1This is the word of the LORD that came to Joel son of Pethuel: 2Hear this, O elders; and give ear, all who dwell in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your fathers? 3Tell it to your children; let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. 4What the devouring locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust has left, the young locust has eaten; and what the young locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten. 5Wake up, you drunkards, and weep; wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it has been cut off from your mouth. 6For a nation has invaded My land, powerful and without number; its teeth are the teeth of a lion, and its fangs are the fangs of a lioness. 7It has laid waste My grapevine and splintered My fig tree. It has stripped off the bark and thrown it away; the branches have turned white. 8Wail like a virgin dressed in sackcloth, grieving for the husband of her youth. 9Grain and drink offerings have been cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests are in mourning, those who minister before the LORD. 10The field is ruined; the land mourns. For the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, and the oil fails. 11Be dismayed, O farmers, wail, O vinedressers, over the wheat and barley, because the harvest of the field has perished. 12The grapevine is dried up, and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, palm, and apple— all the trees of the orchard—are withered. Surely the joy of mankind has dried up. 13Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests; wail, O ministers of the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God, because the grain and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God. 14Consecrate a fast; proclaim a solemn assembly! Gather the elders and all the residents of the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD. 15Alas for the day! For the Day of the LORD is near, and it will come as destruction from the Almighty. 16Has not the food been cut off before our very eyes— joy and gladness from the house of our God? 17The seeds lie shriveled beneath the clods; the storehouses are in ruins; the granaries are broken down, for the grain has withered away. 18How the cattle groan! The herds wander in confusion because they have no pasture. Even the flocks of sheep are suffering. 19To You, O LORD, I call, for fire has consumed the open pastures and flames have scorched all the trees of the field. 20Even the beasts of the field pant for You, for the streams of water have dried up, and fire has consumed the open pastures.
Matthew Henry's Commentary
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.A plague of locusts. (1-7) All sorts of people are called to lament it. (8-13) They are to look to God. (14-20) 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. 8-13 All who labour only for the meat that perishes, will, sooner or later, be ashamed of their labour. Those that place their happiness in the delights of sense, when deprived of them, or disturbed in the enjoyment, lose their joy; whereas spiritual joy then flourishes more than ever. See what perishing, uncertain things our creature-comforts are. See how we need to live in continual dependence upon God and his providence. See what ruinous work sin makes. As far as poverty occasions the decay of piety, and starves the cause of religion among a people, it is a very sore judgment. But how blessed are the awakening judgments of God, in rousing his people and calling home the heart to Christ, and his salvation! 14-20 The sorrow of the people is turned into repentance and humiliation before God. With all the marks of sorrow and shame, sin must be confessed and bewailed. A day is to be appointed for this purpose; a day in which people must be kept from their common employments, that they may more closely attend God's services; and there is to be abstaining from meat and drink. Every one had added to the national guilt, all shared in the national calamity, therefore every one must join in repentance. When joy and gladness are cut off from God's house, when serious godliness decays, and love waxes cold, then it is time to cry unto the Lord. The prophet describes how grievous the calamity. See even the inferior creatures suffering for our transgression. And what better are they than beasts, who never cry to God but for corn and wine, and complain of the want of the delights of sense? Yet their crying to God in those cases, shames the stupidity of those who cry not to God in any case. Whatever may become of the nations and churches that persist in ungodliness, believers will find the comfort of acceptance with God, when the wicked shall be burned up with his indignation.