Joel 1:5

1:5 Wake up, you drunkards, ¹  and weep!

Wail, all you wine drinkers, ² 

because the sweet wine ³  has been taken away ⁴  from you. ⁵ 

Joel 2:17

2:17 Let the priests, those who serve the Lord, weep

from the vestibule all the way back to the altar. ⁶ 

Let them say, “Have pity, O Lord, on your people;

please do not turn over your inheritance to be mocked,

to become a proverb ⁷  among the nations.

Why should it be said ⁸  among the peoples,

“Where is their God?”

[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.

[1:5]  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.

[1:5]  ³ tn Heb “over the sweet wine, because it.” Cf. KJV, NIV, TEV, NLT “new wine.”

[1:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “cut off” (so KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV); NAB “will be withheld.”

[1:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “your mouth.” This is a synecdoche of part (the mouth) for whole (the person).

[2:17]  ⁶ 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.

[2:17]  ⁷ 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]).

[2:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “Why will they say?”