1:13 Get dressed 6 and lament, you priests!
Wail, you who minister at the altar!
Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you servants of my God,
because no one brings grain offerings or drink offerings
to the temple of your God anymore. 7
1:14 Announce a holy fast; 8
proclaim a sacred assembly.
Gather the elders and 9 all the inhabitants of the land
to the temple of the Lord your God,
and cry out to the Lord.
1:15 How awful that day will be! 10
For the day of the Lord is near;
it will come as destruction from the Divine Destroyer. 11
1:16 Our food has been cut off right before our eyes! 12
There is no longer any joy or gladness in the temple of our God! 13
1:17 The grains of seed 14 have shriveled beneath their shovels. 15
Storehouses have been decimated
and granaries have been torn down, for the grain has dried up.
1:18 Listen to the cattle groan! 16
The herds of livestock wander around in confusion 17
because they have no pasture.
Even the flocks of sheep are suffering.
1:19 To you, O Lord, I call out for help, 18
for fire 19 has burned up 20 the grassy pastures, 21
flames have razed 22 all the trees in the fields.
1:20 Even the wild animals 23 cry out to you; 24
for the river beds 25 have dried up;
fire has destroyed 26 the grassy pastures. 27
2:15 Blow the trumpet 28 in Zion.
Announce a holy fast;
proclaim a sacred assembly!
2:16 Gather the people;
sanctify an assembly!
Gather the elders;
gather the children and the nursing infants.
Let the bridegroom come out from his bedroom
and the bride from her private quarters. 29
2:17 Let the priests, those who serve the Lord, weep
from the vestibule all the way back to the altar. 30
Let them say, “Have pity, O Lord, on your people;
please do not turn over your inheritance to be mocked,
to become a proverb 31 among the nations.
Why should it be said 32 among the peoples,
“Where is their God?”
1 tn Heb “so your eyes might be open toward this house night and day, toward the place about which you said, ‘My name will be there.’”
2 tn Heb “by listening to the prayer which your servant is praying concerning this place.”
3 tn Heb “listen to the request of your servant and your people Israel which they are praying concerning this place.”
4 tn Heb “and you, hear inside your dwelling place, inside heaven.” The precise nuance of the preposition אֶל (’el), used here with the verb “hear,” is unclear. One expects the preposition “from,” which appears in the parallel text in 2 Chr 6:21. The nuance “inside; among” is attested for אֶל (see Gen 23:19; 1 Sam 10:22; Jer 4:3), but in each case a verb of motion is employed with the preposition, unlike 1 Kgs 8:30. The translation above (“from inside”) is based on the demands of the immediate context rather than attested usage elsewhere.
5 tn Heb “hear and forgive.”
6 tn Heb “put on.” There is no object present in the Hebrew text, but many translations assume “sackcloth” to be the understood object of the verb “put on.” Its absence in the Hebrew text of v. 13 is probably due to metrical considerations. The meter here is 3 + 3, and that has probably influenced the prophet’s choice of words.
7 tn Heb “for grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.”
8 tn Heb “consecrate a fast” (so NASB).
9 tc The conjunction “and” does not appear in MT or LXX, but does appear in some Qumran texts (4QXIIc and 4QXIIg).
10 tn Heb “Alas for the day!”
11 tn There is a wordplay in Hebrew here with the word used for “destruction” (שׁוֹד, shod) and the term used for God (שַׁדַּי, shadday). The exact meaning of “Shaddai” in the OT is somewhat uncertain, although the ancient versions and many modern English versions tend to translate it as “Almighty” (e.g., Greek παντοκράτωρ [pantokratwr], Latin omnipotens). Here it might be rendered “Destroyer,” with the thought being that “destruction will come from the Divine Destroyer,” which should not be misunderstood as a reference to the destroying angel. The name “Shaddai” (outside Genesis and without the element “El” [“God”]) is normally used when God is viewed as the sovereign king who blesses/protects or curses/brings judgment. The name appears in the introduction to two of Balaam’s oracles (Num 24:4, 16) of blessing upon Israel. Naomi employs the name when accusing the Lord of treating her bitterly by taking the lives of her husband and sons (Ruth 1:20-21). In Ps 68:14, Isa 13:6, and the present passage, Shaddai judges his enemies through warfare, while Ps 91:1 depicts him as the protector of his people. In Ezek 1:24 and 10:5 the sound of the cherubs’ wings is compared to Shaddai’s powerful voice. The reference may be to the mighty divine warrior’s battle cry which accompanies his angry judgment.
12 tn Heb “Has not the food been cut off right before our eyes?” This rhetorical question expects an affirmative answer; the question has been translated as an affirmation for the sake of clarity and emphasis.
13 tn Heb “joy and gladness from the house of our God?” Verse 16b is a continuation of the rhetorical question begun in v. 16a, but has been translated as an affirmative statement to make the meaning clear. The words “There is no longer any” are not in the Hebrew text, but have been supplied in the translation for clarity.
14 tn Heb “seed.” The phrase “the grains of” does not appear in the Hebrew, but has been supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.
15 tc This line is textually uncertain. The MT reads “the seed shrivels in their shovels/clods.” One Qumran manuscript (4QXXIIc) reads “the heifers decay in [their] s[talls].” LXX reads “the heifers leap in their stalls.”
16 tn Heb “how the cattle groan!”
17 tn Heb “the herds of cattle are confused.” The verb בּוּךְ (bukh, “be confused”) sometimes refers to wandering aimlessly in confusion (cf. Exod 14:3).
18 tn The phrase “for help” does not appear in the Hebrew, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity.
19 sn Fire here and in v. 20 is probably not to be understood in a literal sense. The locust plague, accompanied by conditions of extreme drought, has left the countryside looking as though everything has been burned up (so also in Joel 2:3).
20 tn Heb “consumed.” This entire line is restated at the end of v. 20.
21 tn Heb “the pastures of the wilderness.”
22 tn Heb “a flame has set ablaze.” This fire was one of the effects of the drought.
23 tn Heb “beasts of the field.”
24 tn Heb “long for you.” Animals of course do not have religious sensibilities as such; they do not in any literal sense long for Yahweh. Rather, the language here is figurative (metonymy of cause for effect). The animals long for food and water (so BDB 788 s.v. עָרַג), the ultimate source of which is Yahweh.
25 tn Heb “sources of water.”
26 tn Heb “consumed.”
27 tn Heb “the pastures of the wilderness.”
28 tn See the note on this term in 2:1.
29 sn Mosaic law allowed men recently married, or about to be married, to be exempt for a year from certain duties that were normally mandatory, such as military obligation (cf. Deut 20:7; 24:5). However, Joel pictures a time of such urgency that normal expectations must give way to higher requirements.
30 tn Heb “between the vestibule and the altar.” The vestibule was located at the entrance of the temple and the altar was located at the other end of the building. So “between the vestibule and the altar” is a merism referring to the entire structure. The priestly lament permeates the entire house of worship.
31 tn For the MT reading לִמְשָׁל (limshol, an infinitive, “to rule”), one should instead read לְמָשָׁל (lÿmashal, a noun, “to a byword”). While the consonantal Hebrew text permits either, the context suggests that the concern here is more one of not wanting to appear abandoned by God to ongoing economic depression rather than one of concern over potential political subjection of Israel (cf. v. 19). The possibility that the form in the MT is an infinitive construct of the denominative verb II מָשַׁל (mashal, “to utter a proverb”) does not seem likely because of the following preposition (Hebrew בְּ [bÿ], rather than עַל [’al]).
32 tn Heb “Why will they say?”