine dries up, fresh oil fails.”
David Baker: In verse 10, the grounds for the deprivation and mourning are established: Three staples of life—grain, wine, and oil—fail from earth and field. The assault on life is accentuated at many levels through literary means that are lost in translation: through staccato pounding of five, two-word clauses, each having an identical beat number for both words; through pervasive alliteration and assonance;34 and through piling on verbs of destruction. Devastation comes to the cultivated field (vv. 11, 12, 19, 20; Gen. 37:7; Mic. 3:12) as it does to its grain (Joel 1:17; 2:19), the source of flour for daily bread (2 Kings 18:32).
Biblehub: Oil was essential for daily life, used in cooking, lighting, and anointing. Its failure signifies a breakdown in both domestic and religious life. Oil was a symbol of the Holy Spirit and God’s anointing (1 Samuel 16:13), and its absence suggests a withdrawal of divine favor and presence. This failure can be linked to the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25:1-13, where oil represents readiness and spiritual preparedness. The lack of oil underscores the urgent need for the people to return to God and seek His restoration.
C. (:11-12) Lamented by Working Laborers – in the farms and vineyards and orchards
“Be ashamed, O farmers, Wail, O vinedressers,
For the wheat and the barley,
Because the harvest of the field is destroyed.
The vine dries up and the fig tree fails;
The pomegranate, the palm also, and the apple tree,
All the trees of the field dry up.”
James Nogalski: The commands to be ashamed and lament imply guilt. In other words, they assume that the current situation should be understood as punishment from Yahweh and calls for them to respond. They do not, however, specify what the people have done to merit this wrath. As already noted, scholars have explained the lack of specific crimes in various ways. What is clear, however, is that the prophet’s words assume the people are guilty of something.
Key = Connection Between Physical Deprivation and Happiness
“Indeed, rejoicing dries up from the sons of men.”
Trent Butler: The reasons to howl in lamentation continue. The grape-producing vine has dried up, and the fig tree has withered away. The pomegranate (Deut. 8:8), the date palm (Lev. 23:40), and the apple tree (Prov. 25:11) represent fruit that was eaten as well as objects revered for their beauty and their connection with lovers. The sweetness of life had disappeared. Throughout the section the prophet uses a play on Hebrew words meaning to be ashamed (bosh) and to dry up (yabesh). This comes to a climax here as the prophet summarizes all he has tried to say. Add up his inventory of resources, and you discover that “the jubilation has been put to shame (or withered away) from among the sons of man” (author’s translation). Causes for joy are now causes for shame. Joy has dried up and withered away from Judah and Jerusalem.
D. (:13) Lamented by Worship Leaders (priests / ministers of the altar)
“Gird yourselves with sackcloth and lament, O priests;
Wail, O ministers of the altar!
Come, spend the night in sackcloth O ministers of my God,
For the grain offering and the drink offering
are withheld from the house of your God.”
Thomas Constable: Tragedy of curtailed worship
James Limburg: What could the people do, having experienced such a plague in the past and now being faced with even more peril in their immediate future? Where could they turn? The prophet tells them that there is only one thing to do. They should gather for prayer and fasting and return to the Lord.
Daniel Epp-Tiessen: The community is grief-stricken by the total failure of agricultural production, which has curtailed the required grain and drink offerings at the temple (1:9; cf. Exod 29:40-41; Lev 23:13, 18; Num 6:15; 15:24; 28:3-10; 29:11, 16-39). For pious Jews, this represented a loss of communion and right relationship with God, a threat to the covenant relationship. The spotlight shines on the priests, who would have multiple reasons to mourn. Now unable to exercise their vocation of offering sacrifices, they more than anyone should be grieved by the end of important rituals, and they should also feel deep sadness over the condition of the starving people they are called to represent before God. Moreover, priests depended for their physical sustenance on receiving a share of the offerings that people brought to the temple (Lev 2:3, 10; 6:16-18; 7:9-10). So important to Joel are the temple offerings that he mentions them at least two more times (1:13; 2:14; cf. 1:16).
IV. (:14-15) DEVASTATION INTERPRETED
(the immediate historical context is but a foreshadowing of the awful coming destruction of the eschatological Day of the Lord)
These are the key verses in Chap. 1
A. (:14) Response of the People: Consecration to the Lord
- Fasting
“Consecrate a fast,”
- Assembling (for national day of repentance and pleading)
“Proclaim a solemn assembly;
Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land
To the house of the Lord your God,”
Tchavdar Hadjiev: The magnitude of the disaster is measured by its effects on temple worship; the way out of it is in the performance of cultic actions. The priests are called to Come to the temple and pass the night in sackcloth and prayer (cf. 2 Sam. 12:16). A fast accompanied mourning, weeping (2 Sam. 1:12) and wearing of sackcloth (1 Kgs 21:27; Ps. 35:13) to signify grief or remorse. For a communal fast people gathered at the temple (Jer. 36:6, 9) in response to a natural (Jer. 14:1–12) or a military (Judg. 20:25–26) disaster. This is what Joel is inviting the people to do in response to the locust plague.
- Petitioning
“And cry out to the Lord.”
B. (:15) Threat from the Almighty: Impending Day of the Lord
“Alas for the day!
For the day of the Lord is near,
And it will come as destruction from the Almighty.”
John MacArthur: The Heb term “destruction” forms a powerful play on words with the “Almighty.” The notion of invincible strength is foremost; destruction at the hand of omnipotent God is coming.
Lloyd Ogilvie: Joel’s special burden is to lift the gaze of his people from their present distress to the more awesome destruction that it foreshadows and to lead them to a proper response.
John Goldingay: Yahweh’s day is a day when he acts to bring horrific calamity and devastation. It brings destruction (šōd) from the destroyer (šadday). While the divine title šadday recurs in the First Testament and has various possible etymologies, the only interpretation it ever receives is the link with the verb meaning “destroy” (šādad), here in Joel and in Isa. 13:6. In that passage, the calamitous destruction that Yahweh brings is disaster overtaking Israel’s oppressors and enemies, so that it is good news for Israel, as in Ezekiel and in Obadiah. But it may be disaster that overtakes Israel itself. The oldest reference to Yahweh’s day (Amos 5:18–20) presupposes the first significance, disaster for enemies, as desired by Ephraim. But for Ephraim in his own day, Amos replaces it with the second, disaster for Ephraim. This occurrence in Joel has the same effect for Judah in relation to Isa. 13:6. People need to see the disaster that he portrays as a destructive act of God like the day of Yahweh that came for Ephraim in 722 and for Judah in 587 (Lam. 1:12, 21; 2:1, 21, 22 speak of the fall of Jerusalem as the announced day of Yahweh’s wrath).
David Baker: A new section is discernable here because of the change of address to the first person; the speaker himself comes more to the fore (see 1:6). The previously dominant litany of imperatives also stops. This is a cry of distress (cf. Judg. 11:35). It introduces for the first time in this book the concept of “the day of the LORD,” an important event developed in previous and subsequent prophecies. It provides the speaker’s own perspective on the calamity that has happened to him and his people.
V. (:16-20) DEVASTATION DETAILED
A. (:16) Summary Impact
- In the Physical Realm – Very Abrupt
“Has not food been cut off before our eyes”
- In the Emotional and Spiritual Realms
“Gladness and joy from the house of our God?”
B. (:17-18) Lack of Food Impacts Both Man and Beast
- (:17) Impact on Man – No Harvest to Collect and Store
“The seeds shrivel under their clods;
The storehouses are desolate,
The barns are torn down,
For the grain is dried up.”
- (:18) Impact on Beast – No Pastureland for Grazing
“How the beasts groan!
The herds of cattle wander aimlessly
Because there is no pasture for them,
Even the flocks of sheep suffer.”
Leslie Allen: The prophet moves from failure of the crops to a poignant description of farm animals in distress. His heart goes out in remarkable tenderness to the thirsty, starving creatures in response to their piteous lowing. He interprets their noise in human terms as groans. As he had imaginatively depicted the countryside as mourning in vv. 10, 12, so now he fancies that the very animals join in the lament. The whole creation seems to be groaning, as Paul was to affirm in another age (Rom. 8:22). And if brother ox and brother sheep are responding in this way, implies the prophet, ought not we ourselves join in unison? There is an implicit contrast between the response of brute animals and the people’s insensitivity. He observes with compassionate eye the weary wandering of cattle in search of pasture, driven by the hunger pangs of empty stomachs. His sympathetic eye has also seen the sheep suffering from lack of grass and whole flocks dying off.
C. (:19-20) Desperate Turning to God — Combination of Fire, Drought, Famine
James Nogalski: The prayer in 1:19–20 is structured in two parts: the prophet’s cry (1:19) and the prophet’s report of the longing of the animals (1:20). An inclusio at the beginning and end of the prayer joins the two parts: for fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
- (:19) Impact on Man
a. Only One Source for Deliverance Known to Man
“To You, O Lord, I cry”
b. Impact of Fire, Drought and Famine
“For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness
And the flame has burned up all the trees of the field.”
- (:20) Impact on Beast
a. Only One Source of Deliverance Available for Beasts
“Even the beasts of the field pant for You”
b. Impact of Fire, Drought and Famine
“For the water brooks are dried up
And fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.”
Thomas Constable: The brooks were dry, and even the wild animals panted for water. Joel could say they panted for Yahweh because the Lord was the provider of the water these animals sought (cf. Ps. 42:1). By panting for Yahweh these animals set a good example for the people of Judah and Jerusalem.
Trent Butler: In another poetic leap of language, the prophet says the wild animals pant for God. The verb really means to “crave, long for.” The animals join the prophet and the cattle in lamenting over the situation they face. They have neither food nor drink. What can they do? They can only moan and pant after God to see if he will supply their needs. This is the pattern the people also must follow. Must God’s people go to the cattle and the wild beasts of the field to learn how to pray and depend on God in time of desperation and hopelessness?