Joel 1:2

Introduction to the Book of the Prophet Joel Joel, the son of Pethuel, the second of the twelve minor prophets, was, as is said, of the tribe of Reuben, and city of Bethoran; or rather Betharan, for Bethoran was on this side Jordan, in the tribe of Ephraim, and Betharan was on the other side of the river, in the tribe of Reuben. Joel prophesied in the kingdom of Judah; and it is the opinion of some critics that he did not appear there till after the removal of the ten tribes and the destruction of the kingdom of Israel. We do not know distinctly the year wherein he began to prophesy, nor that in which he died. He speaks of a great famine, and an inundation of locusts, which ravaged Judea; but as these are evils not uncommon in that country, and all sorts of events have not been registered in history, we can infer nothing from thence towards fixing the particular period of Joel's prophecy. St. Jerome, followed by many others, both ancients and moderns, believed Joel to have been contemporary with Hosea, according to this rule laid down by him, that when there is no certain proof of the time wherein any prophet lived, we are to be directed in our conjectures by the time of the preceding prophet, whose epoch is better known. But this rule is not always certain, and should not hinder us from following another system, if we have good reason for doing so. The Hebrews maintain that Joel prophesied under Manasseh; and as collateral circumstances seem to preponderate in favor of this hypothesis, it has been accordingly followed in the margin. Under the idea of an enemy's army, the prophet represents a cloud of locusts, which in his time fell upon Judea, and caused great desolation. This, together with the caterpillars, and the drought, brought a terrible famine upon the land. God, being moved with the calamities and prayers of his people, scattered the locusts, and the wind blew them into the sea. These misfortunes were succeeded by plenty and fertility. After this, the prophet foretold the day of the Lord, and the vengeance he was to exercise in the valley of Jezreel. He speaks of the teacher of righteousness, whom God was to send; and of the Holy Spirit, which was to descend upon all flesh. He says that Jerusalem will be inhabited for ever; that salvation will come out from thence; and that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. All this relates to the new covenant, and the time of the Messiah. See Calmet. Bishop Lowth observes that "the style of Joel differs much from that of Hosea; but, though of a different kind, is equally poetical. It is elegant, perspicuous, clear, diffusive, and flowing; and, at the same time, very sublime, nervous, and animated. He displays the whole power of poetic description in the first and second chapters; and, at the same time, his fondness for metaphors, comparisons, and allegories; nor is the connection of his subjects less remarkable than the graces of his diction. It is not to be denied that in some places he is very obscure; which every attentive reader will perceive, especially in the end of this prophecy." Prael. xxi.; and see Dodd. The two first chapters are inimitably beautiful; and the language, in force, and often in sound, well adapted to the subject. See the note on Joe 1:1 (note). This and the beginning of the next chapter contain a double prophecy, applicable in its primary sense to a plague of locusts which was to devour the land, and to be accompanied with a severe drought and famine; and in its secondary sense it denotes the Chaldean invasion. Both senses must be admitted: for some of the expressions will apply only to the dearth by insects; others to the desolation by war. The contexture of both is beautiful and well conducted. In this chapter the distress of every order of people is strongly painted; and not only does the face of nature languish when the God of nature is displeased, vv. 1-19; but the very beasts of the field, by a bold figure, are represented as supplicating God in their distress, and reproaching the stupidity of man, Joe 1:20. Verse 1 The word of the Lord that came to Joel - See the introduction for some account of this prophet, whose history is very obscure. Bishop Newcome thinks that he prophesied while the kingdom of Judah subsisted, and refers to Joe 2:1, Joe 2:15, (see also Joe 1:14 (note), and the note there), but not long before its subversion as his words, Joe 3:1, seem to imply that its captivity was approaching. See 2Kgs 21:10-15. He therefore favors the conjecture of Drusius, that this prophet lived under Manasseh, and before his conversion, 2Chr 33:13; that is, some time from before Christ 697 to (suppose) 660. Verse 2 Ye old men - Instead of הזקנים hazzekenim old men, a few MSS. have הכהנים haccohanim, ye priests, but improperly. Hath this been in your days - He begins very abruptly; and before he proposes his subject, excites attention and alarm by intimating that he is about to announce disastrous events, such as the oldest man among them has never seen, nor any of them learnt from the histories of ancient times. Verse 3 Tell ye your children of it - To heighten the effect, he still conceals the subject, and informs them that it is such as should be handed down from father to son through all generations. Verse 4 That which the palmerworm hath left - Here he begins to open his message, and the words he chooses show that he is going to announce a devastation of the land by locusts, and a famine consequent on their depredations. What the different insects may be which he specifies is not easy to determine. I shall give the words of the original, with their etymology. The palmerworm, גזם gazam, from the same root, to cut short; probably the caterpillar, or some such blight, from its cutting the leaves of the trees into pieces for its nourishment. The locust, ארבה arbeh, from רבה rabah, to multiply, from the immense increase and multitude of this insect. Cankerworm, ילק yelek, from לק lak, to lick or lap with the tongue; the reference is uncertain. Caterpillar, חסיל chasil, from חסל chasal, to consume, to eat up, the consumer. Bishop Newcome translates the first grasshopper; the second, locust; the third, devouring locust; and the fourth, consuming locust. After all that has been said by interpreters concerning these four animals, I am fully of opinion that the arbeh, or locust himself, is the gazam, the yelek, and the chasil and that these different names are used here by the prophet to point out the locust in its different states, or progress from embryo to full growth. See the note on Joe 2:2 (note). Verse 5 Awake, ye drunkards - The general destruction of vegetation by these devouring creatures has totally prevented both harvest and vintage; so that there shall not be wine even for necessary uses, much less for the purposes of debauchery. It is well known that the ruin among the vines by locusts prevents the vintage for several years after. Verse 6 A nation is come up upon my land - That real locusts are intended there can be little doubt; but it is thought that this may be a double prophecy, and that the destruction by the Chaldeans may also be intended, and that the four kinds of locusts mentioned above may mean the four several attacks made on Judea by them. The first in the last year of Nabonassar, (father of Nebuchadnezzar), which was the third of Jehoiakim; the second when Jehoiakim was taken prisoner in the eleventh year of his reign; the third in the ninth year of Zedekiah and the fourth three years after, when Jerusalem was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. Others say that they mean four powers which have been enemies of the Jews: 1. The palmerworm, the Assyrians and Chaldeans. 2. The locust, the Persians and Medes. 3. The cankerworm, the Greeks, and particularly Antiochus Epiphanes. 4. The caterpillar, the Romans. Others make them four kings; Tiglath-pileser, Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, and Nebuchadnezzar. But of such similitudes there is no end; and the best of them is arbitrary and precarious. Verse 7 He hath laid my vine waste - The locusts have eaten off both leaves and bark. חשף חשפה chasoph chasaphah, he hath made it clean bare; שדד שדה suddad sadeh, the field is laid waste, Joe 1:10; and כשד משדי kesod mishshaddai, a destruction from the Almighty, Joe 1:15; are all paronomasias in which this prophet seems to delight. Verse 8 Lament like a virgin - for the husband of her youth - Virgin is a very improper version here. The original is בתולה bethulah, which signifies a young woman or bride not a virgin, the proper Hebrew for which is עלמה almah. See the notes on Isa 7:14 (note), and Mat 1:23 (note). Verse 9 The meat-offering and the drink-offering is cut off - The crops and the vines being destroyed by the locusts, thee total devastation in plants, trees, corn, etc., is referred to and described with a striking variety of expression in this and the following verses. Verse 12 The vine is dried up - Dr. Shaw observes that in Barbary, in the month of June, the locusts collect themselves into compact bodies a furlong or more square, and march on, eating up every thing that is green or juicy, and letting nothing escape them, whether vegetables or trees. They destroy the pomegranate, the palm, the apple, (תפוח tappuach, the citron tree), the vine, the fig, and every tree of the field. See the note on Joe 2:2 (note). Verse 14 Call a solemn assembly - עצרה atsarah signifies a time of restraint, as the margin has it. The clause should be translated - consecrate a fast, proclaim a time of restraint; that is, of total abstinence from food, and from all secular employment. All the elders of the land and the representatives of the people were to be collected at the temple to cry unto the Lord, to confess their sins, and pray for mercy. The temple was not yet destroyed. This prophecy was delivered before the captivity of Judah. Verse 15 Alas for the day! - The Syriac repeats this, the Vulgate, Septuagint, and Arabic, thrice: "Alas, alas, alas, for the day!" As a destruction from the Almighty - The destruction that is now coming is no ordinary calamity; it is as a signal judgment immediately inflicted by the Almighty. Verse 17 The seed is rotten under their clods - When the sprout was cut off as low as possible by the locusts, there was no farther germination. The seed rotted away. Verse 18 How do the beasts groan! - I really think that the neighing of horses, or braying of asses, is wonderfully expressed by the sound of the original: מה נאנחה בהמה mah Neenchah behemah, how do the horses neigh! how do the asses bray! בהמה behemah is a collective name for all domestic cattle, and those used in husbandry. Cattle are perplexed - They are looking everywhere, and wandering about to find some grass, and know not which way to run. Verse 19 O Lord, to thee will I cry - Let this calamity come as it may, we have sinned, and should humble ourselves before God; and it is such a calamity as God alone can remove, therefore unto him must we cry. The fire hath devoured the pastures - This may either refer to a drought, or to the effects of the locusts; as the ground, after they have passed over it, everywhere appears as if a sheet of flame had not only scorched, but consumed every thing. Verse 20 The beasts of the field cry also unto thee - Even the cattle, wild and tame, are represented as supplicating God to have mercy upon them, and send them provender! There is a similar affecting description of the effects of a drought in Jeremiah, Jer 14:6. The rivers of waters are dried up - There must have been a drought as well as a host of locusts; as some of these expressions seem to apply to the effects of intense heat. For המדבר hammidbar, "the wilderness," one of my oldest MSS. reads מדבר midbar, "wilderness" simply, as in Jer 14:19. Eight or ten of Dr. Kennicott's have the same reading.

Threatenings of Judgment. ( b. c. 720.) 1 The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethuel. 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? 3 Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. 4 That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the canker-worm eaten; and that which the canker-worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten. 5 Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth. 6 For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion. 7 He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white. It is a foolish fancy which some of the Jews have, that this Joel the prophet was the same with that Joel who was the son of Samuel ( 1 Sam. viii. 2 ); yet one of their rabbin very gravely undertakes to show why Samuel is here called Pethuel. This Joel was long after that. He here speaks of a sad and sore judgment which was now brought, or to be brought, upon Judah, for their sins. Observe, I. The greatness of the judgment, expressed here in two things:—1. It was such as could not be paralleled in the ages that were past, in history, or in the memory of any living, v. 2 . The old men are appealed to, who could remember what had happened long ago; nay, and all the inhabitants of the land are called on to testify, if they could any of them remember the like. Let them go further than any man's memory, and prepare themselves for the search of their fathers ( Job viii. 8 ), and they would not find an account of the like in any record. Note, Those that outdo their predecessors in sin may justly expect to fall under greater and sorer judgments than any of their predecessors knew. 2. It was such as would not be forgotten in the ages to come ( v. 3 ): " Tell you your children of it; let them know what dismal tokens of the wrath of God you have been under, that they make take warning, and may learn obedience by the things which you have suffered, for it is designed for warning to them also. Yea, let your children tell their children, and their children another generation; let them tell it not only as a strange thing, which may serve for matter of talk" (as such uncommon accidents are records in our almanacs—It is so long since the plague, and fire—so long since the great frost, and the great wind), "but let them tell it to teach their children to stand in awe of God and of his judgments, and to tremble before him." Note, We ought to transmit to posterity the memorial of God's judgments as well as of his mercies. II. The judgment itself; it is an invasion of the country of Judea by a great army. Many interpreters both ancient and modern understand it of armies of men, the forces of the Assyrians, which, under Sennacherib, took all the defenced cities of Judah, and then, no doubt, made havoc of the country and destroyed the products of it: nay, some make the four sorts of animals here names ( v. 4 ) to signify the four monarchies which, in their turns, were oppressive to the people of the Jews, one destroying what had escaped the fury of the other. Many of the Jewish expositors think it is a parabolic expression of the coming of enemies, and their multitude, to lay all waste. So the Chaldee paraphrast mentions these animals ( v. 4 ); but afterwards ( ch. ii. 25 ) puts instead of them, Nations, peoples, tongues, languages, potentates, and revenging kingdoms. But it seems much rather to be understood literally of armies of insects coming upon the land and eating up the fruits of it. Locusts were one of the plagues of Egypt. Of them it is said, There never were any like them, nor should be ( Exod. x. 14 ), none such as those in Egypt, none such as these in Judah—none like those locusts for bigness, none like these for multitude and the mischief they did. The plague of locusts in Egypt lasted but for a few days; this seems to have continued for four years successively (as some think), because here are four sorts of insects mentioned ( v. 4 ), one destroying what the other left; but others think they came all in one year. We are not told, in the history of the Old Testament, when this happened, but we are sure that no word of God fell to the ground; and, though a devastation by these insects is primarily intended here, yet it is expressed in such a language as is very applicable to the destruction of the country by a foreign enemy invading it, because, if the people were not humbled and reformed by that less judgment which devoured the land, God would send this greater upon them, which would devour the inhabitants; and by the description of that they are bidden to take it for a warning. If this nation of worms do not subdue them, another nation shall come to ruin them. Observe, 1. What these animals are that are sent against them— locusts and caterpillars, palmer-worms and canker-worms, v. 4 . We cannot now describe how these differed one from another; they were all little insects, any one of them despicable, and which a man might easily crush with his foot or with his finger; but when they came in vast swarms, or shoals, they were very formidable and ate up all before them. Note, God is Lord of hosts, has all creatures at his command, and, when he pleases, can humble and mortify a proud and rebellious people by the weakest and most contemptible creatures. Man is said to be a worm; and by this it appears that he is less than a worm, for, when God pleases, worms are too hard for him, plunder his country, eat up that for which he laboured, destroy the forage, and cut off the subsistence of a potent nation. The weaker the instrument is that God employs the more is his power magnified. 2. What fury and force they came with. They are here called a nation ( v. 6 ), because they are embodied, and act by consent, and as it were with a common design; for, though the locusts have no king, yet they go forth all of them by bands ( Prov. xxx. 27 ), and it is there mentioned as an instance of their wisdom. It is prudence for those that are weak severally to unite and act jointly. They are strong, for they are without number. The small dust of the balance is light, and easily blown away, but a heap of dust is weighty; so a worm can do little (yet one worm served to destroy Jonah's gourd), but numbers of them can do wonders. They are said to have teeth of a lion, of a great lion, because of the great and terrible execution they do. Note, Locusts become as lions when they come armed with a divine commission. We read of the locusts out of the bottomless pit, that their teeth were as the teeth of lions, Rev. ix. 8 . 3. What mischief they do. They eat up all before them ( v. 4 ); what one leaves the other devours; they destroy not only the grass and corn, but the trees ( v. 7 ): The vine is laid waste. There vermin eat the leaves which should be a shelter to the fruit while it ripens, and so that also perishes and comes to nothing. They eat the very bark of the fig-tree, and so kill it. Thus the fig-tree does not blossom, nor is there fruit in the vine. III. A call to the drunkards to lament this judgment ( v. 5 ): Awake and weep, all you drinkers of wine. This intimates, 1. That they should suffer very sensibly by this calamity. It should touch them in a tender part; the new wine which they loved so well should be cut off from their mouth. Note, It is just with God to take away those comforts which are abused to luxury and excess, to recover the corn and wine which are prepared for Baal, which are made the food and fuel of a base lust. And to them judgments of that kind are most grievous. The more men place their happiness in the gratification of sense the more pressing temporal afflictions are upon them. The drinkers of water need not to care when the vine was laid waste; they could live as well without it as they had done; it was no trouble to the Nazarites. But the drinkers of wine will weep and howl. The more delights we make necessary to our satisfaction the more we expose ourselves to trouble and disappointment. 2. It intimates that they had been very senseless and stupid under the former tokens of God's displeasure; and therefore they are here called to awake and weep. Those that will not be roused out of their security by the word of God shall be roused by his rod; those that will not be startled by judgments at a distance shall be themselves arrested by them; and when they are going to partake of the forbidden fruit a prohibition of another nature shall come between the cup and the lip, and cut off the wine from their mouth.

Old men - The oldest among you, who can remember things done many years ago.