Text -- Joel 1:2-7 (NET)

A Locust Plague Foreshadows the Day of the Lord

1:2 Listen to this, you elders; pay attention, all inhabitants of the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your whole life or in the lifetime of your ancestors? 1:3 Tell your children about it, have your children tell their children, and their children the following generation. 1:4 What the gazam-locust left the ‘arbeh-locust consumed, what the ‘arbeh-locust left the yeleq-locust consumed, and what the yeleq-locust left the hasil-locust consumed! 1:5 Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you wine drinkers, because the sweet wine has been taken away from you. 1:6 For a nation has invaded our land. There are so many of them they are too numerous to count. Their teeth are like those of a lion; they tear apart their prey like a lioness. 1:7 They have destroyed our vines; they have turned our fig trees into mere splinters. They have completely stripped off the bark and thrown them aside; the twigs are stripped bare.

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Wesley: Joe 1:2

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

Wesley: Joe 1:4

worm - Four sorts of insects, are here mentioned, which succeeded each other, and devoured all that might be a support to the Jews, whence ensued a grievous famine.

Wesley: Joe 1:5

Suddenly cut off even when you are ready to drink it, and totally cut off by these devouring vermin.

Wesley: Joe 1:6

An innumerable multitude of locusts and caterpillars, called a nation here, as Solomon calls the conies and the ant, Pro 30:25-26, and perhaps a prognostick of a very numerous and mighty nation, that ere long will invade Judah.

Wesley: Joe 1:6

Mighty in power, and undaunted in courage, if you refer it to the Assyrian or Babylonians; if to those vermin, they are, though each weak by itself, yet in those multitudes, strong and irresistible.

Wesley: Joe 1:6

Such waste as lions make, these the locusts do, and the Assyrians will make.

JFB: Joe 1:2-3

A spirited introduction calling attention.

JFB: Joe 1:2-3

The best judges in question concerning the past (Deu 32:7; Job 32:7).

JFB: Joe 1:2-3

That is, Hath any so grievous a calamity as this ever been before? No such plague of locusts had been since the ones in Egypt. Exo 10:14 is not at variance with this verse, which refers to Judea, in which Joel says there had been no such devastation before.

JFB: Joe 1:3

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

JFB: Joe 1:4

This verse states the subject on which he afterwards expands. Four species or stages of locusts, rather than four different insects, are meant (compare Lev 11:22). Literally, (1) the gnawing locust; (2) the swarming locust; (3) the licking locust; (4) the consuming locust; forming a climax to the most destructive kind. The last is often three inches long, and the two antennæ, each an inch long. The two hinder of its six feet are larger than the rest, adapting it for leaping. The first "kind" is that of the locust, having just emerged from the egg in spring, and without wings. The second is when at the end of spring, still in their first skin, the locusts put forth little ones without legs or wings. The third, when after their third casting of the old skin, they get small wings, which enable them to leap the better, but not to fly. Being unable to go away till their wings are matured, they devour all before them, grass, shrubs, and bark of trees: translated "rough caterpillars" (Jer 51:27). The fourth kind, the matured winged locusts (see on Nah 3:16). In Joe 2:25 they are enumerated in the reverse order, where the restoration of the devastations caused by them is promised. The Hebrews make the first species refer to Assyria and Babylon; the second species, to Medo-Persia; the third, to Greco-Macedonia and Antiochus Epiphanes; the fourth, to the Romans. Though the primary reference be to literal locusts, the Holy Spirit doubtless had in view the successive empires which assailed Judea, each worse than its predecessor, Rome being the climax.

JFB: Joe 1:5

Out of your ordinary state of drunken stupor, to realize the cutting off from you of your favorite drink. Even the drunkards (from a Hebrew root, "any strong drink") shall be forced to "howl," though usually laughing in the midst of the greatest national calamities, so palpably and universally shall the calamity affect all.

JFB: Joe 1:5

"New" or "fresh wine," in Hebrew, is the unfermented, and therefore unintoxicating, sweet juice extracted by pressure from grapes or other fruit, as pomegranates (Son 8:2). "Wine" is the produce of the grape alone, and is intoxicating (see on Joe 1:10).

JFB: Joe 1:6

Applied to the locusts, rather than "people" (Pro 30:25-26), to mark not only their numbers, but also their savage hostility; and also to prepare the mind of the hearer for the transition to the figurative locusts in the second chapter, namely, the "nation" or Gentile foe coming against Judea (compare Joe 2:2).

JFB: Joe 1:6

That is, Jehovah's; which never would have been so devastated were I not pleased to inflict punishment (Joe 2:18; Isa 14:25; Jer 16:18; Eze 36:5; Eze 38:16).

JFB: Joe 1:6

As irresistibly sweeping away before its compact body the fruits of man's industry.

JFB: Joe 1:6

So Jdg 6:5; Jdg 7:12, "like grasshoppers (or "locusts") for multitude" (Jer 46:23; Nah 3:15).

JFB: Joe 1:6

That is, the locusts are as destructive as a lion; there is no vegetation that can resist their bite (compare Rev 9:8). PLINY says "they gnaw even the doors of houses."

JFB: Joe 1:7

BOCHART, with the Septuagint and Syriac, translates, from an Arabic root, "hath broken," namely, the topmost shoots, which locusts most feed on. CALVIN supports English Version.

JFB: Joe 1:7

Being in "My land," that is, Jehovah's (Joe 1:6). As to the vine-abounding nature of ancient Palestine, see Num 13:23-24.

JFB: Joe 1:7

Down to the ground.

JFB: Joe 1:7

Both from the bark being stripped off (Gen 30:37), and from the branches drying up through the trunk, both bark and wood being eaten up below by the locusts.

Clarke: Joe 1:2

Ye old men - Instead of הזקנים hazzekenim old men, a few MSS. have הכהנים haccohanim , ye priests, but improperly

Clarke: Joe 1:2

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.

Clarke: Joe 1:3

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.

Clarke: Joe 1:4

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).

Clarke: Joe 1:5

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.

Clarke: Joe 1:6

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.

Clarke: Joe 1:7

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.

Calvin: Joe 1:2

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.”

Calvin: Joe 1:3

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 then tell: 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.

Calvin: Joe 1:4

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.

Calvin: Joe 1:5

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.

Calvin: Joe 1:6

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.

Calvin: Joe 1:7

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.

Defender: Joe 1:4

Much of Joel's prophecy draws on the imagery suggested by a recent plague of locusts and other insects which had devastated the land of Judah. He uses these as a type of the ultimate "day of the Lord" - a phrase occurring five times in Joel's prophecy."

TSK: Joe 1:2

Hear : Psa 49:1; Isa 34:1; Jer 5:21; Hos 5:1; Amo 3:1, Amo 4:1, Amo 5:1; Mic 1:2; Mic 3:1, Mic 3:9; Mat 13:9; Rev 2:7

ye old : Job 8:8, Job 12:12, Job 15:10, Job 21:7

Hath : Joe 2:2; Deu 4:32-35; Isa 7:17; Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1; Mat 24:21

TSK: Joe 1:3

Exo 10:1, Exo 10:2, Exo 13:14; Deu 6:7; Jos 4:6, Jos 4:7, Jos 4:21, Jos 4:22; Psa 44:1, Psa 71:18, Psa 78:3-8; Psa 145:4; Isa 38:19

TSK: Joe 1:4

That which the palmerworm hath left : Heb. The residue of the palmer-worm, Joe 2:25; Amo 4:9; The learned Bochart, and others, are of the opinion that the four Hebrew words, gazam , yelek , arbeh , chasil , respectively rendered the palmer-worm, locust, canker-worm and caterpillar, denote four different species of locusts. See note on Exo 10:4

the locust eaten : Exo 10:12-15; Deu 28:38, Deu 28:42; 1Ki 8:37; 2Ch 6:28, 2Ch 7:13; Psa 78:46, Psa 105:34; Amo 7:1; Rev 9:3-7

the cankerworm eaten : Nah 3:15-17

the caterpillar : Isa 33:4; Jer 51:14, Jer 51:27

TSK: Joe 1:5

Awake : Isa 24:7-11; Amo 6:3-7; Luk 21:34-36; Rom 13:11-14

weep : Joe 1:11, Joe 1:13; Jer 4:8; Eze 30:2; Jam 5:1

for : Isa 32:10-12; Luk 16:19, Luk 16:23-25

TSK: Joe 1:6

nation : Joe 2:2-11, Joe 2:25; Pro 30:25-27

my : Psa 107:34; Isa 8:8, Isa 32:13; Hos 9:3

whose : Pro 30:14; Rev 9:7-10

TSK: Joe 1:7

laid : Joe 1:12; Exo 10:15; Psa 105:33; Isa 5:6, Isa 24:7; Jer 8:13; Hos 2:12; Hab 3:17

barked my fig tree : Heb. laid my fig-tree for a barking

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Joe 1:2

Hear this, ye old men - By reason of their age they had known and heard much; they had heard from their fathers, and their father’ s fathers, much which they had not known themselves. Among the people of the east, memories of past times were handed down from generation to generation, for periods, which to us would seem incredible. Israel was commanded, so to transmit the vivid memories of the miracles of God. The prophet appeals "to the old men, to hear,"and, (lest, anything should seem to have escaped them) to the whole people of the land, to give their whole attention to this thing, which he was about to tell them, and then, reviewing all the evils which each had ever heard to have been inflicted by God upon their forefathers, to say whether this thing had happened in their days or in the days of their fathers.

Barnes: Joe 1:3

Tell ye your children of it - In the order of God’ s goodness, generation was to declare to generation the wonders of His love. "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, the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children that they might ... not forget the works of God"Psa 78:5-7. This tradition of thankful memories God, as the Psalmist says, enforced in the law; "Take heed to thyself, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, but teach them thy sons and thy sons’ sons"(Deu 4:9; add Deu 6:6-7; Deu 11:19). This was the end of the memorial acts of the ritual, that their sons might inquire the meaning of them, the fathers tell them God’ s wonders Deu 6:20-24. Now contrariwise, they are, generation to generation, to tell concerning it, this message of unheard-of woe and judgment. The memory of God’ s deeds of love should have stirred them to gratitude; now He transmits to them memories of woe, that they might entreat God against them, and break off the sins which entail them.

Barnes: Joe 1:4

That which the palmerworm hath left, hath the locust eaten - The creatures here spoken of are different kinds of locusts, so named from their number or voracity. We, who are free from this scourge of God, know them only by the generic name of locusts. But the law mentions several sorts of locusts, each after its kind, which might be eaten . In fact, above eighty different kinds of locusts have been observed , some of which are twice as large as that which is the ordinary scourge of God . Slight as they are in themselves, they are mighty in God’ s Hand; beautiful and gorgeous as they are, floating in the sun’ s rays , they are a scourge, including other plagues, famine, and often, pestilence.

Of the four kinds, here named by the prophet, that rendered "locust"is so called from its multitude, (from where Jeremiah says "they are more numerous than the locust"See Jdg 6:5; Jdg 7:12; Psa 105:34; Nah 3:15. It is a proverb in Arabic also)), and is, probably, the creature which desolates whole regions of Asia and Africa. The rest are named from their voracity, the "gnawer,""licker,""consumer,"but they are, beyond doubt, distinct kinds of that destroyer. And this is the characteristic of the prophet’ s threatening, that he foretells a succession of destroyers, each more fatal than the preceding; and that, not according to the order of nature. For in all the observations which have been made of the locusts, even when successive flights have desolated the same land, they have always been successive clouds of the same creature.

Over and above the fact, then, that locusts are a heavy chastisement from God, these words of Joel form a sort of sacred proverb. They are the epitome of his whole prophecy. It is "this"which he had called the old men to hear, and to say whether they had known anything like "this;"that scourge came after scourge, judgment after judgment, until man yielded or perished. The visitation of locusts was one of the punishments threatened in the law, "Thou shall carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in, for the locust shall consume it"Deu 28:38. It was one of God’ s ordinary punishments for sin, in that country, like famine, or pestilence, or blight, or mildew, or murrain, or (in this) potato disease. Solomon, accordingly, at the dedication of the temple mentions the locust among the other plagues, which he then solemnly entreated God to remove, when individuals or the whole people should spread forth their hands in penitence toward that house 1Ki 8:37-38.

But the characteristic of "this"prophecy is the successiveness of the judgments, each in itself, desolating, and the later following quick upon the earlier, and completing their destructiveness. The judgments of God are linked together by an invisible chain, each drawing on the other; yet, at each link of the lengthening chain, allowing space and time for repentance to break it through. So in the plagues of Egypt, God, "executing His judgments upon them by little and little, gave them time for repentance"(Wisd. 12:10); yet, when Pharaoh hardened his heart, each followed on the other, until he perished in the Red Sea. In like way God said, "him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay; and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay"1Ki 19:17. So, in the Revelation, the "trumpets"are sounded Rev 8:1-13; Rev. 9; Rev 11:15, and "the vials of the wrath of God are poured out upon the earth, one after the other"Rev. 16. Actual locusts were very likely one of the scourges intended by the prophet. They certainly were not the whole; but pictured others fiercer, more desolating, more overwhelming. The proverbial dress gained and fixed people’ s attention on the truth, which, if it had been presented to the people nakedly, they might have turned from. Yet as, in God’ s wisdom, what is said generally, is often fulfilled specially, so here there were four great invaders which in succession wasted Judah; the Assyrian, Chaldaean, Macedonian and Roman.

Morally, also, four chief passions desolate successively the human heart. : "For what is designated by the "palmerworm,"which creeps with all its body on the ground, except it be lust, which so pollutes the heart which it possesses, that it cannot rise up to the love of heavenly purity? What is expressed by the "locust,"which flies by leaps, except vain glory which exalts itself with empty presumptions? What is typified by the "cankerworm,"almost the whole of whose body is gathered into its belly, except gluttony in eating? What but anger is indicated by mildew, which burns as it touches? What the "palmerworm"then "hath left the locust heath eaten,"because, when the sin of lust has retired from the mind, vain glory often succeeds. For since it is not now subdued by the love of the flesh, it boasts of itself, as if it were holy through its chastity. "And that which the locust hath left, the cankerworm hath eaten,"because when vain glory, which came, as it were, from holiness, is resisted, either the appetite, or some ambitious desires are indulged in too immoderately. For the mind which knows not God, is led the more fiercely to any object of ambition, in proportion as it is not restrained by any love of human praise. "That which the cankerworm hath left,"the mildew consumes, because when the gluttony of the belly is restrained by abstinence, the impatience of anger holds fiercer sway, which, like mildew, eats up the harvest by burning it, because the flame of impatience withers the fruit of virtue. When then some vices succeed to others, one plague devours the field of the mind, while another leaves it."

Barnes: Joe 1:5

Awake, ye drunkards, and weep - All sin stupefies the sinner. All intoxicate the mind, bribe and pervert the judgment, dull the conscience, blind the soul and make it insensible to its own ills. All the passions, anger, vain glory, ambition, avarice and the rest are a spiritual drunkenness, inebriating the soul, as strong drink doth the body. : "They are called drunkards, who, confused with the love of this world, feel not the ills which they suffer. What then is meant by, "Awake, ye drunkards and weep,"but, ‘ shake off the sleep of your insensibility, and oppose by watchful lamentations the many plagues of sins, which succeed one to the other in the devastation of your hearts?’ "God arouse those who will be aroused, by withdrawing from them the pleasures wherein they offended Him. Awake, the prophet cries, from the sottish slumber of your drunkenness; awake to weep and howl, at least when your feverish enjoyments are dashed from your lips. Weeping for things temporal may awaken to the fear of losing things eternal.

Barnes: Joe 1:6

For a nation is come up upon my land - He calls this scourge of God a "nation,"giving them the title most used in Holy Scripture, of pagan nations. The like term, "people, folk,"is used of the "ants"and the "conies"Pro 30:25-26, for the wisdom with which God teaches them to act. Here it is used, in order to include at once, the irrational invader, guided by a Reason above its own, and the pagan conqueror. This enemy, he says, is "come up"(for the land as being God’ s land, was exalted in dignity, above other lands,) "upon My land,"i. e. "the Lord’ s land"Hos 9:3, hitherto owned protected as God’ s land, a land which, Moses said to them, "the Lord thy God careth for; the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year"Deu 11:12. Now it was to be bared of God’ s protection, and to be trampled upon by a pagan foe.

Strong and without number - The figure is still from the locust, whose numbers are wholly countless by man. Travelers sometimes use likenesses to express their number, as clouds darkening the sun (see the note at Joe 2:10) or discharging flakes of snow ; some grave writers give it up, as hopeless. : "Their multitude is incredible, whereby they cover the earth and fill the air; they take away the brightness of the sun. I say again, the thing is incredible to one who has not seen them.""It would not be a thing to be believed, if one had not seen it.""On another day, it was beyond belief: they occupied a space of eight leagues (about 24 English miles). I do not mention the multitude of those without wings, because it is incredible.": "When we were in the Seignory of Abrigima, in a place called Aquate, there came such a multitude of locusts, as cannot be said. They began to arrive one day about terce (nine) and until night they cease not to arrive; and when they arrived, they bestowed themselves. On the next day at the hour of prime they began to depart, and at mid-day there was not one, and there remained not a leaf on the trees. At this instant others began to come, and staved like the others to the next day at the same hour; and these left not a stick with its bark, nor a green herb, and thus did they five days one after another; and the people said that they were the sons, who went to seek their fathers, and they took the road toward the others which had no wings. After they were gone, we knew the breadth which they had occupied, and saw the destruction which they had made, it exceeded three leagues (nine miles) wherein there remained no bark on the trees."

Another writes of South Africa ; "Of the innumerable multitudes of the incomplete insect or larva of the locusts, which at this time infested this part of Africa, no adequate idea could be conceived without having witnessed them. For the space of ten miles on each side of the Sea-Cow river, and eighty or ninety miles in length, an area of 16, or 1800 square miles, the whole surface might literally be said to be covered with them. The water of the river was scarcely visible on account of the dead carcasses which floated on the surface, drowned in the attempt to come at the weeds which grew in it.": "The present year is the third of their continuance, and their increase has far exceeded that of a geometrical progression whose whole ratio is a million."A writer of reputation says of a "column of locusts"in India ; "It extended, we were informed, 500 miles, and so compact was it when on the wing, that, like an eclipse, it completely hid the sun; so that no shadow was cast by any object, and some lofty tombs, not more than 200 yards distant, were rendered quite invisible."

In one single neighborhood, even in Germany, it was once calculated that near 17,000,000 of their eggs were collected and destroyed . Even Volney writes of those in Syria , "the quantity of these insects is a thing incredible to anyone who has not seen it himself; the ground is covered with them for several leagues.""The steppes,"says Clarke , an incredulous traveler, "were entirely covered by their bodies, and their numbers falling resembled flakes of snow, carried obliquely by the wind, and spreading thick mists over the sun. Myriads fell over the carriage, the horses, the drivers. The Tartars told us, that persons had been suffocated by a fall of locusts on the "steppes."It was now the season, they added, in which they began to diminish.": "It was incredible, that their breadth was eight leagues."

Strong - The locust is remarkable for its long flights. "Its strength of limbs is amazing; when pressed down by the hand on the table, it has almost power to move the fingers".

Whose teeth are the teeth of a lion - The teeth of the locust are said to be "harder than stone.": "They appear to be created for a scourge; since to strength incredible for so small a creature, they add saw-like teeth admirably calculated to "eat up all the herbs in the land.""Some near the Senegal, are described as "quite brown, of the thickness and length of a finger, and armed with two jaws, toothed like a saw, and very powerful."The prophet ascribes to them the sharp or prominent eye-teeth of the lion and lioness, combining strength with number. The ideal of this scourge of God is completed by blending numbers, in which creatures so small only could exist together, with the strength of the fiercest. : "Weak and short-lived is man, yet when God is angered against a sinful people, what mighty power does He allow to man against it!""And what more cruel than those who endeavor to slay souls, turning them from the Infinite and Eternal Good, and so dragging them to the everlasting torments of Hell?"

Barnes: Joe 1:7

He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree - This describes an extremity of desolation. The locusts at first attack all which is green and succulent; when this has been consumed, then they attack the bark of trees. : "When they have devoured all other vegetables, they attack the trees, consuming first the leaves, then the bark.": "A day or two after one of these bodies were in motion, others were already hatched to glean after them, gnawing off the young branches and the very bark of such trees as had escaped before with the loss only of their fruit and foliage.": "They carried desolation wherever they passed. After having consumed herbage, fruit, leaves of trees, they attacked even their young shoots and their bark. Even the reeds, wherewith the huts were thatched, though quite dry, were not spared.": "Everything in the country was devoured; the bark of figs, pomegranates, and oranges, bitter hard and corrosive, escaped not their voracity."The effects of this wasting last on for many years .

He hath made it clean bare - o : "It is sufficient, if these terrible columns stop half an hour on a spot, for everything growing on it, vines, olive trees, and grain, to be entirely destroyed. After they have passed, nothing remains but the large branches, and the roots which, being under ground, have escaped their voracity.": "After eating up the corn, they fell upon the vines, the pulse, the willows and even the hemp, notwithstanding its great bitterness.": "They are particularly injurious to the palm trees; these they strip of every leaf and green particle, the trees remaining like skeletons with bare branches.": "The bushes were eaten quite bare, though the animals could not have been long on the spot. They sat by hundreds on a bush gnawing the rind and the woody fibres."

The branches thereof are made white - o : "The country did not seem to be burnt, but to be much covered with snow, through the whiteness of the trees and the dryness of the herbs. It pleased God that the fresh crops were already gathered in."

The "vine"is the well-known symbol of God’ s people Psa 80:8, Psa 80:14; Son 2:13, Son 2:15; Hos 10:1; Isa 5:1-7; Isa 27:2; the fig too, by reason of its sweetness, is an emblem of His Church and of each soul in her, bringing forth the fruit of grace Hos 9:10; Mat 21:19; Luk 13:6-7. When then God says, "he hath laid My vine waste,"He suggests to us, that He is not speaking chiefly of the visible tree, but of that which it represents. The locusts, accordingly, are not chiefly the insects, which bark the actual trees, but every enemy which wastes the heritage of God, which He calls by those names. His vineyard, the Jewish people, was outwardly and repeatedly desolated by the Chaldaens, Antiochus Epiphanes, and afterward by the Romans. The vineyard, which the Jews had, was, (as Jesus foretold,) let out to other farmers when they had killed Him; and, thenceforth, is the Christian Church, and, subordinately each soul in her. : "Pagan and heretical Emperors and heresiarchs wasted often the Church of Christ. antichrist shall waste it. They who have wasted her are countless. For the Psalmist says, "They who hate me without a cause are more than the hair’ s of my head"Psa 69:4.

: "The nation which cometh up against the soul, are the princes of this world and of darkness and spiritual wickedness in high places, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, of whom the Apostle Peter saith, "Our adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour"1Pe 5:8. If we give way to this nation, so that they should come up in us, immediately they will make our vineyard where we were accustomed to make "wine to gladden the heart of man"Psa 104:15, a desert, and bark or break our fig tree, that we should no more have in us those most sweet gifts of the Holy Spirit. Nor is it enough for that nation to destroy the vineyard and break the fig tree, unless it also destroy whatever there is of life in it, so that, its whole freshness being consumed. the switches remain white and dead, and that be fulfilled in us, "If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?"Luk 23:31. : "The Church, at least apart of it, is turned into a desert, deprived of spiritual goods, when the faithful are led, by consent to sin, to forsake God. "The fig tree is barked,"when the soul which once abounded with sweetest goods and fruits of the Holy Spirit, hath those goods lessened or cut off. Such are they who, having "begun in the Spirit"Gal 3:3, are perfected by the flesh."

"By spirits lying in wait, the vineyard of God is made a desert, when the soul, replenished with fruits, is wasted with longing for the praise of people. That "people barks"the "fig tree"of God, in that, carrying away the misguided soul to a thirst for applause, in proportion as it draws her on to ostentation, it strips her of the covering of humility. "Making it clean bare, it despoils it,"in that, so long as it lies hidden in its goodness, it is, as it were, clothed with a covering of its own, which protects it. But when the mind longs that which it has done should be seen by others, it is as though "the fig tree despoiled"had lost the bark that covered it. And so, as it follows, "The branches thereof are made white;"in that his works, displayed to the eyes of people, have a bright show; a name for sanctity is gotten, when good actions are published. But as, upon the bark being removed, the branches of the fig tree wither, so observe that the deeds of the arrogant, paraded before human eyes, wither through the very act of socking to please. Therefore the mind which is betrayed through boastfulness is rightly called a fig tree barked, in that it is at once fair to the eye, as being seen, and within a little of withering, as being bared of the covering of the bark. Within, then, must our deeds be laid up, if we look to a reward of our deeds from Him who seeth within."

Poole: Joe 1:2

Hear this: he is about to report a very wonderful occurrence, and desires all to consider it, mark it well, and tell me what you know.

Ye old men the oldest among you, who can remember things done in your days when you were young, some scores of years past.

Give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land: it is an appeal to all that may possibly know more than others, and remember better than others can.

Hath this been in your days? did you personally ever know the like?

Or even in the days of your fathers? did your fathers ever tell you of such a thing happening in their days? was there ever such a thing known among them? have you ever heard them speak of it?

Poole: Joe 1:3

Declare it very particularly, or record it, write it as in a book, that your children may know it, and the memory of it may be perpetuated; for as it was a very wonderful and unusual thing, so it was for to mind us of the cause of it, and what it taught, or should have taught, them and us.

Poole: Joe 1:4

Four sorts of insects pernicious to all sorts of trees, corn, and herbs are here mentioned, which did succeed each other, and devoured all that might be a future support to the Jews; whence ensued a grievous famine for four years together, say the Jewish interpreters, though there is no cogent reason in what they mention for proof hereof. These insects might in the same year succeed each other, the one, as is usual, might come sooner, the rest successively, each in its season, and so spoil the springing of all things, which they did (I do believe) really; and though these might be emblems of some future devastation, yet it seems most agreeable to reason, and the context, that there should really have been such caterpillars and other vermin, and that they did devour all that was green; and though this is no where else mentioned, as I remember, in the sacred history, yet it is likely it was done, as here told, and as so done was a figure of some greater devastation made by foreign powers, as by Tiglath-pileser, Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, and Nebuchadnezzar.

Poole: Joe 1:5

Awake: great drinkers of intoxicating liquors are apt to sleep and be secure, the prophet doth therefore here call to them, as to sleepers, and by one apt word expresseth a double duty, vigilance of mind as well as of the body; so may this be paralleled with Rom 13:11 1Th 5:6 1Pe 5:8 , or Eph 5:14 .

Ye drunkards riotous livers, such as Pro 23:30-32 Isa 5:11,12 , whose life is nothing but a continued feasting with choicest wines, and in excess, such as Amo 6:4-6 , describeth.

Weep and howl lament your condition with sober tears, for the sorrows coming upon you are just matter of weeping; nor will an ordinary degree of weeping suffice, cry out and howl, like men surprised with insupportable miseries, Isa 13:6 14:31 15:2 .

All ye drinkers of wine who offend by an inordinate use of wine, for it is not to be understood of every one that drinketh wine, but of such as before are called drunkards, who are in love with wine.

Because of the new wine which is sweet and pleasing to the taste, and no doubt drank without stint or measure by men of that age, against which Joel prophesieth.

For it is cut off from your mouth suddenly cut off, even when you are ready to drink it, and totally, all cut off by these devouring vermin; which as it was a narrative of what was already done, refers to that waste and famine by the locusts; as it is allegorical and predictive, it will be more dreadfully fulfilled when the enemies of Judah shall destroy all.

Poole: Joe 1:6

This verse countenanceth their conjecture who take the locusts and vermin to be emblematical in part as well as literal; for it seems not very suitable to call their teeth teeth of a lion .

For a nation an innumerable multitude of locusts and caterpillars, called a nation here, as Solomon calls the conies and the ants, Pro 30:25,26 . A prognostic of a very numerous and mighty nation, that ere long will invade Judah.

Is come up or suddenly will come, upon my land; upon Canaan, which God calls his land; or more particularly the two tribes, Judea strictly taken.

Strong mighty in power and undaunted in courage, if you refer it to the Assyrians or Babylonians; if to those vermin, they are, though each weak by itself, yet in those multitudes which come, strong enough, and irresistible, and shall do God’ s work, that is, waste the land, and devour all before them.

Without number not simply numberless, but in such multitudes none of you shall be able to recount them.

Whose teeth are the teeth of a lion a strong lion of the middle age, that hath whelps, and hunts the prey for them.

And he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion which is old, and the more fierce and terrible in his looks, no way lessened in his strength, and that preys for his young ones: now what waste such lions make, such these locusts will make, such the Assyrians will make.

Poole: Joe 1:7

He that nation of locusts, Joe 1:6 , both literally and mystically understood, hath laid my vine waste; made it a desolation, i.e. most desolate, which is more particularly declared in what followeth.

And barked my fig tree peeled off the bark. which is certain destruction to the tree.

Made it clean bare eat off all the rind and green bark, and left the body of both vine and fig tree bare and stripped.

And cast it away as vermin cast out of their mouth the chewings of what they spoil, so here.

The branches thereof all the branches of both vine and fig tree, are by these devouring vermin made white, all their green being eaten off; so miserably desolate will the enemy signified by these locusts make Judah, God’ s vine.

Haydock: Joe 1:2

Men. Magistrates, and all who have children. (Haydock) He speaks to Juda, as the kingdom of Israel was ruined, chap. iii. 2. His principal object is to describe the ravages of locusts, and to exhort the people to repent, promising them better times after the captivity, and under the Messias, chap. ii. 28., and iii. 20. (Calmet)

Haydock: Joe 1:3

Generation. Prophecies relate to all future times, that people may see their accomplishment, (Worthington) and believe. (Haydock)

Haydock: Joe 1:4

Left, &c. Some understand this literally of the desolation of the land by these insects: others understand it of the different invasions of the Chaldeans, or other enemies. (Challoner) ---

Jerusalem was four times plundered by the Babylonians, and every time worse than before, as these four sorts of destructive things shew. But we shall not enlarge upon these points, nor pursue the mystical sense of the prophets, which may be found in the fathers and Ribera. (Worthington) ---

Others suppose that the Assyrians, Chaldeans, Greeks, (particularly Epiphanes) and Romans, are meant. We explain it simply of the devastation by insects. (Calmet) ---

Four different species of locusts are denoted. (Bochart, p. 2. b. iv. 1.) ---

Mildew. Hebrew chasil, (Haydock) is often rendered "a locust," by [the] Septuagint, (chap. ii. 25., &c.) and most suppose this is here the sense. The mildew destroys corn chiefly in low damp situations. (Calmet)

Haydock: Joe 1:5

Sweet. Hebrew, "wine, because of the sweet wine," (Haydock) or liquors extracted from fruit. The things which you have abused, are now taken away.

Haydock: Joe 1:6

Nations. Some understand the Assyrians or Chaldeans. But locusts are here styled a nation, Proverbs xxx. 25. ---

Lion. Such locusts are described, Apocalypse ix. 8. (Calmet) ---

"In India they are said to be three feet long, and their legs and thighs are used for saws when dried." (Pliny, [Natural History?] xi. 29.) ---

They were attacked by regular troops in Syria. (Pliny, [Natural History?] xi. 29.)

Gill: Joe 1:2

Hear this, ye old men,.... What the prophet was about to relate, concerning the consumption of the fruits of the earth, by various sorts of creatures, and by a drought; and these are called upon to declare if ever the like had been known or heard of by them; who by reason of age had the greatest opportunities of knowledge of this sort, and could remember what they had heard or seen, and would faithfully relate it: this maybe understood of elders in office, as well as in age;

and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land; or "earth", not of the whole earth; but of the land of Judea; who were more particularly concerned in this affair, and therefore are required to listen attentively to it:

hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? that is, not the selfsame thing, but anything equal to it; a judgment of the same kind and nature, and of the same degree. By this question it seems the like had never been in the memory of any man living; nor in former times, in the days of their ancestors, as could be averted upon report; or attested on the credit of annals, chronicles, or other methods of conveying the history of ages past. As for the plague of locusts in Egypt, though they were such as; never find been, nor would be there any more; yet such or greater, and more in number than those, might be in Judea; besides, they continued but a few, lays at most, these four years successively, as Kimchi observes; and who thinks that in Egypt there was but one sort of locusts, here four; but the passage he quotes in Psa 78:46; contradicts him; to which may be added Psa 105:34.

Gill: Joe 1:3

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

and let your children tell their children, and their children other generation; or, "to the generation following" ^l; let it be handed down from one generation to another that it may be a caution to future posterity how they behave and lest they bring down the like awful judgments on them. What this referred to was as follows:

Gill: Joe 1:4

That which the palmer worm hath left hath the locust eaten,.... These, with the two following, are four kinds of, locusts as Jarchi observes; though it is difficult to fix the particular species designed; they seem to have their names from some peculiar properties belonging to them; as the first of these from their sheering or cropping off the fruits and leaves of trees; and the second from the vast increase of them, the multitude they bring forth and the large numbers they appear in:

and that which the locust hath left hath the canker worm eaten; which in the Hebrew language is called from its licking up the fruits of the earth, by which it becomes barren:

and that which the canker worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten; which has its name from wasting and consuming all that comes in its way: now these came not together, but followed one another; not one one year, and another the second, and so on throughout four years, as Kimchi thinks; for though the calamity lasted some years as is manifest from Joe 2:25; yet it is not reasonable, that, for instance what the palmer worm left the first year should remain in the fields and vineyards, on the fig trees and vines till the next year for the locust to consume and is on:, but rather these all appeared in succession in one and the same year; and so what the palmer worm left having eaten up what was most agreeable to them, the locust came and devoured what they had left; and then what they left was destroyed by the canker worm, which fed on that which was most grateful to them; and last of all came the caterpillar, and consumed all the others had left; and this might be continued for years successively: when this calamity was, we have no account in sacred history; whether it was in the seven years' famine in the days of Elisha, or the same with what Amos speaks of, Amo 4:6; is not easy to say: and though it seems to be literally understood, as the drought later mentioned, yet might be typical of the enemies of the Jews succeeding one another in the destruction of them. Not of the four monarchies, the Babylonians, Persians, Grecians, and Romans, as Lyra and Abarbinel; since the Persians particularly never entered into the land of Judea and wasted it; though this is the sense of the ancient Jews, as Jerom relates; for he says the Hebrews interpret the "palmer worm" of the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Chaldeans, who, coming from one climate of the world, destroyed both the ten and the two tribes, that is, all the people of Israel: the locust they interpret of the Medes and Persians, who, having overturned the Chaldean empire, carried the Jews captive: the "canker worm" is the Macedonians, and all the successors of Alexander; especially King Antiochus, surnamed Epiphanes, who like a canker worm sat in Judea, and devoured all the remains of the former kings, under whom were the wars of the Maccabees: the "caterpillar" they refer to the Roman empire, the fourth and last that oppressed the Jews, and drove them out of their borders. Nor of the several kings of Assyria and Babylon, who followed one another, and wasted first the ten tribes, and then the other two, as Tiglathpileser, Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, and Nebuchadnezzar, so Theodoret; since this prophecy only relates to the two tribes. Rather therefore this may point at the several invasions and incursions of the Chaldean army into Judea, under Nebuchadnezzar and his generals; first, when he came up against Jerusalem, and made Jehoiakim tributary to him; a second time, when he carried Jehoiachin and his family into Babylon, with a multitude of the Jews, and their wealth; a third time, when he besieged Jerusalem, and took it, and Zedekiah the king, and carried him captive; and a fourth time, when Nebuzaradan came and burnt the temple, and the houses of Jerusalem, and broke down the walls of it, and cleared the land of its inhabitants and riches; see 2Ki 24:1.

Gill: Joe 1:5

Awake, ye drunkards, and weep: and howl, all ye drinkers of wine,.... Who are used to neither, either to awake or to howl, being very prone to drowsiness upon their drinking bouts, and to mirth and jollity in them; but now should be awake, and sober enough, not as being a virtue in them, but through want of wine; and for the same reason should howl, as follows:

because of the new wine, for it is cut off from your mouth; the locusts having spoiled the vines and eaten the grapes, no new wine could be made, and so none could be brought in cups to their mouths; nor they drink it in bowls, as they had used to do; and which, being sweet and grateful to their taste, they were wont to drink in great abundance, till they were inebriated with it; but now there was a scarcity, their lips were dry, but not their eyes. The word, Kimchi says, signifies all liquor which is squeezed by bruising or treading.

Gill: Joe 1:6

For a nation is come up upon my land,.... A nation of locusts, so called from their great numbers, and coming from foreign parts; just as the ants are called a "people", and the conies a "folk", Pro 30:25; and which were an emblem of the nation of the Chaldeans, which came up from Babylon, and invaded the land of Judea; called by the Lord "my land", because he had chosen it for the habitation of his people; here he himself had long dwelt, and had been served and worshipped in it: though Kimchi thinks these are the words of the inhabitants of the land, or of the prophet; but if it can be thought they are any other than the words of God, they rather seem to be expressed by the drunkards in particular, howling for want of wine, and observing the reason of it:

strong, and without number; this description seems better to agree with the Assyrians or Chaldeans, who were a mighty and powerful people, as well as numerous; though locusts, notwithstanding they are weak, singly taken, yet, coming in large bodies, carry all before them, and there is no stopping them:

whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion; or "the grinders" ^m of such an one; being hard, strong, and sharp, to bite off the tops, boughs, and branches of trees: Pliny ⁿ says, locusts will gnaw with their teeth the doors of houses; so the teeth of locusts are described in Rev 9:8; this may denote the strength, cruelty, and voraciousness of the Chaldean army.

Gill: Joe 1:7

He hath laid my vine waste,.... That is, the locust, which spoiled the vines in Judea, the singular being put for the plural, by gnawing the branches, biting the tops of them, and devouring the leaves and the fruit; and so not only left them bare and barren, but destroyed them: this may emblematically represent the Assyrians or Babylonians wasting the land of Judea, the vine and vineyard of the Lord of hosts; see Isa 5:1;

and barked my fig tree; gnawed off the bark of them; locusts are not only harmful to vines, as is hinted by Theocritus ^o, but to fig trees also: Pliny ^p speaks of fig trees in Boeotia gnawn by locusts, which budded again; and mentions it as something wonderful and miraculous that they should: and yet Sanctius observes, that these words cannot be understood properly of the locusts, since fig trees cannot be harmed by the bite or touch of them; which, besides their roughness, have an insipid bitter juice, which preserves them from being gnawn by such creatures; and the like is observed of the cypress by Vitruvius ^q; but the passage out of Pliny shows the contrary. Some interpret it of a from or scum they left upon the fig tree when they gnawed it, such as Aben Ezra says is upon the face of the water; and something like this is left by caterpillars on the leaves of trees, which destroy them;

he hath made it clean bare; stripped it of its leaves and fruit, and bark also:

and cast it away; having got out all the juice they could:

the branches thereof are made white; the bark being gnawed off, and all the greenness and verdure of them dried up; so trees look, when this is their case: and thus the Jews were stripped by the Chaldeans of all their wealth and treasure, and were left bare and naked, and as the scum and offscouring of all things.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Joe 1:2

¹ sn Elders here refers not necessarily to men advanced in years, but to leaders within the community.

² tn Heb “give ear.”

³ tn Heb “days.” The term “days” functions here as a synecdoche for one’s lifespan.

⁴ tn Heb “days.”

⁵ tn Heb “fathers.”

NET Notes: Joe 1:3

¹ tn Heb “sons.” This word occurs several times in this verse.

² sn The circumstances that precipitated the book of Joel surrounded a locust invasion in Palestine that was of unprecedented proportions. The locusts had devastated the country’s agrarian economy, with the unwelcome consequences extending to every important aspect of commercial, religious, and national life. To further complicate matters, a severe drought had exhausted water supplies, causing life-threatening shortages for animal and human life (cf. v. 20). Locust invasions occasionally present significant problems in Palestine in modern times. The year 1865 was commonly known among Arabic-speaking peoples of the Near East as sent el jarad, “year of the locust.” The years 1892, 1899, and 1904 witnessed significant locust invasions in Palestine. But in modern times there has been nothing equal in magnitude to the great locust invasion that began in Palestine in February of 1915. This modern parallel provides valuable insight into the locust plague the prophet Joel points to as a foreshadowing of the day of the Lord. For an eyewitness account of the 1915 locust invasion of Palestine see J. D. Whiting, “Jerusalem’s Locust Plague,” National Geographic 28 (December 1915): 511-50.

NET Notes: Joe 1:4

¹ tn Heb “eaten.” This verb is repeated three times in v. 4 to emphasize the total devastation of the crops by this locust invasion.

² tn The four Hebrew terms used in this verse are of uncertain meaning. English translations show a great deal of variation in dealing with these: (1) For ָגּזָם (gazam) KJV has “palmerworm,” NEB “locust,” NAB “cutter”, NASB “gnawing locust,” NIV “locust swarm,” NKJV “chewing locust,” NRSV, NLT “cutting locust(s),” NIrV “giant locusts”; (2) for אַרְבֶּה (’arbeh) KJV has “locust,” NEB “swarm,” NAB “locust swarm,” NASB, NKJV, NRSV, NLT “swarming locust(s),” NIV “great locusts,” NIrV “common locusts”; (3) for יֶלֶק (yeleq) KJV has “cankerworm,” NEB “hopper,” NAB “grasshopper,” NASB “creeping locust,” NIV, NIrV “young locusts,” NKJV “crawling locust,” NRSV, NLT “hopping locust(s)”; (4) for חָסִיל (khasil) KJV has “caterpillar,” NEB “grub,” NAB “devourer,” NASB, NLT “stripping locust(s),” NIV, NIrV “other locusts,” NKJV “consuming locust,” NRSV “destroying locust.” It is debated whether the Hebrew terms describe different species of locusts or similar insects or different developmental stages of the same species, or are virtual synonyms. While the last seems more likely, given the uncertainty over their exact meaning, the present translation has transliterated the Hebrew terms in combination with the word “locust.”

sn Four different words for “locust” are used in this verse. Whether these words represent different life-stages of the locusts, or whether virtual synonyms are being used to underscore the severity of damage caused by the relentless waves of locust invasion, is not entirely certain. The latter seems more likely. Many interpreters have understood the locust plagues described here to be symbolic of invading armies that will devastate the land, but the symbolism could also work the other way, with real plagues of locusts described in the following verses as an invading army.

NET Notes: Joe 1:5

¹ sn The word drunkards has a double edge here. Those accustomed to drinking too much must now lament the unavailability of wine. It also may hint that the people in general have become religiously inebriated and are unresponsive to the Lord. They are, as it were, drunkards from a spiritual standpoint.

² sn Joel addresses the first of three groups particularly affected by the locust plague. In v. 5 he describes the effects on the drunkards, who no longer have a ready supply of intoxicating wine; in vv. 11-12 he describes the effects on the farmers, who have watched their labors come to naught because of the insect infestation; and in vv. 13-14 he describes the effects on the priests, who are no longer able to offer grain sacrifices and libations in the temple.

³ tn Heb “over the sweet wine, because it.” Cf. KJV, NIV, TEV, NLT “new wine.”

⁴ tn Heb “cut off” (so KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV); NAB “will be withheld.”

⁵ tn Heb “your mouth.” This is a synecdoche of part (the mouth) for whole (the person).

NET Notes: Joe 1:6

¹ sn As becomes increasingly clear in what follows, this nation is to be understood figuratively. It refers to the locust invasion as viewed from the standpoint of its methodical, destructive advance across the land (BDB 156 s.v. גּוֹי 2). This term is used figuratively to refer to animals one other time (Zeph 2:14).

² tn Heb “has come up against.”

³ tn Heb “my.”

⁴ tn Heb “[It] is huge and there is not number.”

⁵ tn Heb “its teeth are the teeth of a lion.”

⁶ tn Heb “its incisors are those of a lioness.” The sharp, cutting teeth are metonymical for the action of tearing apart and eating prey. The language is clearly hyperbolic. Neither locusts nor human invaders literally have teeth of this size. The prophet is using exaggerated and picturesque language to portray in vivid terms the enormity of the calamity. English versions vary greatly on the specifics: KJV “cheek teeth”; ASV “jaw-teeth”; NAB “molars”; NASB, NIV, NRSV “fangs.”

NET Notes: Joe 1:7

¹ tn Heb “it.” Throughout vv. 6-7 the Hebrew uses singular forms to describe the locust swarm, but the translation uses plural forms because several details of the text make more sense in English as if they are describing the appearance and effects of individual locusts.

² tn Heb “my.”

³ tn Both “vines” and “fig trees” are singular in the Hebrew text, but are regarded as collective singulars.

⁴ tn Heb “my.”

⁵ tn Heb “it has completely stripped her.”

⁶ tn Heb “her.”

⁷ tn Heb “grow white.”

sn Once choice leafy vegetation is no longer available to them, locusts have been known to consume the bark of small tree limbs, leaving them in an exposed and vulnerable condition. It is apparently this whitened condition of limbs that Joel is referring to here.

Geneva Bible: Joe 1:2

Hear this, ye ^{( a )} old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath ^{( b )} this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?

^{( a )} Signifying the princes, the priests, and the governors.

^{( b )} He calls the Jews to the consideration of God's judgments, who had now plagued the fruits of the ground for the space of four years, which was because of their sins, and to call them to repentance.

Geneva Bible: Joe 1:5

Awake, ye ^{( c )} drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.

^{( c )} Meaning, that the reason for their excess and drunkenness was taken away.

Geneva Bible: Joe 1:6

For ^{( d )} 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.

^{( d )} This was another plague with which God had punished them when he stirred up the Assyrians against them.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Joe 1:1-20

1 Joel, declaring sundry judgments of God, exhorts to observe them,

8 and to mourn.

14 He prescribes a solemn fast to deprecate those judgments.

MHCC: Joe 1:1-7

The most aged could not remember such calamities as were about to take place. Armies of insects were coming upon the land to eat the fruits of it. It is expressed so as to apply also to the destruction of the country by a foreign enemy, and seems to refer to the devastations of the Chaldeans. God is Lord of hosts, has every creature at his command, and, when he pleases, can humble and mortify a proud, rebellious people, by the weakest and most contemptible creatures. It is just with God to take away the comforts which are abused to luxury and excess; and the more men place their happiness in the gratifications of sense, the more severe temporal afflictions are upon them. The more earthly delights we make needful to satisfy us, the more we expose ourselves to trouble.

Matthew Henry: Joe 1:1-7

It is a foolish fancy which some of the Jews have, that this Joel the prophet was the same with that Joel who was the son of Samuel (1Sa 8:2); 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, Joe 1:2. 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 8:8), 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 (Joe 1:3): " 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 (Joe 1:4) 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 (Joe 1:4); but afterwards (Joe 2:25) 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 (Exo 10:14), 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 (Joe 1:4), 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, Joe 1:4. 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 (Joe 1:6), 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 (Pro 30:27), 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 9:8. 3. What mischief they do. They eat up all before them (Joe 1:4); what one leaves the other devours; they destroy not only the grass and corn, but the trees (Joe 1:7): 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 (Joe 1:5): 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.

Keil-Delitzsch: Joe 1:1-4

Joe 1:1 contains the heading to the book, and has already been noticed in the introduction. Joe 1:2. "Hear this, ye old men; and attend, all ye inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing indeed happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers? Joe 1:1. Ye shall tell your sons of it, and your sons their sons, and their sons the next generation. Joe 1:4. The leavings of the gnawer the multiplier ate, and the leavings of the multiplier the licker ate, and the leavings of the licker the devourer ate." Not only for the purpose of calling the attention of the hearers to his address, but still more to set forth the event of which he is about to speak as something unheard of - a thing that has never happened before, and therefore is a judgment inflicted by God - the prophet commences with the question addressed to the old men, whose memory went the furthest back, and to all the inhabitants of Judah, whether they had ever experienced anything of the kind, or heard of such a thing from their fathers; and with the command to relate it to their children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

(Note: "As he is inquiring concerning the past according to the command of Moses in Deu 32:7, he asks the old men, who have been taught by long experience, and are accustomed, whenever they see anything unusual, to notice that this is not according to the ordinary course of nature, which they have observed for so many years. And since this existing calamity, caused by the insects named, has lasted longer and pressed more heavily than usual, he admonishes them to carry their memory back to the former days, and see whether anything of the kind ever happened naturally before; and if no example can be found, the prophet's advice is, that they should recognise this as the hand of God from heaven."- Tarnov.)

"The inhabitants of the land"are the inhabitants of Judah, as it was only with this kingdom that Joel was occupied (cf. Joe 1:14 and Joe 2:1). זאת is the occurrence related in Joe 1:4, which is represented by the question "Has this been in your days?"as a fact just experienced. Yether haggâzâm , the leavings of the gnawer, i.e., whatever the gnawer leaves unconsumed of either vegetables or plants. The four names given to the locusts, viz., gâzâm , 'arbeh , yeleq , and châsil , are not the names applied in natural history to four distinct species, or four different generations of locusts; nor does Joel describe the swarms of two successive years, so that " gâzâm is the migratory locust, which visits Palestine chiefly in the autumn, 'arbeh the young brood, yeleq the young locust in the last stage of its transformation, or before changing its skin for the fourth time, and châsı̄l the perfect locust after this last change, so that as the brood sprang from the gâzâm , châsı̄l would be equivalent to gâzâm "(Credner). This explanation is not only at variance with Joe 2:25, where gâzâm stands last, after châsı̄l , but is founded generally merely upon a false interpretation of Nah 3:15-16 (see the passage) and Jer 51:27, where the adjective sâmâr ( horridus , horrible), appended to yeleq , from sâmâr , to shudder, by no means refers to the rough, horny, wing-sheath of the young locusts, and cannot be sustained from the usage of the language, It is impossible to point out any difference in usage between gâzâm and châsı̄l , or between these two words and 'arbeh . The word gâzâm , from gâzâm , to cut off (in Arabic, Ethiopic, and the Rabb.), occurs only in this passage, in Joe 2:25, and in Amo 4:9, where it is applied to a swarm of flying locusts, which leave the vine, fig-tree, and olive, perfectly bare, as it is well known that all locusts do, when, as in Amos, the vegetables and field fruits have been already destroyed. 'Arbeh , from râbhâh , to be many, is the common name of the locust, and indeed in all probability of the migratory locust, because this always appears in innumerable swarms. Châsı̄l , from châsal , to eat off, designates the locust ( hâ'arbeh ), according to Deu 28:38, by its habit of eating off the field crops and tree fruits, and is therefore used in 1Ki 8:37; 2Ch 6:28; Psa 78:46, as synonymous with hâ'arbeh , and in Isa 33:4 in its stead. Yeleq , from yâlaq = lâqaq , to lick, to lick off, occurs in Psa 105:34 as equivalent to 'arbeh , and in Nahum as synonymous with it; and indeed it there refers expressly to the Egyptian plague of locusts, so that young locusts without wings cannot possibly be thought of. Haggâzâm the gnawer, hayyeleq the licker, hechâsı̄l the devourer, are therefore simply poetical epithets applied to the 'arbeh , which never occur in simple plain prose, but are confined to the loftier (rhetorical and poetical) style. Moreover, the assumption that Joel is speaking of swarms of locusts of two successive years, is neither required by Joe 2:25 (see the comm. on this verse), nor reconcilable with the contents of the verse itself. If the 'arbeh eats what the gâzâm has left, and the yeleq what is left by the 'arbeh , we cannot possibly think of the field and garden fruits of two successive years, because the fruits of the second year are not the leavings of the previous year, but have grown afresh in the year itself.

(Note: Bochart (Hieroz. iii. p. 290, ed. Ros.) has already expressed the same opinion. "If,"he says, "the different species had been assigned to so many different years, the 'arbeh would not be said to have eaten the leavings of the gâzâm , or the yeleq the leavings of the 'arbeh , or the châsı̄l the leavings of the yeleq ; for the productions of this year are not the leavings of last, nor can what will spring up in future be looked upon as the leavings of this. Therefore, whether this plague of locusts was confined to one year, or was repeated for several years, which seems to be the true inference from Joe 2:25, I do not think that the different species of locusts are to be assigned to different years respectively, but that they all entered Judaea in the same year; so that when one swarm departed from a field, another followed, to eat up the leavings of the previous swarm, if there were any; and that this was repeated as many times as was necessary to consume the whole, so that nothing at all should be left to feed either man or beast.")

The thought is rather this: one swarm of locusts after another has invaded the land, and completely devoured its fruit. The use of several different words, and the division of the locusts into four successive swarms, of which each devours what has been left by its precursor, belong to the rhetorical drapery and individualizing of the thought. The only thing that has any real significance is the number four, as the four kinds of punishment in Jer 15:3, and the four destructive judgments in Eze 14:21, clearly show. The number four, "the stamp of oecumenicity"(Kliefoth), indicates here the spread of the judgment over the whole of Judah in all directions.

Keil-Delitzsch: Joe 1:5-7

In order that Judah may discern in this unparalleled calamity a judgment of God, and the warning voice of God calling to repentance, the prophet first of all summons the wine-bibbers to sober themselves, and observe the visitation of God. Joe 1:5. "Awake, ye drunken ones, and weep! and howl, all ye drinkers of wine! at the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth. Joe 1:6. For a people has come up over my land, a strong one, and innumerable: its teeth are lion's teeth, and it has the bite of a lioness. Joe 1:7. It has made my vine a wilderness, and my fig-tree into sticks. Peeling, it has peeled it off, and cast it away: its shoots have grown white." הקיץ to awake out of the reeling of intoxication, as in Pro 23:35. They are to howl for the new wine, the fresh sweet juice of the grape, because with the destruction of the vines it is taken away and destroyed from their mouth. Joe 1:6 and Joe 1:7 announce through whom. In the expression gōi ‛âlâh (a people has come up) the locusts are represented as a warlike people, because they devastate the land like a hostile army. Gōi furnishes no support to the allegorical view. In Pro 30:25-26, not only are the ants described as a people ( ‛âm ), but the locusts also; although it is said of them that they have no king. And ‛âm is synonymous with gōi , which has indeed very frequently the idea of that which is hostile, and even here is used in this sense; though it by no means signifies a heathen nation, but occurs in Zep 2:9 by the side of ‛âm , as an epithet applied to the people of Jehovah (i.e., Israel: see also Gen 12:2). The weapons of this army consist in its teeth, its "bite,"which grinds in pieces as effectually as the teeth of the lion or the bite of the lioness ( מתלּעות ; see at Job 29:17). The suffix attached to ארצי does not refer to Jehovah, but to the prophet, who speaks in the name of the people, so that it is the land of the people of God. And this also applies to the suffixes in גּפני and תּאנתי in Joe 1:7. In the description of the devastation caused by the army of locusts, the vine and fig-tree are mentioned as the noblest productions of the land, which the Lord has given to His people for their inheritance (see at Hos 2:14). לקצפה , εἰς κλασμόν , literally, for crushing. The suffix in chăsâphâh refers, no doubt, simply to the vine as the principal object, the fig-tree being mentioned casually in connection with it. Châsaph , to strip, might be understood as referring simply to the leaves of the vine (cf. Psa 29:9); but what follows shows that the gnawing or eating away of the bark is also included. Hishlı̄kh , to throw away not merely what is uneatable, "that which is not green and contains no sap"(Hitzig), but the vine itself, which the locusts have broken when eating off its leaves and bark. The branches of the vine have become white through the eating off of the bark ( sârı̄gı̄m , Gen 40:10).

(Note: H. Ludolf, in his Histor. Aethiop. i. c. 13, §16, speaking of the locusts, says: "Neither herbs, nor shrubs, nor trees remain unhurt. Whatever is either grassy or covered with leaves, is injured, as if it had been burnt with fire. Even the bark of trees is nibbled with their teeth, so that the injury is not confined to one year alone.")

Constable: Joe 1:2-20

II. A past day of the Lord: a locust invasion 1:2-20

The rest of chapter 1 describes the effects of a severe locust plague that had recently destroyed the agriculture of the land.

Constable: Joe 1:2-4

A. An initial appeal 1:2-4

1:2-3 Joel called on everyone, from the most respected ruling elders of the land (cf. 1 Sam. 30:26-31; 2 Sam. 19:11-15; 2 Kings 23:1; Ezra 10:8; Prov. 31:23; Jer. 26:17; Lam. 5:12, 14) to the ordinary inhabitants, to pay attention to what he had to say. Nothing like what he was about to describe had happened in their lifetime nor in that of their recent ancestors. He urged them to retell the devastating news to their descendants for generations to come.

1:4 Several waves of locusts had consumed all the agricultural produce of the land. What one wave of these voracious insects had left uneaten, others had destroyed. The devastation of the land had been complete (cf. Amos 4:9). God had threatened locust plagues as punishment if His people proved unfaithful to Him (Deut. 28:41, 48-57, 64-68).

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 types of locust are in view or that locusts in four stages of their maturity are.⁸ It seems better, however, to view the locusts as coming in waves, gnawing, swarming, creeping, and stripping as they devoured the vegetation.⁹ Four waves of invasion picture a thorough devastation (cf. Jer. 15:3; Ezek. 14:21).

Constable: Joe 1:5-13

B. A call to mourn 1:5-13

Joel called on four different entities to mourn the results of the locust invasion: drunkards (vv. 5-7), the land (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.

1:5-7 Joel urged the drunkards of the land to weep because the locusts had destroyed all the grapevines. There would be no grapes to produce sweet (the most favored) wine for them to drink (cf. Isa. 5:11-12, 22; 22:13; 28:1, 7; 56:12; Hos. 4:11-19; 7:5, 13-14; Amos 2:6-8; 6:6; Mic. 2:11). Normally drunkards laugh, with no concern for what goes on around them, but now they should wail. The locusts had invaded the land like a hostile army. The teeth of these invaders were like lions' teeth in that they destroyed their prey. They had stripped the vines and fig trees so thoroughly that their branches stood bare. The vine and the fig tree were symbols of God's blessings on Israel and symbols of Israel itself, so Joel probably also meant that the locusts had left the whole nation bare.

"All that remained of shady, fruit-laden bowers were skeletonized wrecks of trees with their barkless branches gleaming white."¹⁰

1:8-10 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). This virgin (Heb. bethulah) was to weep in sackcloth, clothing appropriate for such an occasion, as though she had lost her bridegroom in death.¹¹ The reason for Jerusalem's mourning was the locusts' destruction of grain, wine, and oil, blessings from God and the products needed to worship Him in the temple daily burnt offerings (cf. Exod. 29:38-42; Lev. 2; 6:14-18; 9:16-17; 23:18, 37; Num. 15:5; 28:3-8). The grain offerings required flour and oil (Num. 28:5), and the drink offerings necessitated wine (Exod. 29:40; Num. 28:7).

"These offerings spoke of the very heart of the believer's daily walk before God: the burnt offering, of a complete dedication of life; the meal offering, of the believer's service that should naturally follow; and the drink offering, of the conscious joy in the heart of the believer whose life is poured out in consecrated service to his God."¹²

The result was that the priests and the whole nation mourned. It was bad enough that the people did not have food and drink for their own enjoyment, but it was worse that they could not worship Yahweh.

1:11-12 Joel next turned from city dwellers to country folk. He called the farmers and vine growers, those most directly affected by the locust invasion, to despair because the fruits of their labors had perished. These fruits included wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, dates, apples, even all the fruits of trees. These Israelites would not be able to rejoice in an abundant harvest, which every farmer and viticulturist anticipated (cf. Ps. 4:7). Not only the symbols of divine blessing but also the joy of divine blessing had departed.

1:13 The prophet turned again to the priests and urged them to lament in sackcloth because the grain and wine used in their offerings were no longer available. Joel's second call to the priests underlines the tragedy of curtailed worship in Judah's life. Since there were no offerings to bring to the Lord, the nation could not approach Him at the very time she needed Him most. This closing reference to priests in this section contrasts with the opening reference to drunkards (vv. 5-7), from the most ungodly to the most godly (ideally). This merism has the effect of including all the citizens of Judah in Joel's call.¹³ Joel's reference to "my God" and "your God" in this verse ties him closely to the priests; their concerns and their relationship to Yahweh were ideally the same.

Guzik: Joe 1:1-20

Joel 1 - The Day of the Lord Brings Judah Low

A. Locusts devastate the land of Judah.

1. (1-4) The remarkable plague of locusts upon Judah.

The word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Pethuel. Hear this, you elders, and give ear, all you inhabitants of the land! Has anything like this happened in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? Tell your children about it, let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. What the chewing locust left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten; and what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten.

a. The word of the LORD that came to Joel: The prophet Joel spoke to the southern kingdom of Judah, and makes no reference to the northern kingdom of Israel. It's hard to pin down his exact time, because he doesn't mention any other kings or prophets. Many scholars date the book of Joel to 835 B.C.

i. This makes Joel a pre-exilic prophet, who ministered before the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel (721 B.C.) or the southern kingdom of Judah (586 B.C.). Other pre-exilic prophets include Obadiah, Jonah, Hosea, Amos, Isaiah, and Micah. Joel is one of the earliest prophets - only Obadiah prophesied before his time (845 B.C.).

ii. 835 B.C. was a time of turmoil and transition in Judah, at the end of the reign of the Queen Mother Athaliah and the beginning of the reign of King Joash. Athaliah seized power at the sudden death in battle of her son Ahaziah, who only reigned one year (2 Kings 8:26, 2 Kings 11:1). Athaliah killed all her son's heirs, except for one who was hidden in the temple and escaped - one-year-old Josiah (2 Kings 11:3). Her six-year reign of terror ended in 835 B.C. when the High Priest Jehoiada overthrew Athaliah and set the seven-year-old Josiah on the throne (2 Kings 11:4-21).

iii. During her six years as queen over Judah, Athaliah reigned wickedly. She was the granddaughter of the wicked King Omri of Israel - making her daughter or niece to Ahab, one of Israel's worst kings (2 Kings 8:26). Athaliah raised her son Ahaziah to reign in the wicked pattern of Ahab, and even brought in Ahab's counselors to advise him (2 Chronicles 22:2-4). When Ahaziah was killed in battle and she seized power, she set her other sons to evil, even desecrating the temple and its sacred things (2 Chronicles 24:7).

iv. If we are accurate in thinking that Joel prophesied in 835 B.C. then the judgment he described came toward the end of the six-year reign of ungodliness under Queen Athaliah. No wonder God brought a heavy hand on Judah!

v. "The name Joel means 'Jehovah is God' and therefore constitutes a short confession of faith, somewhat like the primary New Testament confession, 'Jesus is Lord.'" (Boice)

b. What the chewing locust left, the swarming locust has eaten: Joel isn't announcing a coming judgment of the Lord. He describes their present state - devastated by successive swarms of locusts, first chewing, then swarming, then crawling, and finally consuming. Judah will experience a time of famine and financial ruin because of these locusts.

i. This plague was so unusual that Joel says, "tell your children about it." The times were so remarkably difficult that parents would tell their children, "I lived through the plagues of locusts."

ii. In 1915 a devastating plague of locusts covered what is modern-day Israel and Syria. The first swarms came in March, in clouds so thick they blocked out the sun. The female locusts immediately began to lay eggs, 100 at a time. Witnesses say that in one square yard, there were as many as 65,000 to 75,000 eggs. In a few weeks they hatched, and the young locusts resembled large ants. They couldn't fly yet, and got along by hopping. They marched along 400 to 600 feet a day, devouring every speck of vegetation along the way. After two more stages of molting they became adults who could fly - and the devastation continued.

2. (5-7) An army of locusts against Judah.

Awake, you drunkards, and weep; and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the new wine, for it has been cut off from your mouth. For a nation has come up against My land, strong, and without number; his teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a fierce lion. He has laid waste My vine, and ruined My fig tree; he has stripped it bare and thrown it away; its branches are made white.

a. Awake, you drunkards: Joel tells the drunkards to wake up and see the devastation the locusts caused. They came like a mighty nation, a fierce army against Judah.

b. My vine . . . My fig tree: God looks at the vines and fig trees of Judah and says they belong to Him, even in judgment.

3. (8-12) Judah mourns because of the locusts' destruction.

Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. The grain offering and the drink offering have been cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests mourn, who minister to the LORD. The field is wasted, the land mourns; for the grain is ruined, the new wine is dried up, the oil fails. Be ashamed, you farmers, wail, you vinedressers, for the wheat and the barley; because the harvest of the field has perished. The vine has dried up, and the fig tree has withered; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree; all the trees of the field are withered; surely joy has withered away from the sons of men.

a. Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth: Joel tells Judah that they should look at their condition and mourn, with all the emotion and passion of a young widow. They should not receive this plague of locusts stoically, with false bravado.

i. In this, Joel doesn't minimize the suffering at all. He isn't like the dentist who says, "This may cause a bit of discomfort" when he really means "This is going to hurt and I am going to make you suffer." He deals with the suffering in a real way and says, "Let's turn back to the LORD."

b. The priests mourn . . . the land mourns . . . be ashamed, you farmers, wail, you vinedressers . . . surely joy has withered away: In vivid and poetic images, Joel shows how the whole nation mourns this great destruction brought by locusts.

i. The grain and the drink offering have been cut off: It's remarkable to see that these sacrifices to the LORD at the temple only stopped when there was no more grain or wine to give to God. Queen Athaliah's reign was wicked, but she allowed the temple ceremonies to continue. This shows us that the devil doesn't mind ceremonies in themselves, and that the devil is more interested in corrupting true religion than eliminating it.

B. Drought devastates the land of Judah.

1. (13-14) A call to repentance.

Gird yourselves and lament, you priests; wail, you who minister before the altar; come, lie all night in sackcloth, you who minister to my God; for the grain offering and the drink offering are withheld from the house of your God. Consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly; gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD.

a. Gird yourselves and lament, you priests: Joel calls the religious leaders to lead the nation in repentance. He tells the priests to gird yourselves for repentance, the idea being "prepare to do the work of repentance."

i. Joel also tells them how to do the work of repentance.

· Consecrate a fast: Make getting right with God so important that even eating isn't important

· Call a sacred assembly: Call for God's people to come together and repent

· Gather the elders: The leaders of the people should make a special point to be part of the work of repentance

· Into the house of the LORD your God: Come to the place where you should meet together with God

· And cry out unto the LORD: Finally, simply cry out to God and trust that He will respond in mercy

b. For the grain offering and the drink offering are withheld from the house of your God: When there was grain and wine to bring the people of Judah still brought offerings to the temple, either out of tradition or godly obedience. Now that there is no produce, there is no offering for the house of your God.

2. (15-20) The day of the LORD against Judah in drought.

Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as destruction from the Almighty. Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God? The seed shrivels under the clods, storehouses are in shambles; barns are broken down, for the grain has withered. How the animals groan! The herds of cattle are restless, because they have no pasture; even the flocks of sheep suffer punishment. O LORD, to You I cry out; for fire has devoured the open pastures, and a flame has burned all the trees of the field. The beasts of the field also cry out to You, for the water brooks are dried up, and fire has devoured the open pastures.

a. For the day of the LORD is at hand: The idea behind the phrase the day of the LORD is that this is Gods' time. Man has his "day," and the LORD has His day. In the ultimate sense, the day of the LORD is fulfilled with Jesus judges the earth and returns in glory. In a lesser sense, a time of judgment as Judah experienced with the locusts and drought is also an example of the day of the LORD.

b. The seed shrivels . . . they have no pasture . . . the flocks of sheep suffer punishment . . . fire has devoured the open pastures . . . the water brooks are dried up: Joel vividly describes a devastating drought. It affects everything in Judah, and wildfires ravage the dry land.

c. O LORD, to You I cry out: In this time of drought, all Judah could do was cry out to God. They were powerless to "fix" the drought problem. God sent them to a place where only heaven could help them, so they would look no other place.

i. In Luke 13:1-5 Jesus was confronted with the problem of a disaster that killed 18 people. Instead of acting as if it were just an accident of blind fate, Jesus used it as a wake-up call for repentance. Jesus showed that "Why did this disaster happen to them?" is the wrong question. The right question is "Am I ready to face such a disaster in this fallen world?"

© 2001 David Guzik - No distribution beyond personal use without permission

Commentary -- Other

Evidence: Joe 1:3

Christian parents who don't have daily family devo;ions and don't make time to build a solid Christian foundation in their chldren's impressionable years should not be mystified when the children, in their teenage years, turn from the things of God (see Psa 78:4 ).

Introduction / Outline

JFB: Joel (Book Introduction)

JOEL (meaning "one to whom Jehovah is God," that is, worshipper of Jehovah) seems to have belonged to Judah, as no reference occurs to Israel; whereas he speaks of Jerusalem, the temple, the priests, and the ceremonies, as if he were intimately familiar with them (compare Joe 1:14; Joe 2:1, Joe 2:15, Joe 2:32; Joe 3:1-2, Joe 3:6, Joe 3:16-17, Joe 3:20-21). His predictions were probably delivered in the early days of Joash 870-865 B.C.; for no reference is made in them to the Babylonian, Assyrian, or even the Syrian invasion; and the only enemies mentioned are the Philistines, Phœnicians, Edomites, and Egyptians (Joe 3:4, Joe 3:19). Had he lived after Joash, he would doubtless have mentioned the Syrians among the enemies whom he enumerates since they took Jerusalem and carried off immense spoil to Damascus (2Ch 24:23-24). No idolatry is mentioned; and the temple services, the priesthood, and other institutions of the theocracy, are represented as flourishing. This all answers to the state of things under the high priesthood of Jehoiada, through whom Joash had been placed on the throne and who lived in the early years of Joash (2Ki 11:17-18; 2Ki 12:2-16; 2Ch 24:4-14). He was the son of Pethuel.

The first chapter describes the desolation caused by an inroad of locusts--one of the instruments of divine judgment mentioned by Moses (Deu 28:38-39) and by Solomon (1Ki 8:37). The second chapter (Joe 2:1-11): the appearance of them, under images of a hostile army suggesting that the locusts were symbols and forerunners of a more terrible scourge, namely, foreign enemies who would consume all before them. (The absence of mention of personal injury to the inhabitants is not a just objection to the figurative interpretation; for the figure is consistent throughout in attributing to the locusts only injury to vegetation, thereby injuring indirectly man and beast). Joe 2:12-17 : exhortation to repentance, the result of which will be: God will deliver His people, the former and latter rains shall return to fertilize their desolated lands, and these shall be the pledge of the spiritual outpouring of grace beginning with Judah, and thence extending to "all flesh." Joel 2:18-3:21 : God's judgments on Judah's enemies, whereas Judah shall be established for ever.

Joel's style is pre-eminently pure. It is characterized by smoothness and fluency in the rhythms, roundness in the sentences, and regularity in the parallelisms. With the strength of Micah it combines the tenderness of Jeremiah, the vividness of Nahum, and the sublimity of Isaiah. As a specimen of his style take the second chapter wherein the terrible aspect of the locusts, their rapidity, irresistible progress, noisy din, and instinct-taught power of marshalling their forces for their career of devastation, are painted with graphic reality.

JFB: Joel (Outline)

• THE DESOLATE ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY THROUGH THE PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS; THE PEOPLE ADMONISHED TO OFFER SOLEMN PRAYERS IN THE TEMPLE; FOR THIS CALAMITY IS THE EARNEST OF A STILL HEAVIER ONE. (Joel 1:1-20)
• THE COMING JUDGMENT A MOTIVE TO REPENTANCE. PROMISE OF BLESSINGS IN THE LAST DAYS. (Joel 2:1-32) A more terrific judgment than that of the locusts is foretold, under imagery drawn from that of the calamity then engrossing the afflicted nation. He therefore exhorts to repentance, assuring the Jews of Jehovah's pity if they would repent. Promise of the Holy Spirit in the last days under Messiah, and the deliverance of all believers in Him.
• GOD'S VENGEANCE ON ISRAEL'S FOES IN THE VALLEY OF JEHOSHAPHAT. HIS BLESSING ON THE CHURCH. (Joel 3:1-21)

TSK: Joel (Book Introduction)

It is generally supposed, that the prophet Joel blends two subjects of affliction in one general consideration, or beautiful allegory; and that, under the devastation to be produced by locusts in the vegetable world, he portrays the more distant calamities to be inflicted by the armies of the Chaldeans in their invasion of Judea. These predictions are followed by a more general denunciation of God’s vengeance, delivered in such language as to be in some measure descriptive of the final judgment of mankind. The prophet intermingles these declarations with earnest exhortations to repentance, and with promises of returning prosperity productive of Gospel blessings; foretelling, in the clearest terms, the general effusion of the Holy Spirit under the Christian dispensation, and the awful consequences of obstinately rejecting the sacred influence, especially to the Jews. The state of this nation at the present day, fully attests the Divine inspiration of the prophecy.

TSK: Joel 1 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Joe 1:1, Joel, declaring sundry judgments of God, exhorts to observe them, v.8, and to mourn; v.14, He prescribes a solemn fast to deprecate those judgments.

Poole: Joel (Book Introduction)

THE ARGUMENT

Since so many undeterminable points of less moment occur in our prophet, as of what tribe he was, whether his father were a prophet, whether he prophesied in Jeroboam’ s or Hezekiah’ s time, whether contemporary with Hosea, Amos, and Isaiah; whether he preached to the ten tribes, or to the two tribes, or to both; whether the locusts are literal only, or typical and significative of enemies, or how many years they continued, what nations they did prefigure, when the execution began, when it ended; or when he began, or how long he continued to prophesy; — we may well rest ourselves contented in the undisputable things of greater moment, such as are, the Divine authority with which he came, attested by himself, Joe 1:1 , and confirmed to us by the apostle, Act 2:17 Rom 10:13 , and by Christ himself, Mat 24:29 Mar 13:24 Luk 21:25 : all he spake is the word of God. The pernicious consequences of national sins, such as were visible on God’ s own people at this very time in parching droughts, devouring locusts, and famine; the only method for removing these judgments, fasting, prayer, and amendment of our life; the successive sufferings of the church under the several monarchies till the coming of the Messiah, with the wonderful preservation of the good during those times; the just and final decisions God will make for his against their oppressors in those kingdoms, doing it by raising the succeeding empire to punish and overthrow the precedent; the conversion of the Jews, the calling of the Gentiles; the advancement of the kingdom of the Messiah and communications of gifts and graces to his church; the final and universal decision of all things that concern God and his church on the one side, and their enemies on the other; the general judgment of quick and dead, — are the great subjects he doth in plainer or darker terms set before us. In unfolding of the whole, whose excludes the letter and historical reference will fail on one hand, and whose excludes the typical and mystical reference will err as much on the other hand. In a due and just application of both lieth the true mean, which hath been aimed at in this enterprise, and how far attained is submitted to the judgment of those that read the ensuing annotations.

Poole: Joel 1 (Chapter Introduction)

JOEL CHAPTER 1

Joel declareth the destruction of the fruits of the earth by noxious insects, Joe 1:1-7 , and by a long drought, Joe 1:8-13 . He recommendeth a solemn fasting with prayer to deprecate these judgments, Joe 1:14-20 .

Since this preface is word for word the same with that of Hosea, Hos 1:1 , see it there explained.

MHCC: Joel (Book Introduction)

From the desolations about to come upon the land of Judah, by the ravages of locusts and other insects, the prophet Joel exhorts the Jews to repentance, fasting, and prayer. He notices the blessings of the gospel, with the final glorious state of the church.

MHCC: Joel 1 (Chapter Introduction)

(Joe 1:1-7) A plague of locusts.

(Joe 1:8-13) All sorts of people are called to lament it.

(Joe 1:14-20) They are to look to God.

Matthew Henry: Joel (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Book of the Prophet Joel

We are altogether uncertain concerning the time when this prophet prophesied; it is probable that it was about the same time Amos prophesied, not for the reason that the rabbin give, " Because Amos begins his prophecy with that wherewith Joel concludes his, The Lord shall roar out of Zion, " but for the reason Dr. Lightfoot gives, " Because he speaks of the same judgments of locusts, and drought, and fire, that Amos laments, which is an intimation that they appeared about the same time, Amos in Israel and Joel in Judah. Hosea and Obadiah prophesied about the same time; and it appears that Amos prophesied in the says of Jeroboam, the second king of Israel, Amo 7:10. God sent a variety of prophets, that they might strengthen the hands one of another, and that out of the mouth of two or three witnesses every word might be established. In this prophecy, I. The desolations made by hosts of noxious insects is described, ch. 1 and part of ch. 2. II. The people are hereupon called to repentance, ch. 2. III. Promises are made of the return of mercy upon their repentance (ch. 2), and promises of the pouring out of the Spirit in the latter days. IV. The cause of God's people is pleaded against their enemies, whom God would in due time reckon with (ch. 3); and glorious things are spoken of the gospel - Jerusalem and of the prosperity and perpetuity of it.

Matthew Henry: Joel 1 (Chapter Introduction)

This chapter is the description of a lamentable devastation made of the country of Judah by locusts and caterpillars. Some think that the prophet speaks of it as a thing to come and gives warning of it beforehand, as usually the prophets did of judgments coming. Others think that it was now present, and that his business was to affect the people with it and awaken them by it to repentance. I. It is spoken of as a judgment which there was no precedent of in former ages (Joe 1:1-7). II. All sorts of people sharing in the calamity are called upon to lament it (Joe 1:8-13). III. They are directed to look up to God in their lamentations, and to humble themselves before him (Joe 1:14-20).

Constable: Joel (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Title and Writer

The title of this book is the name of its writer, as is true of all the prophetical books of the Old Testament.

We know little about Joel, whose name means "Yahweh is God." He was the son of Pethuel, who does not appear to have been a specially significant person. Eleven other individuals in the Old Testament bore the name Joel (1 Sam. 8:2; 1 Chron. 4:35; 5:4; 7:3; 11:38; 15:7; 26:22; 27:20; 2 Chron. 29:12; Ezra 10:43; Neh. 11:9).

Unity

All the extant Hebrew manuscripts and the ancient versions of Joel attest to the unity of the book. Critics who deny its unity and argue for two different writers do so on the basis of supposed literary and conceptual differences, usually between the first two chapters and the third. Specifically they assign the historical passages to Joel and the apocalyptic ones to another writer. However there is a consistent theme that ties the whole book together, so most conservative interpreters believe that Joel wrote all three chapters.

Date

The date of Joel is its largest introductory problem. There are four most likely possibilities. First, 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. However, all these conclusions are open to other interpretations.¹

Second, some authorities believe a mid-pre-exilic date of composition, probably during the reign of Joash's grandson, King Uzziah (792-740 B.C.), fits the evidence best. Supporters of this view also claim the first two arguments cited in favor of the early pre-exilic view above. They argue, also, that the absence of references to Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia make a later date, when these nations were the major ancient Near Eastern superpowers, unlikely. Joel's reference to Greece in 3:6 may fit this period since the Ionian Greeks were at this time expanding their commercial influence in Asia Minor. Joel's reference to the Sabeans in 3:8 is appropriate for this period as well. Internal references and linguistic characteristics may also reflect Uzziah's times and are similar to the writings of the other eighth-century prophets (i.e., Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah). However, again, much of the same evidence can fit other periods of Judah's history.²

Third, some interpreters opt for a late pre-exilic date. Statements in Joel could fit this period, and some of his statements are similar to those of Jeremiah and Ezekiel and may reflect pre-captivity conditions, perhaps between 597 and 587 B.C. If true, Joel would have been a contemporary of Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. Yet Joel 2:18-19 seems to imply that God had been merciful to Joel's generation, suggesting that the people had repented, but there is no record of this happening during this period.³

The fourth view is that Joel wrote at a postexilic date, perhaps 515-500 B.C. or even as late as sometime in the 400s B.C. Interpreters who see Joel 3:1-2 and 17 as references to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian captivity take the references to the temple in 1:9, 13 and 2:17 as applying to the second temple (completed in 515 B.C.). Yet all these texts could apply to earlier periods.⁴

As should be obvious from this brief review, the dating of the book rests on interpretations of various verses that are not clear. No other Old Testament book mentions Joel either. Consequently dating the book amounts to guesswork, though some writers were quite dogmatic about their convictions. I prefer an early or mid-pre-exilic date mainly because of Joel's position in the Hebrew text among other writers of this period. I think he was probably one of the earliest writing prophets.

Place of Composition and Audience

Joel's frequent references to Judah and Jerusalem suggest that he lived and ministered in the Southern Kingdom (cf. 1:2, 9, 13-14, 16, 23, 32; 2:1, 14-15, 17, 23; 3:1-8, 12, 14, 17-21).

"Joel was a man of vitality and spiritual maturity. A keen discerner of the times, he delivered God's message to the people of Judah in a vivid and impassioned style, with a precision and originality of thought that served as a veritable quarry out of which many subsequent prophetic building stones were to be hewn."⁵

Purpose

Joel wrote to warn his audience about a coming day in which God would judge His people. He compared this devastating judgment to a terrible locust invasion that had fairly recently swept through the land. What he said about this coming judgment has only seen partial fulfillment; some of it still lies in the eschatological future. God would send blessing as well as judgment, however, and this too has only come partially on the Israelites so far. The prophet warned his hearers that unless they repented of their empty formalism in worship and turned back to Yahweh wholeheartedly, devastating judgment would overtake them. If they repented, God would pardon them and restore His blessings to them abundantly.

Theology

The sovereignty of God and the inevitability of divine punishment for covenant unfaithfulness are dominant themes in Joel. Thus the administration of God is a strong motif--how God exercises His sovereignty when His people sin.

Another important theological contribution of Joel is his prediction of God pouring out the Holy Spirit on all humanity (2:28-32).

Message⁶

The Book of Joel contains a threefold vision.

The first part of Joel's vision concerned a locust plague that had recently swept over the Promised Land. Joel prophesied about this plague because of the desolation that it had produced. The second part of his vision concerned a coming invasion from a foreign army in the fairly near future. He used the recent locust plague to illustrate the devastating effect of the coming military invasion. The third part of his vision concerned another coming invasion in the far distant future that would also be like the recent locust invasion, only worse.

Joel described each of these devastations as "the day of the Lord." The term itself refers to a time when God had been or would be controlling events for Israel in an unusually direct way. It was "His day" in the sense that at those times Yahweh was and would be especially prominent in what happened. Thus this term referred to a past "day," a near future "day," and a far distant "day" from the prophet's perspective. "The day of the Lord" was the burden of his prophecy.

The Book of Joel has two preeminent timeless values. It illustrates the basic principles by which Yahweh governs, and it reveals the basic plan of Yahweh through the ages. It is important for us to grasp these basic principles and this basic plan because the other prophets reveal more about them. They expound them giving more detail. Again, as we saw with Obadiah (how God feels about pride and those who mistreat the Jews), God gave His people the simple, general lessons first. Then He gave more detailed information through the prophets that followed.

First, Joel illustrates the principles by which Yahweh governs. This book does not reveal them in the sense of explaining them fully. Isaiah explains them more fully. Joel illustrates these principles briefly.

Joel viewed Yahweh as enthroned in heaven controlling affairs on earth. Joel saw Him presiding patiently over all the situations through which His people pass. He saw Him pressing into His service all the processes of nature and human activity. He also saw Him achieving ultimate victory in "His day," "the day of the Lord." He had accomplished victory by judging His people with a locust invasion recently. He would accomplish victory by disciplining His people with an invasion from a foreign foe in the near future. And He would accomplish victory by restoring His people through a fresh outpouring of His Spirit in the distant future. So one major lesson of this book is that God is enthroned in heaven and that He is ruling over the affairs of humanity.

A second illustration of the principles by which Yahweh governs is Joel's emphasis on grace. Grace is at the heart of God's government. Grace is the inspiration of His government. We see this in God's appeal to the Israelites through Joel to repent, to "rend your hearts rather than your garments" (2:13a). The locust plague was a wake up call to repent. The Israelites' repentance would affect the imminent invasion they faced. God promised judgment, but He offered mercy if the people would repent (2:13b-14). Grace is also evident in the promise of a far distant future outpouring of God's Spirit in spite of the unfaithfulness of His people. God rules with grace. He is gracious to humanity in the way He governs people.

When the locust invasion swept through the land, the people bemoaned the tragedy. The locusts had so stripped the grapevines that even the drunkards could not find grapes to make wine. The people had so little grain that they could not bring offerings to the temple. They could hardly make bread for themselves to eat. They viewed the devastation as a natural disaster. Joel reminded them that the locust invasion had come by the will and hand of God. The people had forgotten God, but God wanted to get their attention, so He sent the plague. He had allowed this to happen so the people would think of Him and return to Him. When the invasion happened it was His "day." It was God who had done this (1:1-14).

Joel went on to remind the people that because they had forgotten about Him God was going to bring a worse devastation on them that would make the recent locust plague seem tame by comparison. If they turned back to Him, they could avoid this worse fate because God would be gracious to them (2:12-13). The coming invasion by humans rather than by locusts would also be a day in which the Lord acted prominently. Joel even said the Lord would lead this army of invaders (2:11).

Yet in spite of future devastating judgment, God would act again dramatically and definitely for His people (3:28-32). He would bring restoration and blessing to them even when they had suffered His chastening discipline. He would just as surely and personally do this for them as He would punish them. This, too, would be one of His "days." And it would be the ultimate illustration of His grace.

A second great timeless value of this book is its revelation of God's plan for His people Israel's future.

First, there would be coming judgment that the people could affect by their repentance (2:14). Had the Israelites repented the Captivities would not have overtaken them. When the Assyrians attacked Judah, the people did repent and the Lord delivered them. But when the Babylonians attacked Judah, they failed to repent and suffered defeat and deportation. Joel could honestly say for God, "Return to me with all your heart" (2:12). When the people failed to repent, judgment befell them.

Second, there would be even worse judgment in the distant future because the prophet foresaw that the people would continue to apostatize (3:1-17). This refers to the judgments on Israel during the Tribulation. Yet after that the Lord promised to restore and bless His people (2:18-32). These are millennial blessings. It is in this context of millennial blessings that the promise of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit appears (3:28-29). That outpouring is still future from our position in history.

But what about what Peter said on the day of Pentecost? He said that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit then was what Joel prophesied (Acts 2:17-18). This has led many Bible students to conclude that God fulfilled His promises to Israel in the church. This is the viewpoint of amillennial and postmillennial interpreters. Others see a double or partial fulfillment on the day of Pentecost with the church, and a future fulfillment with Israel in the Millennium. This is the viewpoint of many premillennialists. A third view is that fulfillment will only be in the Millennium and that what Peter meant was that what happened on the day of Pentecost was similar to or like what Joel prophesied. I favor this interpretation, as do many other premillennialists. Peter did not say that what was happening fulfilled Joel's prophecy. What he said could just as easily mean that what happened then was in harmony with or analygous to what Joel had predicted would happen in the Millennium. The two events were similar but not identical. It should be clear that they were not the same because in the middle of the section of Joel's prophecy that Peter quoted (3:28-32a), Joel mentioned the sun turning into darkness and the moon to blood (Acts 2:20). That did not happen on the day of Pentecost. It will happen in the Tribulation just before God pours out His Spirit on all flesh in the Millennium. The New Testament writers frequently spoke of fulfillment in an analogical sense (e.g., Matt. 2:15; Hos. 11:1).

Joel gave revelation about important aspects of God's plan for the future. He referred to the upcoming invasion by a foreign power, which took place shortly after he prophesied. He also talked about a far distant future time of judgment on Israel, the Tribulation. Then he revealed great blessing for all types of Israelites, from the most lowly to the most exalted, including the restoration of Israel during the Millennium. Sin, judgment, and restoration to privilege and power are what would mark Israel's future.

I would summarize the message of Joel this way. Though God will judge Israel for her apostasy with locust invasion-like devastation in the future, He will also later restore her to blessings greater than she has ever experienced illustrating that He governs the world graciously. Remember that "Israel" is not synonymous with the modern State of Israel.

When Joel wrote, it was man's day, not the day of the Lord. The Lord had acted in the locust invasion, and He would act in judgment and in blessing in the future. These would be His days. But when Joel prophesied, the people failed to see God at work because He was not active as He was and will be on these great days when His presence was and will be manifest. We too live in man's day. Most people, including many Christians, conclude that God either does not exist or takes no active role in human affairs because He is not obviously working. At least His working is not apparent to them because what is happening can be explained as natural or chance phenomena. Thus we live in a day very similar to Joel's day.

Whether people recognize it or not, God is executing His plan for the world. He will break into human experience again in the future. Thus it is imperative that we sound the same warning that Joel did. Judgment is coming, but people can avoid His judgment by repenting. "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered" (2:32; Acts 2:21). Humanity as a whole will fail to repent, just as the Israelites failed to repent (cf. 1 Tim. 4; 2 Tim. 3). Then a far worse fate will befall them. Yet God's plans for His people include incredible blessing, even though we fail Him. This evidence of God's grace should motivate God's people to repent and remain faithful to Him now. Thus God's government of Israel and His plan for Israel serve as a paradigm for His dealings with all humanity.

Constable: Joel (Outline)

Outline

I. Introduction 1:1

II. A past day of the Lord: a locust invasion 1:2-20

A. An initial appeal 1:2-4

B. A call to mourn 1:5-13

C. A call to repent 1:14

D. The significance of the plague 1:15-20

III. A near future day of the Lord: a human invasion 2:1-27

A. The invading army 2:1-11

1. The nearness of the army 2:1-2

2. The destructive power of the army 2:3-5

3. The relentlessness of the army 2:6-9

4. The invincibility of the army 2:10-11

B. A call to repentance 2:12-17

1. An appeal for private repentance 2:12-14

2. An appeal for public repentance 2:15-17

C. The possibility of forgiveness and restoration 2:18-27

1. The Lord's gracious response 2:18

2. The Lord's promise of blessing 2:19-27

IV. A far future day of the Lord: another human invasion and deliverance 2:28-3:21

A. Israel's spiritual renewal and deliverance 2:28-32

B. God's judgment on Israel's enemy nations 3:1-17

1. The announcement of judgment 3:1-8

2. The description of judgment 3:9-17

C. Israel's ultimate restoration 3:18-21

Constable: Joel

Joel

Bibliography

Allen, Leslie C. The Books of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah. The New International Commentary on the Old Testament series. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1976.

Archer, Gleason L., Jr. A Survey of Old Testament Introduction. Revised ed. Chicago: Moody Press, 1974.

Chisholm, Robert B., Jr. "Joel." In The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old Testament, pp. 1409-24. Edited by John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck. Wheaton: Scripture Press Publications, Victor Books, 1985.

_____. "A Theology of the Minor Prophets." In A Biblical Theology of the Old Testament, pp. 397-433. Edited by Roy B. Zuck. Chicago: Moody Press, 1991.

Constable, Thomas L. Talking to God: What the Bible Teaches about Prayer. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1995.

Driver, S. R. The Books of Joel and Amos. The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges series. Cambridge, Eng.: University Press, 1915.

Dyer, Charles H., and Eugene H. Merrill. The Old Testament Explorer. Nashville: Word Publishing, 2001.

Freeman, Hobart E. An Introduction to the Old Testament Prophets. Chicago: Moody Press, 1968.

Keil, Carl Friedrich. The Twelve Minor Prophets. 2 vols. Translated by James Martin. Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament. Reprint ed. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1949.

Kapelrud, Arvid S. Joel Studies. Uppsala, Sweden: A. B. Lundequistska Bokhandeln, 1948.

Patterson, Richard D. "Joel." In Daniel-Minor Prophets. Vol. 7 of The Expositor's Bible Commentary. 12 vols. Edited by Frank E. Gaebelein and Richard P. Polcyn. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1985.

Rudolph, Wilhelm. Joel-Amos-Obadja-Jona. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1971.

Smith, George Adam. The Book of the Twelve Prophets. 2 vols. Revised ed. New York: Harper & Brothers, n.d.

Stuart, Douglas. "The Sovereign's Day of Conquest." Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 220/21 (December 1975, February 1976):159-64.

Thompson, J. A. "Joel's Locusts in the Light of Near Eastern Parallels." Journal of Near Eastern Studies 14 (1955):52-55.

_____. "Translation of the Words for Locust." Bible Translator 25 (October 1974):405-11.

von Rad, Gerhard. "The Origin of the Concept of the Day of the Lord." Journal of Semitic Studies 4 (1959):97-108.

Whiting, John D. "Jerusalem's Locust Plague." National Geographic, December 1915, pp. 511-50.

Wolff, Hans Walter. Joel and Amos. Translated by Waldemar Janzen, S. Dean McBride Jr., and Charles A. Muenchow. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977.

Young, Edward J. An Introduction to the Old Testament. Revised ed. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1960.

Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

Haydock: Joel (Book Introduction)

THE PROPHECY OF JOEL.

INTRODUCTION.

Joel , whose name, according to St. Jerome, signifies the Lord God, (or, as others say, the coming down of God ) prophesied about the same time in the kingdom of Juda as Osee did in the kingdom of Israel. He foretells, under figures, the great evils that were coming upon the people for their sins; earnestly exhorts them to repentance, and comforts them with the promise of a teacher of justice, viz., Christ Jesus, our Lord, and of the coming down of his Holy Spirit (Challoner) upon the hundred and twenty faithful assembled in Sion. He describes the land of the twelve tribes made desolate, and the people cast off. (St. Jerome ad Paulin.) --- Yet he speaks chiefly of the kingdom of Juda, and mentions the house of God, sacrifices, &c. (Worthington) --- St. Jerome infers from his being placed after Osee, without any fresh title, (Calmet) that he lived in that order of time. (Worthington) --- But this rule is not general, as Jonas lived before Amos; and [the] Septuagint observe not the same disposition of the prophets as we do. The exact time of the famine, when Joel prophesied, cannot be ascertained. It seems he addressed the people in autumn, when a second year's famine was apprehended. He paints every thing with great force and beauty of style. (Calmet)

Gill: Joel (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO JOEL

In some Hebrew Bibles this prophecy is called "Sepher Joel", the Book of Joel; in the Vulgate Latin version, the Prophecy of Joel; and in the Syriac version, the Prophecy of the Prophet Joel; and the Arabic version, the Prophet Joel; and so the Apostle Peter quotes him, Act 2:16. His name, according to Hillerus ^a, signifies "the Lord is God"; but others derive it from lay, which in "Hiphil" is lyawh, and signifies "he willed, acquiesced, or is well pleased, so Abarbinei; and hence Schmidt thinks it answers to Desiderius or Erasmus. According to Isidorus ^b, he was born at Bethoron, in the tribe of Reuben, and died and was buried there; and so says Pseudo-Epiphanius ^c. In what age he lived is not easy to say. Aben Ezra expressly affirms there is no way to know it; and so R. David Ganz ^d says, his time we know not; and likewise Abarbinel. Some think he prophesied about the same time Hoses did, after whom he is next placed; and so Mr. Whiston ^e and, Mr. Bedford ^f make him to prophesy much about the same time with Isaiah and Hoses, about eight hundred years before Christ; but, in the Septuagint version, this book is in the fourth order, and not Hoses, but Amos and Micah, are placed before him; and so the author of Juchasin ^g puts the prophets in this order, first Hoses, then Amos, next Isaiah, then Micah, and after him Joel. Some of the Jewish writers, as Jarchi, Kimchi, and Abendana relate, make Joel contemporary with Elisha, and say he prophesied in the, lays of Jehoram the son of Ahab, when the seven years' famine called for came upon the land, 2Ki 8:1. Both in Seder Olam Rabba and Zuta ^h he is placed in the reign of Manasseh; and so in Hilchot Gedolot, as Jarchi observes. And it seems indeed as if he prophesied after the ten tribes were carried captive, which was in the sixth year of Hezekiah's reign, since no mention is made of Israel but with respect to future times, only of Judah and Jerusalem, But, be it when it will that he prophesied, there is no doubt to be made of the authenticity of this book, which is confirmed by the quotations of two apostles out of two: Peter and Paul, Act 2:16.

Gill: Joel 1 (Chapter Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO JOEL 1

This chapter describes a dreadful calamity upon the people of the Jews, by locusts and, caterpillars, and drought. After the title of the book, Joe 1:1; old men are called upon to observe this sore judgment to their children, that it might be transmitted to the latest posterity, as that the like to which had not been seen and heard of, Joe 1:2; and drunkards to awake and weep, because the vines were destroyed, and no wine could be made for them, Joe 1:5; and not only husbandmen and vinedressers, but the priests of the Lord, are called to mourn, because such destruction, was made in the fields and vineyards, that there were no meat nor drink offering brought into the house of the Lord, Joe 1:8; wherefore a general and solemn fast is required throughout the land, because of the distress of man and beast, Joe 1:14; and the chapter is concluded with the resolution of the prophet to cry unto the Lord, on account of this calamity, Joe 1:19.