Joel 1 commentary

JOEL 1 COMMENTARY
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
INTRODUCTION
BENSON, "THERE is much uncertainty as to the exact time when Joel
prophesied. Some think he was cotemporary with Hosea: and that as Hosea
prophesied chiefly to the ten tribes, so Joel addressed chiefly the two tribes of
Judah and Benjamin. It seems most probable, from some parts of this prophecy,
that it was delivered in the reign of Ahaz, after the Edomites had smitten Judah,
and used great violence; (compare 2 Chronicles 28:17, and Joel 3:19;) and after
the Philistines had invaded their cities, and slain or expelled their inhabitants,
(compare 2 Chronicles 28:18, and Joel 3:4,) and were both of them triumphing in
their success; upon which account God particularly threatens them by this
prophet. And as to the Philistines, Joel’s prediction was executed against them in
Hezekiah’s reign, who succeeded Ahaz; it being expressly predicted of him by
Isaiah 14:29, that he should dissolve and destroy them, which we find from his
history he actually did. The prophecy consists of four parts: 1st, The prophet
describes and bewails the destruction which should be made by locusts, and the
distress the country should be in through an excessive drought, Joel 1:1 to Joel
2:12. 2dly, He calls the people to repentance, to which he encourages them with
promises of a removal of the judgment, and of God’s taking them into his favour
on their complying with his exhortation, Joel 2:12-27. 3dly, He foretels the
plentiful effusion of the Holy Spirit, which should take place in the latter days,
namely, in the days of the Messiah, Joel 2:28-32. 4thly, He proclaims God’s
judgments against the neighbouring nations, which had unjustly invaded,
plundered, and carried his people into captivity: and foretels glorious things of
the gospel Jerusalem, and of’ the prosperity and perpetuity of it, chap. 3.
The style of Joel is essentially different from that of Hosea; but the general
character of his diction, though of a different kind, is not less poetical. He is
elegant, perspicuous, copious, and fluent; he is also sublime, animated, and
energetic. In the first and second chapters he displays the full force of the
prophetic poetry, and shows how naturally it inclines to the use of metaphors,
allegories, and comparisons. Nor is the connection of the matter less clear and
evident than the complexion of the style: this is exemplified in the display of the
impending evils which gave rise to the prophecy; the exhortation to repentance;
the promises of happiness and success, both terrestrial and eternal, to those who
become truly penitent; the restoration of the Israelites; and the vengeance to be
taken of their adversaries. But while we allow this just commendation to his
perspicuity, both in language and arrangement, we must not deny that there is
sometimes great obscurity observable in his subject, and particularly in the latter
part of the prophecy. See Bishop Lowth, De Sacra Poesi Hebræorum, Prælec. 21.
PETT, "Introduction
The Grounds For Seeing Chapter 1 As Referring To Real Locusts And Chapter
2 As Referring To An Invading Army.
1

Clearly the arguments above support the first part of this position, and the
second part is based on the kind of language used in chapter 2. This would be a
fairly strong case if all that was in mind was a visit by flying locusts, but
descriptions such as Dr Thomson’s (see above) of the creeping army of young
wingless locusts helps to vividly explain that language. Indeed as we shall see, it
brings chapter 2 alive. On the other hand, once the metaphorical idea of an army
is removed, the remainder of the language clearly refers to the activities of
insects as witnessed by Joel himself and vividly portrayed.
The Grounds For Seeing Both Chapters As Referring To Human Armies.
This view demands a leap of the imagination from what is presented in chapter 1
to the idea of human armies, and is usually held by those who interpret Joel in
accordance with their own pre-conceived notions. Apart from the use of the
word ‘nation’, which can be explained otherwise (compare its use in Zephaniah
2:14 where it means different species of animals in their groupings, and the
reference to different species of creatures as a ‘people’ in Proverbs 30:25-27),
there are really no grounds in chapter 1 for considering that it speaks of a
human army, and it is noteworthy that the devastations described all adequately
apply to insects like locusts, while nothing of what we would see as characteristic
of humans (killing, rape, use of the sword, taking captives, etc.), is found
anywhere in the narrative (of either chapter 1 or chapter 2). Note how all
through it is only natural things that are affected, together with the provision of
meal and wine for Temple offerings, with not a word said of any other effects. If
Joel wanted us to think that he had locusts in mind he has certainly made a good
job of it.
BRIDGEWAY BIBLE COMMENTARY
BACKGROUND
Among the prophets of the Old Testament, Joel differs from most of the others in
that he does not state the period during which he preached. One suggestion is
that he prophesied in Judah around the period835-830 BC, during the reign of
the boy-king Joash. This would explain why the book does not mention Syria,
Assyria or Babylon, the chief enemies during the time of the divided kingdom, as
these nations had not yet begun to interfere in Judah's affairs. It would also
explain why the prophet does not mention a reigning king, for at that time the
government of the country was largely in the hands of the priest Jehoiada ( 2
Kings 11:1-21; 2 Kings 12:1-2). The prominence of Jehoiada may also account
for Joel's interest in the temple and its services ( Joel 1:9; Joel 1:13; Joel 2:12;
Joel 2:15-17).
An alternative suggestion is that the book was written after the Jews' return
from captivity. The most likely period is either520-510 BC (after the ministry of
Haggai and Zechariah and the rebuilding of the temple) or around400 BC (a
generation or so after the reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah). According to these
suggestions, Joel is among either the first or the last of the writing prophets.
2

Purpose of the book
In spite of the absence of a specific date, the present-day reader should have no
great difficulty in understanding the book of Joel. This is because the single
event that forms the book's basis is not concerned with details of Judah's local
politics or international affairs. The event is a severe locust plague, and the
setting appears to be Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside.
The locust plague brought extensive agricultural damage and created
widespread suffering to the people. What made the plague even more devastating
was its occurrence at the height of a crippling drought. Joel interpreted these
events as God's judgment on Judah for its sin. He promised the people that if
they repented, God would renew his blessing by giving them productive crops
and a more enlightened knowledge of himself. Joel saw these events as symbolic
of God's future judgment on all enemies and his blessing on his people.
BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR.
I. In what period should Joel's activity be placed ? — Before we can
get a true idea of any man who played an important part on the stage of the
world in past days, it is essential that we should know something of his environ-
ment — what the character of his age was, who his contemporaries were. This
knowledge is of peculiar value in connection witli the prophets ; for, more than
anything else, they were God's messengers and missionaries to those among
whom
they lived and moved and had their being. They preached first to the generation
and the epoch in which their lot was cast. No doubt their words had other
applications, because God's truth, like God from whom it comes, may fulfil itself
in many ways. But we shall hold a very unnatural and a very inadequate theory
of prophecy if we think of it as dealing solely, or even principally, with the
future.
It is the philosophy of history, unveiling its meaning and pointing its lessons.
If the prophet had had to do only or mainly with the distant future, it would
have mattered little to us in what particular age he chanced to live. Because
he was linked very truly and vitally to his own days and his own people, it is
most needful that we should try to understand his surroundings. What, then,
did Joel preach and labour ? We cannot say that there is anything like unanimity
in the reply to the question. That he belonged to the kingdom of Judah and
dwelt in Jerusalem itself — these facts are admitted by all, and are indeed
rendered
indisputable by the prophet's frequent references to Zion, to the house of
Jehovah,
to the porch and the altar, the priests and the ministers, the meat-offering and
the drink-offering. His date, however, is not so easily determined as his home.
Opinions have varied from the middle of the tenth century before Christ down
to the late days of the Maccabees. But, after all, it is pretty certain that Joel
is among the very oldest of the prophets. Amos, himself one of the first in that
3

goodly fellowship, knew his writings and loved them, and regarded their author
as a teacher, at whose feet he was willing to sit and listen. The herdsman of
Tekoa, to whose soul the breath of the Spirit came impelling him to speak,
opened
his prophecy with the awful declaration with which Joel had clo.sed his — " The
Lord shall roar out of Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem." Isaiah, too,
though he was so great and original, was not ashamed to glean from the son of
Pethuel some of those spirit-stirring thoughts which he uttered in the ears of
his people.' Evidently Joel was more ancient than these two. Something
may be learned, too, from the silences of his prophecy as well as from its positive
declarations ; for there are significant omissions in his writings. He does not
BO much as allude to Assyria, the terrible power, whose armies, having menaced
"tsrael often, at last carried its tribes into captivity, and whose might and cruelty
and doom are frequent themes with the prophets. No dovbt there are inter-
preters who find Assyria and its people everywhere latent under Joel's glowing
language ; but they are the exponents, as we shall see, of a theory which is not
the wisest or the best. Nor has our prophet anything to say even of Syria, a
nearer neighboin* of Israel and Judah, with whom they were often at war. We
may conclude that its people did not harass his during the time when he fulfilled
his mission, else he would surely have had some message fiom God regarding
them. And so the invasion under Hazael, when, because King Joash had for-
gotten the lessons which he had learned from the godly priest Jehoiada, and had
acted foolishly, and unlike a king of Jehovah's holy nation, " the host of Syria
came up against him to Judah and Jerusalem, and destroyed all the princes of
the people from among the people, and sent all the spoil of them unto the kin-j
of Damascus," — this invasion, so glorious for Syria but so ignominious for
Judah,
could hardly have fallen within the years when Joel lived and preached. But
it took place about the middle of the ninth century before Christ ; and we are
constrained therefore to fix his age before that time. Yet not very long before ;
for he could exult in the brilliant victory which, in the opening years of this
centurj
Jehoshaphat had gained over the forces that combined themselves against him
and against his God ; and could speak of it as the picture in miniature of a still
nobler triumph which the Lord would win in the latter days. " I will also gather
all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will
contend with them there for My people and for My heritage Israel." Such con-
siderations help us to a decision — to this decision, that Joel prophesied nearly
nine hundred years before the advent of Christ, perhaps in the days when Joash
was still a child, and when the kingdom of which he was the nominal sovereign
was managed by others in his stead. For the preacher's counsel is not addressed
to any king, but to the old men, and to the inhabitants of the land, and above
all to the priests, who were the real rulers during the regency ; and why should
he have so much to say to these classes, if not because they were more prominent
in his time than the monarch himself ? The reign of Joash commenced about
877 B.C., when he was but seven years of age ; and in the years just succeeding
his accession we may imagine Joel coming forth in the presence of the people
to utter the prophecies of which we have some fragments in the book which bears
his name. One other proof, confirmatory of this date, may be added. Names,
4

we know, were significant among the Hebrews. Jewish fathers and mothers
were very careful what they called their children. And Joel means " Jehovah
is God."' But that had been the cry of the Israelites on Mount Carmel, on the
memorable day when Elijah triumphed over the prophets of Baal, and slew them
with his own hand until Kishon ran red with their blood. " Jehovah, He is the
God," they exclaimed, " Jehovah, He is the God." Now, the birth of Joel,
if he belonged to the period to which I have assigned him, would fall just about
the time when on Carmel Elijah waxed valiant in fight, and turned to flight the
armies of the aliens. Joining this link of evidence to all the rest, have we not
a chain comparatively strong ?
II. Is Joel's prophecy literal ok figurative ? — Does he deal with the
present and the actual, or rather with events which were still in the future, and
which he depicts only in the language of metaphor and imagery ? Each belief
has found its advocates. To all outward seeming he speaks of a solemn visitation
of God's providence, which lay heavily on the land of Judah in his owti time.
Swarm after swarm of locusts had spread over the country, and had perTuitted
no green thing to escape them. Matters were sad enough, indeed, before they
showed themselves. Long-continued drought had robbed the fields of their
wonted fertility. The vine was dried up, and the fig-tree languished ; the pome-
granate and the palm and the apple were withered ; the herds of cattle were
perplexed because they had no pasture ; all joy was gone fion the sons of men.
But when the locusts appeared the crowning desolation came. How graphically
and vividly Joel describes these locusts ! Joel, we shall acknowledge, had mani-
festly an intimate acquaintance with the natirral history' of the locust. Then,
too, in what splendid coloiu-s he paints the invasion of the insect-host ! He
speaks of the shadow which their number throw over the land — a shadow
resem-
bling that of the dim, grey twilight of " the morning spread upon the
mountains."
He tells how they advance ; " like horsemen do they come " ; " like the noise
of chariots they leap upon the tops of the hills " ; " like the noise of a flame of
fire that devoureth the stubble " ; " as a strong people set in battle array." They
are well disciplined, for Joel can confirm from his own observation the scientifio
language ; but they are the exponents, as we shall see, of a theory which is not
the wisest or the best. Nor has our prophet anything to say even of Syria, a
nearer neighboin* of Israel and Judah, with whom they were often at war. We
may conclude that its people did not harass his during the time when he fulfilled
his mission, else he would surely have had some message fiom God regarding
them. And so the invasion under Hazael, when, because King Joash had for-
gotten the lessons which he had learned from the godly priest Jehoiada, and had
acted foolishly, and unlike a king of Jehovah's holy nation, " the host of Syria
came up against him to Judah and Jerusalem, and destroyed all the princes of
the people from among the people, and sent all the spoil of them unto the kin-j
of Damascus," — this invasion, so glorious for Syria but so ignominious for
Judah,
could hardly have fallen within the years when Joel lived and preached. But
it took place about the middle of the ninth century before Christ ; and we are
constrained therefore to fix his age before that time. Yet not very long before ;
5

for he could exult in the brilliant victory which, in the opening years of this
centurj
Jehoshaphat had gained over the forces that combined themselves against him
and against his God ; and could speak of it as the picture in miniature of a still
nobler triumph which the Lord would win in the latter days. " I will also gather
all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will
contend with them there for My people and for My heritage Israel." Such con-
siderations help us to a decision — to this decision, that Joel prophesied nearly
nine hundred years before the advent of Christ, perhaps in the days when Joash
was still a child, and when the kingdom of which he was the nominal sovereign
was managed by others in his stead. For the preacher's counsel is not addressed
to any king, but to the old men, and to the inhabitants of the land, and above
all to the priests, who were the real rulers during the regency ; and why should
he have so much to say to these classes, if not because they were more prominent
in his time than the monarch himself ? The reign of Joash commenced about
877 B.C., when he was but seven years of age ; and in the years just succeeding
his accession we may imagine Joel coming forth in the presence of the people
to utter the prophecies of which we have some fragments in the book which bears
his name. One other proof, confirmatory of this date, may be added. Names,
we know, were significant among the Hebrews. Jewish fathers and mothers
were very careful what they called their children. And Joel means " Jehovah
is God."' But that had been the cry of the Israelites on Mount Carmel, on the
memorable day when Elijah triumphed over the prophets of Baal, and slew them
with his own hand until Kishon ran red with their blood. " Jehovah, He is the
God," they exclaimed, " Jehovah, He is the God." Now, the birth of Joel,
if he belonged to the period to which I have assigned him, would fall just about
the time when on Carmel Elijah waxed valiant in fight, and turned to flight the
armies of the aliens. Joining this link of evidence to all the rest, have we not
a chain comparatively strong ?
II. Is Joel's prophecy literal ok figurative ? — Does he deal with the
present and the actual, or rather with events which were still in the future, and
which he depicts only in the language of metaphor and imagery ? Each belief
has found its advocates. To all outward seeming he speaks of a solemn visitation
of God's providence, which lay heavily on the land of Judah in his owti time.
Swarm after swarm of locusts had spread over the country, and had perTuitted
no green thing to escape them. Matters were sad enough, indeed, before they
showed themselves. Long-continued drought had robbed the fields of their
wonted fertility. The vine was dried up, and the fig-tree languished ; the pome-
granate and the palm and the apple were withered ; the herds of cattle were
perplexed because they had no pasture ; all joy was gone fion the sons of men.
But when the locusts appeared the crowning desolation came. How graphically
and vividly Joel describes these locusts ! Joel, we shall acknowledge, had mani-
festly an intimate acquaintance with the natirral history' of the locust. Then,
too, in what splendid coloiu-s he paints the invasion of the insect-host ! He
speaks of the shadow which their number throw over the land — a shadow
resem-
bling that of the dim, grey twilight of " the morning spread upon the
mountains."
6

He tells how they advance ; " like horsemen do they come " ; " like the noise
of chariots they leap upon the tops of the hills " ; " like the noise of a flame of
fire that devoureth the stubble " ; " as a strong people set in battle array." They
are well disciplined, for Joel can confirm from his own observation the scientifio
truth which Rabbi Agur imparted to his disciples, Ithiel and Ucal — the truth
that, though the locusts have no king, yet they go forth by ordered bands. " They
march every one on his ways," he assures us ; " they do not break their ranks,
neither does one thrust another." Before their onset the people are powerless.
*' They run to and fro in the streets " ; " they mount the wall " ; " they climb
up upon the houses " ; " they go in at the windows like a thief." How, indeed,
can they be defeated and put to shame ? For this is the army of Jehovah ; and
they are strong — they cannot but be strong, whether they be angels or men or
locusts of the field — who execute His word. And so, by heaping terror upon
terror, Joel leads his hearers on to the goal towards which he has been aiming.
He calls on them to repent of their sin. He bids them, in the Lord's name, rend
their hearts and not their garments. At this stage, with this call to repentance,
the first part of his prophecy ends. We may imagine a pause, of longer or shorter
duration, diu-ing which Joel sees his commands complied with. Priest and
people humble themselves, and seek the pardon of the God whom they have
offended. It is not in vain that they do so. When these poor men cry, the
Lord hears and saves them out of all their troubles. This joyful fact Joel com-
memorates when he opens his lips again, and his strain ]>asses fiom the minor to
the major key. Translate the futures of the 18th verse of the second chapter,
where the happier section of the prophecy begins, by imperfects, as there can
be little doubt they should be translated ; and you will know how true was the
repentance of Judah — how seasonable was God's succour — how thoroughly
the winter passed from the prophet's soul, and lo, the time of the singing of birds
was come. And then the horizon of the prophet widens. He thinks of better
blessings still which God has for His sons and daughters. He predicts the shame
of those ancient foes of Israel's youth — the only foes of Jehovah's people with
whom Joel was acquainted — Egypt, and Edom, and Philistia, and Phoenicia,
and the merchants of the north who sold Hebrew children as slaves to the Greeks
of Asia Minor, giving a boy for an harlot and a girl for wine. He prophesies
the near approach of a day of the Lord, full of darkness like the pillar of cloud
for all His enemies, of light and peace like the pillar of fire for all His friends.
When he ceases to speak, this is the vision which he leaves with us — on the one
side, nothing ; and on the other, Judah and Jerusalem. God's foes have become
non-existent ; only His people survive. " Egypt shall be a desolation, and
Edom a desolate wilderness ; but Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem
from generation to generation." With this note of stern triumph, of lofty intoler-
ance, Joel draws to a close the second and brighter part of his prophecy. Such
in substance is the book. Is it not strange that some interpreters should have
refused to adopt what seems its plain and evident sense ? The drought was not
a literal drought, they say ; the locusts were not the insects of the natural world
v/liich have carried ruin and destitution many a time to Eastern lands. One
(;ritic thinks that Joel intended the work of the locusts to represent " the
gnawing
care of prosperity and the unsatisfied desire left by a life of luxury." And others
are sure that the prophet's words dealt with the futiire and not with the present,
7

and that it was the scourge of the Assyrians of which he chiefly thought. It
is true that Assyiia did not vex Judah imtil the time of Hezekiah, many years
after Joel's day ; but to the seer's mind, gifted with the vision and the faculty
Divine, are not all things, even things distant and remote, laid naked and bare ?
It is difficult to conceive any reason for this figurative interpretation. Surely,
in God's hand, the locusts, which destroyed the pastures and trees, and brought
want and woe and grim death to many homes, were a scourge sufficiently
terrible
to justify the raising up of a prophet who should expound the lessons of the
awful
visitation. They were as worthy instruments for the execution of the Lord's
punishments upon a guilty people as the Chaldeans could be ; and if Joel had
them for his text his theme was sad and weighty enough. To unfold the meaning
of God's providence — to show that the world of nature, with its " tooth and
claw," its earthquakes and storms and fearful diseases, its tribes of creatiu-es
which can work the most mournful ruin, is under His government and
control, —
is not that as lofty and responsible a mission as any prophet could desire ?
Indeed,
the allegorical view is the outcome of that very insuflicient conception of
prophecy
which considers it to consist almost exclusively of prediction. Perhaps, in the
case of Joel, there has been this further thought in some minds, that, being one
of the firstborn among the prophets, he was bound to deal with those themes
which were principally to occupy the attention of his successors. He must sketch.
in outline the picture which they would fill in detail. But I prefer to believ«
that, as the needs of men demanded, God sent out to them His servants, each
at his own hour of the day and with his own allotted task to do — this servant
among the rest, who had a very real and actual diflBculty to grapple with, and
who was sufficiently honoured in being chosen to encounter and overcome it.
" Every man shall bear his own burden " is a rule which holds good in prophecy
as well as in daily life. But the book itself is the best refutation of the figurative
theory. It is a marvel that any could read its graphic sentences without feeling
that the whole soul of the author was concerned about a present trouble — the
trouble which he describes so powerfully. And it takes half of the grandeur
and sublimity out of these chapters to make them deal with Assyrians. " They
shall run like mighty men ; they shall climb the wall like men of war ; they
shall run to and fro in the city ; they shall climb up upon the houses," — under-
stand these sentences of soldiers, and they are commonplace prose ; understand
them of locusts, and they are throbbing, beautiful, impressive poetry. They
rob Joel of his genius who abandon the literal interpretation of his prophecy.
III. For, turning now to the characteristics of his style, I think we must
be struck most of all by the poetic cast of his thought and expression. There
is no probability that this book contains all his prophetic utterances. In every
likelihood it is but a sample of the words he was wont to speak to the people ;
but if the rest resembled these, how much we could wish that we had heard them
all ! If Joel wrestled with a literal trouble, he did not deal with it in a matter-
8

of-fact way. His sentences, we might well affirm, sound in our ears " like sweet
bells at the evening- time most musically rung " ; only, the music is for the most
part
pathetic or terrible rather than joyous, and the bells, while they never lose their
harmony, ring out now a plaintive and again a loud and spirit-stirring peal. If
you
wish an example of this sorrowful music — this mournful and yet most attractive
melody — read the exquisite metaphors of the opening chapter. Joel has three
different troubles to describe, each deeper and bitterer than the other ; but he
does not depict them like a pre-Raphaelite in their unlovely reality ; he throws
a halo of imagination round them. First, he wishes to tell his audience how
the locusts had taken away the luxuries which men enjoyed before, and he paints
the picture of a drunkard whose wine has been cut off, and who weeps that he
is denied his old delight. And then, advancing in his account of the griefs of
the land, he narrates how God's worship could not be fittingly observed, for the
meat-offering and the drink-offering were nowhere to be found ; and he paints
another picture, very tenderly and feelingly, of a young wife bereaved and
mourn-
ing and girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. And yet further
and deeper he goes in the sad history. The very necessities of life, the things
which men required for ordinary sustenance, could not now be procured. There
was no family but felt the pinch of poverty ; no home but learned from
experience
how gaunt and fierce the wolf is that comes to the door in time of famine. And,
that he may portray this lowest extremity, Joel paints a third picture, the com-
panion of the others — the pictm-e of some disappointed husbandmen and vine-
dressers, who go out to their fields and vineyards at the season when the fruits
of the earth should be gathered in, and discover only waste and barrenness. In
this book you may find two characteristics of true poetry — a great sympathy
with nature, and a great sympathy with man, in his varied life, his hopes and
fears and joys and griefs.
IV. What is Joel's pi^ce in history and revelation ? — He was the successor
of Elijah and Elisha. When he opened his mouth to speak what God had put
into his heart, the great warfare between Jehovah and Baal was accomplished.
There was no need to insist now on the truth that the Lord alone was God. His
unity and His sovereignty and His spirituality had already been placed beyond
all dispute ; and to Joel was entrusted the mission of unveiling and enforcing
other lessons about God — lessons which followed naturally on those taught by
his predecessors. That God works in the world, and that men are connected
with Him, and that there is a Divine event towards which things are tending — .
these were the doctrines which this prophet was bidden proclaim. He made
clear to his people the meaning of two words which are very familiar to us — -
the words " providence " and " judgment." He showed them that God does
not sleep, and does not only start at times into spasmodic activity — that He
is a constant power moving among His creatures ; that with Him men have
in a most real and solemn v/ay to do. And whilst Joel was charged to deliver
this message, he was honourt J in being permitted to hint at other truths, to
9

which
his successors often returned. What are some of these truths which appear
in his book in embryo and germ ? To him there was revealed, first among the
prophets, the great thought of " a day of the Lord " — dies irae dies ilia — when
the current of history should stand still, and this present age of the world should
come to an end. This prophet, too, lays stress on the idea of an effectual Divine
call, which comes to men, and which, when it comes in its majesty and grace,
they cannot resist. " In Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance,
as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call." Of course,
Joel did not attach to the idea the full doctrinal significance which the apostle
Paul, for example, was wont to do. God's revelation of this truth, as of all truth,
was gradual. A remnant, he said, called of God, would escape the desolating
ruin wrought by the locusts. These illustrations of the legacy of truth which
this prophet bequeathed to his successors might be multiplied ; but I choose
only one other. He was the first to speak of the outpouring of the Spirit, which
should be characteristic of the new dispensation. They were his sayings which
Peter quoted on the day of Pentecost. And his surely was a great honour, as
well as a great personal happiness, who, before any other, was permitted to
behold
this glory of the Gospel day. And can we not fancy now, in some measure, what
manner of man he was ? He was very humble ; for, though so high a mission
was intrusted to him, he did not exalt himself. It was sufficient to him that he
should publish the " word of the Lord that came to him " ; that he should be
a voice crying on God's behalf, not in the desert, indeed, but in the populous
city; that he should finish the work given him to do, and then go quietly back
to the darkness and the silence out of which for a moment he had been raised.
He was very stern, too, towards all sin ; and when he spoke of God's displeasure
against transgression, men trembled as they listened, and went straightway
and did those things which he commanded. And yet he had in him a tender
and loving heart, and perhaps there were tears in his eyes when he told out his
story of the wrath of the Lord. For he was much afiected by the miseries of
the creatures, and of the men and women and little children who were in sorrow
around him. (A. Smellie, M.A.) The prophet Joel: — Of Joel we know
absolutely nothing but what may be gathered from his prophecy, and that tells
us neither when nor where he flourished, save by hints and implications which
are still variously read. That he lived in Judah, probably in Jerusalem, we
may infer from the fact that he never mentions the northern kingdom of Israel,
and that he shows himself familiar with the temple, the priests, the ordinances
of worship; he moves through the sacred city and the temple of the Lord as one
that is at home in them, as one who is native, and to the manner born. On this
point the commentators are pretty well agreed ; but no sooner do we ask, "
Wlien
did Joel live and prophecy ? " than we receive the most diverse and
contradictory
replies. He has been moved along the chronological line of at least two centuries,
and fixed, now here, now there, at almost every point. He was probably the
earliest of the prophets whose writings have come down to us. There are hints
in his poem or prophecy which indicate that it must have been written in the
ninth century before Christ (cir. 870 — 860), more than a hundred years before
10

Isaiah " saw the Lord sitting on His throne, high and lifted up," and some fdiy
years after Elijah was carried " by a whirlwind into heaven." Joel's style is that
of the earlier age. So marked, indeed, is the " antique vigour and
imperativenet^s
of his language " that surely on this ground Ewald, whose fine, critical instinct
deserves a respect which his dogmatism often averts, places him, without a
doubt,
first in the rank of the earlier prophets, and makes him the conteiuporary of
Joash. All we can say is that, in all probability, the son of Pethuel lived in
Jerusalem during the reign of Joash ; that he aided Jehoiada, the high priest,
in urging the citizens to repair the temple, and to recur to the service of
Jehovah ;
and that his prophecy is the oldest in our hands, and was written in that com-
paratively calm and pure interval in which Jerusalem was free from the bloody
rites and licentious orgies of the Baalim worship. That the prophet was an
accomplished and gifted man is proved by his work. The style is pure, severe,
animated, finished, and full of happy rhythms and easy, graceful tiuns. " He
has no abrupt transitions, is everywhere connected, and finishes whatever he
takes up. In description he is graphic and perspicuous, in an-angeinent lucid j
in imagery original, copious, and varied." Even in this early poem we find
some instances of the tender refrains and recurring " burdens " which
characterise
much of the later Hebrew poetry. In short, there are marks both of the scholar
and of the artist in his style, which distinguish him very clearly from Amos the
shepherd, and Haggai the exile. It is almost beyond a doubt that he was a
practised author, of whose many poems and discourses only one haa come down
to us. (Samud Cox, D.D.)
Abgumbnts fob thb iatbb datb of Joel. — ^The probable date of the book
of Joel is a matter of much dispute. Some Biblical critics place it as early as 837,
others as late as 440 B.C. This is unfortimate, as the estimate of the value of
the prophecy is directly affected by the position adopted. Joel is either at the
heaa of the aristocracy of this famous line of prophets, or one of the less gifted
who bring up the rear. He is either indebted for ideas and phrjises to twelve
other Old Testament writers, or they are indebted to him. When the smallness
of the book is taken into consideration it seems much more likely that he
borrowed
from twelve than that twelve borrowed from him. Other reasons support the
conclusion that the book is of late date. There is no mention of the crass tendency
to idolatry, against which the early prophets declaimed. On the contrary, the
people appear docile and devout. The northern tribes of Israel form no part
of the body politic ; direct reference is made to the captivity of Judah and
Jerusalem and to the dispersed ; the exile is apparently a thing of the past.
Assyria as a world-power is not even darkly hinted at. There is no mention
of a king. These facts favour a late date imder the Persian era. Moreover,
almost exceptional importance is attached to the temple ritual. That was an
outstanding characteristic of the time succeeding the great reform of Ezra and
Nehemiah (440 B.C.). The bitter hatred of the heathen shown in the idea of
11

their utter annihilation (iii. 13), and the narrow, national exclusiveness revealed
in the fond conception of Jerusalem as a sacred city imdefiled by the foot of the
foreigner (iii. 17), afford convincing evidence that the book belongs to the later
days of Judaism. Further, the " Day of the Lord," which in the time of Amos
was popularly regarded as the dawn of blessing rather than of judgment,
appears
in the writings of Joel in the sharpest contrast of light and shade that the idea
had yet attained in the successive stages of its development. Such stumbling-
blocks as the references to Egypt and Edom (iii. 19) may be accounted for on
the lines of Ezekiel's visions (Ezek. xxix. 9, xxxii. 15). On the other hand,
Greece appears on the horizon m a clear light (Joel iii. 6). These and other
arguments set forth by various writers afford weighty evidence, which the tone
and character of the book seem altogether to confirm. {Thomas M' William,
M.A.)
1 The word of the Lord that came to Joel son of
Pethuel.
BARNES, "The word of the Lord that came to Joel - Joel, like Hosea,
mentions the name of his father only, and then is silent about his extraction, his
tribe, his family. He leaves even the time when he lived, to be guessed at. He would
be known only, as the instrument of God. “The word of the Lord came to” him (see
the note at Hos_1:1), and he willed simply to be the voice which uttered it. He was
“content to live under the eyes of God, and, as to people, to be known only in what
concerned their salvation.” But this he declares absolutely, that the Word of God
came to him; in order that we may give faith to his prophecy, being well assured that
what he predicted, would come to pass. So the Saviour Himself says, ““My words
shall not pass away” Mat_24:35. For truth admits of nothing false, and what God
saith, will certainly be. For “He confirmeth the word of His servant, and performeth
the counsel of His messengers” Isa_44:26. The prophet claimeth belief then, as
speaking not out of his own heart, but out of the mouth of the Lord speaking in the
Spirit.” Joel signifies, “The Lord is God.” It owns that God who had revealed Himself,
is alone the God. The prophet’s name itself, embodied the truth, which, after the
miraculous answer to Elijah’s prayer, all the people confessed, “The Lord He is the
God, The Lord He is the God.” Pethuel signifies, “persuaded of God.” The addition of
his father’s name distinguished the prophet from others of that name, as the son of
Samuel, of king Uzziah, and others.
CLARKE, "The word of the Lord that came to Joel - See the introduction
for some account of this prophet, whose history is very obscure. Bishop Newcome
thinks that he prophesied while the kingdom of Judah subsisted, and refers to Joe_
2:1, Joe_2:15, (see also Joe_1:14 (note), and the note there), but not long before its
12

subversion as his words, Joe_3:1, seem to imply that its captivity was approaching.
See 2Ki_21:10-15. He therefore favors the conjecture of Drusius, that this prophet
lived under Manasseh, and before his conversion, 2Ch_33:13; that is, some time
from before Christ 697 to (suppose) 660.
GILL, "The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethuel. Who
this Pethuel was is not known; Jarchi takes him to be the same with Samuel the
prophet, who had a son of this name, 1Sa_8:2; and gives this reason for his being
called Pethuel, because in his prayer he persuaded God; but the long span of time will
by no means admit of this, nor the character of Samuel's son agree with Joel; and
therefore is rightly denied by Aben Ezra, who observes, however, that this man was
an honourable man, and therefore his name is mentioned; and gives this as a rule,
that whenever any prophet mentions the name of his father, he was honourable.
Perhaps, it is here observed, to distinguish him from another of the same name; and
there was one of this name, Joel, a high priest in the reigns of Uzziah and Jotham,
according to Seder Olam Zuta (i) and Abarbinel (k); in whose time Joel is by some
thought to prophesy.
HENRY, "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.
JAMISON, "Joe_1:1-20. 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 — meaning, “Jehovah is God.”
son of Pethuel — to distinguish Joel the prophet from others of the name.
Persons of eminence also were noted by adding the father’s name.
13

BENSON, "Joel 1:1-3. Hear this, ye old men — Ye that have seen and remember
many things. Hath this been in your days, &c. — Give attention; and when you
have heard and considered, say whether any thing like the calamities which I am
about to denounce hath ever happened in your days, or in the days of your
fathers. In this way the prophet shows how great and unparalleled this dearth,
which he fore-tels, would be. Tell ye your children — Let these prophecies be
handed down to distant generations, and also an account of the events; that, the
events being compared with the prophecy, it may be seen how exactly they were
foretold.
COFFMAN, "Verse 1
This whole chapter (Joel 1:1-20) relates to a terrible and destructive locust
plague that came upon Israel, particularly Judah, a disaster so overwhelming
that no escape was possible. The fact of it is dramatically stated (Joel 1:1-4); the
prophet's admonition to the people is given in three terse commandments: (1)
"Awake ..." (Joel 1:5-7), (2) "Lament" (Joel 1:8-12), and (3) "Gird yourselves
with sackcloth ..." (Joel 1:13-14). Despite the fact of these appeals being directed
to three different classes, namely, the drunkards, the agricultural community,
and the priests, they should be understood as applicable generally to all the
people, and not merely to specific groups.
As in many another human disaster resulting from natural causes, the prophets
of God, and all persons with spiritual discernment, have invariable associated
such things with the wrath of God, due to divine disapproval of human sin and
wickedness. Joel at once concluded that the locust disaster was a harbinger of
"the day of the Lord," a truth that is not nullified by the fact that the Final
Judgment was not to occur for at least 2,700 years! That disaster which so long
ago brought fear and despair to a portion of the earth's population was a type of
the final and eternal judgment that shall overwhelm all men; and significantly,
many other such natural disasters since that time (as well as before that time)
should be understood in exactly the same way! We must therefore reject the
superficial interpretation of the final paragraph of this chapter (Joel 1:15-20)
which views it merely as Joel's foolish fear that the end of time was at hand.
Joel 1:1
"The word of Jehovah that came to Joel the son of Pethuel."
"The word of Jehovah ..." This phrase identifies the content of this prophecy as
the inviolate and eternal word of Almighty God, and so we receive and interpret
it. It had an immediate and compelling relevance to the first generation that
received it and is no less pertinent and relevant to our own times. Great natural
disasters are still taking place on earth, in the face of which men are just as
powerless and helpless as were the ancient Jews who struggled against an
overwhelming invasion of devastating locusts. God wanted his people to see in
that natural catastrophe something far more than merely an awesome natural
phenomenon; and therefore God moved to reveal through his holy prophet what
the genuine significance of such an event really is. This significance still should
14

be recognized in all physical disasters that torment and destroy men upon earth,
as was beautifully discerned by Boren:
"It is my conviction that the eruption of Mount St. Helens is an awesome display
of the omnipotent power of God, and one of the countless warnings of God to
humankind of impending judgment! Certainly, God warns through his word;
but he also warns through the observable cataclysmic happenings of the natural
world."[1]
One of the reasons, therefore, why God gave his word to Joel upon the occasion
of a great natural disaster is that men of all subsequent centuries should know
how to interpret such things.
It is wrong to refer the judgments and conclusions that are set forth in Joel as
merely the judgments and conclusions of the prophet himself. On the day of
Pentecost, an inspired apostle of Christ said:
"This is that which hath been spoken through the prophet Joel: And it shall be
in the last days, saith God, I will pour forth of my Spirit .... etc." (Acts 2:16-17).
Note particularly the words "spoken through the prophet Joel ... saith God ..."
We may be certain therefore that no merely naturalistic origin of the great
conclusions in Joel is possible. The words spoken and the conclusions given are
of God Himself, and not merely based upon the prophet's fears, interpretations
and discernments. For this reason, such interpretations as the following should
be rejected:
"So terrible was the devastation that the prophet feared that Yahweh's Day, the
judgment of Yahweh's people, was near at hand.[2] Joel regards the locust
plague as comparable to any other mighty act of Israel's history."[3]
It was not merely Joel's fears that connected the locust plague with the Day of
the Lord; it was not merely Joel's private conclusion that the locust plague was
comparable to any other mighty act of God in the history of Israel. These
conclusions were part of the "word of Jehovah" which came to Joel.
"Joel the son of Pethuel ..." Despite the fact of there being a dozen persons
named "Joel" in the O.T., the name "Pethuel" is found nowhere else. It has the
utility, thus, of dissociating Joel from others of the same name in Hebrew history.
The use of expressions like, "son of ... etc." "was analogous to our use of second
names."[4
ELLICOTT, “(1) Joel.—Compounded of Jehovah—El, the composite title of the
God of Revelation and of Nature, which is the subject of Psalms 19. It was a
favourite name among the Jews, and was borne by an ancestor of Samuel, who
gave it to his elder son. There is nothing known of the personal history of Joel
the prophet, except the name of his father, Pethuel, or—LXX.—Bethuel.
NICOLL, "The Message of the Book of Joel
15

Joel 1:1
The book of Joel , as we have it, consists of two parts.
I. A violent plague of locusts had visited the land, and from this destruction the
Prophet saw nothing to save the people but repentance. In his call to repentance
we notice four suggestions.
a. He discovers to the people the condition of affairs. He challenges them to say
whether, in the memory of anyone living, a crisis of such importance had arisen.
b. He bids them wait for the desolation that covers the land. He calls in the
nation to weep as a virgin mourning for the spouse of her youth.
c. He warns them that all that has happened is but the prelude of more awful
judgments.
d. But having described to them the greatness of their danger, the Prophet goes
on to tell them that from this danger they can only escape by genuine contrition
and sincere repentance.
II. The Prophet"s call to repentance had not been in vain, and to the humble and
penitent nation Joel was sent to declare the Divine promise. In this we notice that
it was:—
a. A promise of Restoration. Very shortly after refreshing showers had fallen,
and the country, bare, barren, and desolate, was once more showing signs of life.
b. A promise of Refreshment. Upon the nation penitent and restored, the gift of
God"s spirit was to fall, bringing with it a new revelation of God, and a new
power to serve Him in the world.
c. A promise of Deliverance. The day of the Lord, which was certainly coming,
was to be a day of salvation to the Lord"s people by being a day of destruction to
their enemies.
d. A promise of Rest. No more famine, no more scarcity, no more barrenness, no
more conflict; but rest and peace and joy in favour of the Lord.
III. The story of the book of Joel is a story with a national bearing. The language
of this book had a clear and definite meaning for those to whom it was spoken,
and no doubt much in the book has been already fulfilled. But the fulfilment of
the book as a whole belongs to the time of the millennial glory when Israel shall
have received and enthroned as King her long rejected Messiah.
IV. But let us not lose sight of its individual bearing. It is a call to contrition and
repentance. God bids us recognize, and that speedily, the sinfulness of our
present lives, and bids us humble ourselves before Him because of that.
16

—G. H. C. Macgergor, Messages of the Old Testament, p167.
References.—II:1.—J. Keble, Sermons for Sundays After Trinity, part ii. p342.
G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, pp163 , 272.
BRIDGEWAY, "1:1-2:11 THE GREAT LOCUST PLAGUE
Effects of the plague (1:1-20)
So devastating is the current locust plague, that even the oldest people cannot
remember anything like it. The whole countryside has been stripped bare. Joel
tells the people to pass the story of the plague on to their children and
grandchildren, so that it will not be forgotten (1:1-4). Those who have greedily
lived for their own pleasure are punished. They will no longer get drunk with
wine, because the locusts have destroyed the vineyards (5-7).
The people mourn as a young bride mourns when she has lost her bridegroom.
She had looked forward to happiness, but instead she has misery (8). The priests
mourn, because with the destruction of the fields and vineyards the people
cannot bring their cereal and wine offerings (9). The ground mourns, because it
cannot fulfil its natural purpose of producing grain, wine and oil (10). And the
farmers mourn, because their crops have been ruined (11-12).
Joel now reveals that the locust plague is not an accident; it is a direct judgment
from God. The priests therefore must lead the nation in repentance. First they
must show their own repentance, then they must gather the leaders and people
together to cry to the Lord for mercy (13-14).
The people must acknowledge that this disaster is from God. It is a foretaste of
the great day of the Lord when he intervenes in judgment in the affairs of the
human race. They have the evidence before their eyes in the form of hungry
people, ruined crops and starving animals. Surely, they must see that this is
God's judgment upon them (15-18). Therefore, God is the one to whom the
prophet cries; he alone can save the nation from total ruin (19-20).
NISBET, "
THE PROPHET JOEL
‘The word of the Lord that came to Joel.’
Joel 1:1
There is this value in the study of Joel—that he touches nearly the whole round
of the Christian year, or which is the same thing, of Christian experience. Joel is
the prophet of the great repentance, of the Pentecostal gift, and of the final
conflict of great principles.
17

He brings a message for Lent, for Whitsuntide, and for Advent. We hear the
words—‘Turn ye to the Lord.’ We read of the outpouring of the Spirit, and we
shall not be less earnest for missions when we recall that promise given us by
Joel—‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.’ We may mark the multitudes
gathered in the valley of decision.
I. Of the man himself and his ago we know practically nothing.—The man is
little more than a name to us. His father was Pethuel—that is all. What manner
of man?—in what rank of life?—what forces or gifts of frame he possessed?—we
cannot tell. The date assigned to him has been as early as Joash, and as late as
after the Exile. The tendency of recent opinion is towards the later date; but for
our purpose he is Joel, the son of Pethuel; and he is nothing more to us.
This is, perhaps, the more strange because he was a successful prophet. He
accomplished a remarkable moral revolution; he announced the great
illumination of the Holy Spirit; he spoke of the great conflict of history. His
words, so far as this goes, did not fall on dull ears. He spoke; the people heard.
All classes, ages, and degrees joined in the solemn service; they adopted his
words, and prayed as he bade them. His ascendancy was complete—I had almost
said unique, compared with the broken and doubtful supremacy of other
prophets. And yet of this successful prophet we know, as I have said, just
nothing.
II. One reflection here is simple enough. What are we compared with the
work?—The temple of God has to be built: stones—living stones—converted and
regenerated men and women—are to form the material of that sanctuary. When
the temple is built, who asks the names of the workmen who laid the separate
stones? Will it not be enough for us, when we see the noble proportions and
dazzling beauty of the divinely-royal building, that we have been privileged to
place a single stone there? The joy of the true prophet is like that of the Baptist.
He (the Lord and Master) must increase. What matter if I decrease, or I be
forgotten, so long as their growth in joy is fulfilled?
Where this spirit of self-suppression is, there is power. No dim or uncertain
thought mars the concentration of purpose. Feebler or more selfish natures
dread to lose self,—shrink from sitting in King Arthur’s chair—but Sir Galahad
saw its meaning and understood its transforming power, and how it gave in
seeming to take away, and he sat within the chair where all self died away,
saying, ‘If I lose myself—I find myself.’
III. Another reflection may arise from our ignorance here.—We scarcely know
the date in which he lived, but this is not necessary for understanding the
direction and drift of his ministry. The spiritual value of many things is
independent of chronology. Doubtless if we could settle his era with accuracy we
should more clearly understand some of his allusions, and enter with a more
minute appreciation into the significance of some of his phrases; but the broad
features of his teaching, the force, value, and method of his ministry, are
singularly independent of these details.
18

III. What then is his message?—He teaches spiritual principles, not for an age
but for all time.
(1) He is a prophet of rebuke and repentance. In this indeed he does not stand
alone. Few prophets were otherwise; but Joel calls to the people, and so
influences them that they gather to a great day of humiliation.
(2) The prophet gave guidance to people’s thoughts and pointed the significance
of the calamity.
Mere trouble does not melt the heart or subdue the will, but startling troubles
which come to disturb the monotony of indolently-expected prosperity are
nevertheless messengers of the Lord. The day of calamity, if rightly understood,
is the day of the Lord. Another prophet speaks the same truth. There were those
who imagined that the day of the Lord could only mean prosperous times. The
day of the Lord, said Amos, is darkness and not light.
The day of the Lord is described by Joel as a day of darkness and gloominess, a
day of clouds and thick darkness.
The calamity broke up two of the accustomed orders of life. The gifts of nature’s
order—the harvest of corn and wine—are snatched away. The usages of
religious order are suspended.
It is on this which the prophet fastens. True, the chains which bind the people to
their God are broken; the order of natural bounties is disturbed. Heaven no
longer gives food, and man deems that he can no longer win the favour of
Heaven by gifts since the daily offering is cut off.
May not the suspension of the accustomed order of things be the witness to the
existence of the highest order—the righteous order in which the righteous God
rules?
Thus this calamity is indeed the day of the Lord! It calls man to repair the bond
which is more precious than the bond of benefits or material gifts and sacrifices.
(3) Here we may pause and consider how hard it is boldly to rebuke vice in such
a sort as to lead men to repentance. It is hard to maintain this power of rebuke.
It is hard also to maintain the purity of this power. Rebuke of men’s sins so
easily enlists the assistance of our personal feelings. When once this unholy
alliance is permitted we assail men rather than men’s vices.
Bishop Boyd Carpenter.
Illustration
‘Pictorial, dramatic, awe-inspiring is the utterance of this prophet’s soul. The
effect is that of soul-disturbing music—mysterious, tragic, solemnising, yet
uplifting. In Joel we have a new and thrilling chapter in the age-long story of
19

man’s sense of God. Here is a soul aflame with the vision of God’s nearness to
the life of the world. The historic setting of this inspired truth-teller and his word
of God may be obscure, but Joel’s vivid sense of God abides to inspire all who
have ears to hear God’s varied messages to man. Be the vision twenty-three
hundred or six and twenty hundred years old, the spirit of man can still be
touched by its vision of God to reverence, humility, and hope.’
EXPOSITORS BIBLE COMMENTARY, "THE LOCUSTS AND THE DAY OF
THE LORD
Joel 1:2-20; Joel 2:1-17
JOEL, as we have seen, found the motive of his prophecy in a recent plague of
locusts, the appearance of which and the havoc they worked are described by
him in full detail. Writing not only as a poet but as a seer, who reads in the
locusts signs of the great Day of the Lord, Joel has necessarily put into his
picture several features which carry the imagination beyond the limits of
experience. And yet, if we ourselves had lived through such a plague, we should
be able to recognize how little license the poet has taken, and that the seer, so far
from unduly mixing with his facts the colors of Apocalypse, must have
experienced in the terrible plague itself enough to provoke all the religious and
monitory use which he makes of it.
The present writer has seen but one swarm of locusts, in which, though it was
small and soon swept away by the wind, he felt not only many of the features
that Joel describes, but even some degree of that singular helplessness before a
calamity of portent far beyond itself, something of that supernatural edge and
accent, which, by the confession of so many observers, characterize the locust-
plague and the earthquake above all other physical disasters. One summer
afternoon, upon the plain of Hauran, a long bank of mist grew rapidly from the
western horizon. The day was dull, and as the mist rose athwart the sunbeams,
struggling through clouds, it gleamed cold and white, like the front of a distant
snow storm. When it came near, it seemed to be more than a mile broad, and was
dense enough to turn the atmosphere raw and dirty, with a chill as of a summer
sea-fog, only that this was not due to any fall in the temperature. Nor was there
the silence of a mist. We were enveloped by a noise, less like the whirring of
wings than the rattle of hail or the crackling of bush on fire. Myriads upon
myriads of locusts were about us, covering the ground, and shutting out the view
in all directions. Though they drifted before the wind, there was no confusion in
their ranks. They sailed in unbroken lines, sometimes straight, sometimes wavy;
and when they passed pushing through our caravan, they left almost no
stragglers, except from the last battalion, and only the few dead which we had
caught in our hands. After several minutes they were again but a lustre on the
air, and so melted away into some heavy clouds in the east.
Modern travelers furnish us with terrible impressions of the innumerable
multitudes of a locust plague, the succession of their swarms through days and
weeks, and the utter desolation they leave behind them. Mr. Doughty writes:
20

"There hopped before our feet a minute brood of second locusts, of a leaden
color, with budding wings like the spring leaves, and born of those gay swarms
which a few weeks before had passed over and despoiled the desert. After forty
days these also would fly as a pestilence, yet more hungry than the former, and
fill the atmosphere." And later: "The clouds of the second locust brood which
the Aarab call ‘Am’dan, ‘pillars,’ flew over us for some days, invaded the booths
and for blind hunger even bit our shins." It was "a storm of rustling wings."
"This year was remembered for the locust swarms and great summer heat." A
traveler in South Africa says: "For the space of ten miles on each side of the Sea-
Cow river and eighty or ninety miles in length, an area of sixteen or eighteen
hundred square miles, the whole surface might literally be said to be covered
with them." In his recently published book on South Africa, Mr. Bryce writes:-
"It is a strange sight, beautiful if you can forget the destruction it brings with it.
The whole air, to twelve or even eighteen feet above the ground, is filled with the
insects, reddish brown in body, with bright gauzy wings. When the sun’s rays
catch them it is like the sea sparkling with light. When you see them against a
cloud they are like the dense flakes of a driving snow-storm. You feel as if you
had never before realized immensity in number. Vast crowds of men gathered at
a festival, countless tree-tops rising along the slope of a forest ridge, the chimneys
of London houses from the top of St. Paul’s-all are as nothing to the myriads of
insects that blot out the sun above and cover the ground beneath and fill the air
whichever way one looks. The breeze carries them swiftly past, but they come on
in fresh clouds, a host of which there is no end, each of them a harmless creature
which you can catch and crush in your hand, but appalling in their power of
collective devastation."
And take three testimonies from Syria:
"The quantity of these insects is a thing incredible to any one who has not seen it
himself; the ground is covered by them for several leagues."
"The whole face of the mountain was black with them. On they came like a living
deluge. We dug trenches and kindled fires, and beat and burnt to death heaps
upon heaps, but the effort was utterly useless. They rolled up the mountain-side,
and poured over rocks, walls, ditches, and hedges, those behind covering up and
passing over the masses already killed. For some days they continued to pass.
The noise made by them in marching and foraging was like that of a heavy
shower falling upon a distant forest."
"The roads were covered with them, all marching and in regular lines, like
armies of soldiers, with their leaders in front; and all the opposition of man to
resist their progress was in vain." Having consumed the plantations in the
country, they entered the towns and villages. "When they approached our
garden all the farm servants were employed to keep them off, but to no avail;
though our men broke their ranks for a moment, no sooner had they passed the
men than they closed again, and marched forward through hedges and ditches as
before. Our garden finished, they continued their march toward the town,
devastating one garden after another. They have also penetrated into most of our
21

rooms: whatever one is doing one hears their noise from without, like the noise of
armed hosts, or the running of many waters. When in an erect position their
appearance at a little distance is like that of a well-armed horseman."
Locusts are notoriously adapted for a plague, "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." They are the incarnation of hunger. No voracity is like theirs,
the voracity of little creatures, whose million separate appetites nothing is too
minute to escape. They devour first grass and leaves, fruit and foliage,
everything that is green and juicy.
Then they attack the young branches of trees, and then the hard bark of the
trunks. "After eating up the corn, they fell upon the vines, the pulse, the willows,
and even the hemp, notwithstanding its great bitterness." "The bark of figs,
pomegranates, and oranges, bitter, hard, and corrosive, escaped not their
voracity." "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." "For eighty or ninety miles they devoured every green herb and
every blade of grass." "The gardens outside Jaffa are now completely stripped,
even the bark of the young trees having been devoured, and look like a birch-tree
forest in winter." "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." "Bamboo groves have been stripped of their leaves and
left standing like saplings after a rapid bush fire, and grass has been devoured so
that the bare ground appeared as if burned." "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." The fields finished, they invade towns and houses, in
search of stores. Victual of all kinds, hay, straw, and even linen and woolen
clothes and leather bottles, they consume or tear in pieces. They flood through
the open, unglazed windows and lattices: nothing can keep them out.
These extracts prove to us what little need Joel had of hyperbole in order to read
his locusts as signs of the Day of Jehovah; especially if we keep in mind that
locusts are worst in very hot summers, and often accompany an absolute drought
along with its consequence of prairie and forest fires. Some have thought that, in
introducing the effects of fire, Joel only means to paint the burnt look of a land
after locusts have ravaged it. But locusts do not drink up the streams, nor cause
the seed to shrivel in the earth. [Joel 1:20; Joel 1:17] By these the prophet must
mean drought, and by "the flame that has burned all the trees of the field," [Joel
1:19] the forest fire, finding an easy prey in the trees which have been reduced to
firewood by the locusts’ teeth.
Even in the great passage in which he passes from history to Apocalypse, from
the gloom and terror of the locusts to the lurid dawn of Jehovah’s Day, Joel
keeps within the actual facts of experience:-
"Day of darkness and murk,
Day of cloud and heavy mist,
22

Like dawn scattered on the mountains,
A people many and powerful."
No one who has seen a cloud of locusts can question the realism even of this
picture: the heavy gloom of the immeasurable mass of them, shot by gleams of
light where a few of the sun’s imprisoned beams have broken through or across
the storm of lustrous wings. This is like dawn beaten down upon the hilltops, and
crushed by rolling masses of cloud, in conspiracy to prolong the night. No: the
only point at which Joel leaves absolute fact for the wilder combinations of
Apocalypse is at the very close of his description, Joel 2:10-11, and just before his
call to repentance. Here we find, mixed with the locusts, earthquake and
thunderstorm; and Joel has borrowed these from the classic pictures of the Day
of the Lord, using some of the very phrases of the latter:-
"Earth trembles before them,
Heaven quakes, Sun and moon become black,
The stars withdraw their shining,
And Jehovah utters His voice before His army."
Joel, then, describes, and does not unduly enhance, the terrors of an actual
plague. At first his whole strength is so bent to make his people feel these, that,
though about to call to repentance, he does not detail the national sins which
require it. In his opening verses he summons the drunkards (Joel 1:5), but that is
merely to lend vividness to his picture of facts, because men of such habits will be
the first to feel a plague of this kind. Nor does Joel yet ask his hearers what the
calamity portends. At first he only demands that they shall feet it, in its
uniqueness and its own sheer force.
Hence the peculiar style of the passage. Letter for letter, this is one of the
heaviest passages in prophecy. The proportion in Hebrew of liquids to the other
letters is not large; but here it is smaller than ever. The explosives and dentals
are very numerous. There are several key-words, with hard consonants and long
vowels, used again and again: Shuddadh, ‘a-bhlah, ‘umlal, hobbish. The longer
lines into which Hebrew parallelism tends to run are replaced by a rapid series
of short, heavy phrases, falling like blows. Critics have called it rhetoric. But it is
rhetoric of a very high order and perfectly suited to the prophet’s purpose. Look
at Joel 1:10 :shuddadh sadheh, ‘abhlah ‘adhamah, shuddadh daghan, hobhish
tirosh, ‘umlal yishar. Joel loads his clauses with the most leaden letters he can
find, and drops them in quick succession, repeating the same heavy word again
and again, as if he would stun the careless people into some sense of the bare,
brutal weight of the calamity which has befallen them.
Now Joel does this because he believes that, if his people feel the plague in its
proper violence, they must be convinced that it comes from Jehovah. The
23

keynote of this part of the prophecy is found in Joel 1:15 : "Keshodh
mishshaddhai," "like violence from the All-violent doth it come." "If you feel
this as it is, you will feel Jehovah Himself in it. By these very blows, He and His
Day are near. We had been forgetting how near." Joel mentions no crime, nor
enforces any virtue: how could he have done so in so strong a sense that "the
Judge was at the door"? To make men feel that they had forgotten they were in
reach of that Almighty Hand, which could strike so suddenly and so hard-Joel
had time only to make men feel that, and to call them to repentance. In this we
probably see some reflection of the age: an age when men’s thoughts were
thrusting the Deity further and further from their life; when they put His Law
and Temple between Him and themselves: and when their religion, devoid of the
sense of His Presence, had become a set of formal observances, the rending of
garments and not of hearts. But He, whom His own ordinances had hidden from
His people, has burst forth through nature and in sheer force of calamity. He has
revealed Himself, El-Shaddhai, God All-violent, as He was known to their
fathers, who had no elaborate law or ritual to put between their fearful hearts
and His terrible strength, but cowered before Him, helpless on the stripped soil,
and naked beneath His thunder. By just these means did Elijah and Amos bring
God home to the hearts of ancient Israel. In Joel we see the revival of the old
nature-religion, and the revenge that it was bound to take upon the elaborate
systems which had displaced it, but which by their formalism and their artificial
completeness had made men forget that near presence and direct action of the
Almighty which it is nature’s own office to enforce upon the heart.
The thing is true, and permanently valid. Only the great natural processes can
break up the systems of dogma and ritual in which we make ourselves
comfortable and formal, and drive us out into God’s open air of reality. In the
crash of nature’s forces even our particular sins are forgotten, and we feel, as in
the immediate presence of God, our whole, deep need of repentance. So far from
blaming the absence of special ethics in Joel’s sermon, we accept it as natural
and proper to the occasion.
Such, then, appears to be the explanation of the first part of the prophecy, and
its development towards the call to repentance, which follows it. If we are
correct, the assertion is false that no plan was meant by the prophet. For not only
is there a plan, but the plan is most suitable to the requirements of Israel, after
their adoption of the whole Law in 445, and forms one of the most necessary and
interesting developments of all religion: the revival, in an artificial period, of
those primitive forces of religion which nature alone supplies, and which are
needed to correct formalism and the forgetfulness of the near presence of the
Almighty. We see in this, too, the reason of Joel’s archaic style, both of
conception and expression: that likeness of his to early prophets which has led so
many to place him between Elijah and Amos. They are wrong. Joel’s simplicity is
that not of early prophecy, but of the austere forces of this revived and applied to
the artificiality of a later age.
One other proof of Joel’s conviction of the religious meaning of the plague might
also have been pled by the earlier prophets, but certainly not in the terms in
which Joel expresses it. Amos and Hoses had both described the destruction of
24

the country’s fertility in their day as God’s displeasure on His people and (as
Hosea puts it) His divorce of His Bride from Himself. But by them the physical
calamities were not threatened alone: banishment from the land and from
enjoyment of its fruits was to follow upon drought, locusts, and famine. In
threatening no captivity Joel differs entirely from the early prophets. It is a mark
of his late date. And he also describes the divorce between Jehovah and Israel,
through the interruption of the ritual by the plague, in terms and with an accent
which could hardly have been employed in Israel before the Exile. After the
rebuilding of the Temple and restoration of the daily sacrifices morning and
evening, the regular performance of the latter was regarded by the Jews with a
most superstitious sense of its indispensableness to the national life. Before the
Exile, Jeremiah, for instance, attaches no importance to it, in circumstances in
which it would have been not unnatural for him, priest as he was, to do so.
[Jeremiah 14:1-22] But after the Exile, the greater scrupulousness of the
religious life, and its absorption in ritual, laid extraordinary emphasis upon the
daily offering, which increased to a most painful degree of anxiety as the
centuries went on. The New Testament speaks of "the Twelve Tribes constantly
serving God day and night"; [Acts 26:7] and Josephus, while declaring that in no
siege of Jerusalem before the last did the interruption ever take place in spite of
the stress of famine and war combined, records the awful impression made alike
on Jew and heathen by the giving up of the daily sacrifice on the 17th of July,
A.D. 70, during the investment of the city by Titus. This disaster, which Judaism
so painfully feared at every crisis in its history, actually happened, Joel tells us,
during the famine caused by the locusts. "Cut off are the meal and the drink
offerings from the house of Jehovah. [Joel 1:9; Joel 1:13] Is not food cut off from
our eves, joy and gladness from the house of our God? [Joel 2:14] Perhaps He
will turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him, meal and drink offering
for Jehovah our God." [Joel 1:16] The break "of the continual symbol of
gracious intercourse between Jehovah and His people, and the main office of
religion," means divorce between Jehovah and Israel. "Wail like a bride girt in
sackcloth for the husband of her youth! Wail, O ministers of the altar, O
ministers of God!" [Joel 1:8; Joel 1:13] This then was another reason for reading
in the plague of locusts more than a physical meaning. This was another proof,
only too intelligible to scrupulous Jews, that the great and terrible Day of the
Lord was at hand. Thus Joel reaches the climax of his argument. Jehovah is
near, His Day is about to break. From this it is impossible to escape on the
narrow path of disaster by which the prophet has led up to it. But beneath that
path the prophet passes the ground of a broad truth, and on that truth, while
judgment remains still as real, there is room for the people to turn from it. If
experience has shown that God is in the present, near and inevitable, faith
remembers that He is there not willingly for judgment, but with all His ancient
feeling for Israel and His zeal to save her. If the people choose to turn, Jehovah,
as their God and as one who works for their sake, will save them. Of this God
assures them by His own word. For the first time in the prophecy He speaks for
Himself. Hitherto the prophet has been describing the plague and summoning to
penitence. "But now oracle of Jehovah of Hosts." [Joel 2:12] The great covenant
name, "Jehovah your God," is solemnly repeated as if symbolic of the historic
origin and age-long endurance of Jehovah’s relation to Israel; and the very
words of blessing are repeated which were given when Israel was called at Sinai
25

and the covenant ratified:-
"For He is gracious and merciful,
Long-suffering and plenteous in leal love.
And relents Him of the evil"
He has threatened upon you. Once more the nation is summoned to try Him by
prayer: the solemn prayer of all Israel, pleading that He should not give His
people to reproach.
"The Word of Jehovah which came to Jo’el the son of Pethfl’el. Hear this, ye old
men, And give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has the like been in your days, Or
in the days of your fathers? Tell it to your children, And your children to their
children, And their children to the generation that follows. That which the
Shearer left the Swarmer hath eaten, And that which the Swarmer left the
Lapper hath eaten, And that which the Lapper left the Devourer hath eaten."
These are four different names for locusts, which it is best to translate by their
literal meaning. Some think that they represent one swarm of locusts in four
stages of development, but this cannot be, because the same swarm never returns
upon its path, to complete the work of destruction which it had begun in an
earlier stage of its growth. Nor can the first-named be the adult brood from
whose eggs the others spring, as Doughty has described, for that would account
only for two of the four names. Joel rather describes successive swarms of the
insect, without reference to the stages of its growth, and he does so as a poet,
using, in order to bring out the full force of its devastation, several of the Hebrew
names that were given to the locust as epithets of various aspects of its
destructive power.
The names, it is true, cannot be said to rise in climax, but at least the most
sinister is reserved to the last.
"Rouse ye, drunkards, and weep, And wail, all ye bibbers of wine! The new wine
is cut off from your month! For a nation is come up on My land, Powerful and
numberless; His teeth are the teeth of the lion, And the fangs of the lioness his.
My vine he has turned to waste, And My fig-tree to splinters; He hath peeled it
and strawed it, Bleached are its branches!"
"Wail as a bride girt in sackcloth for the spouse of her youth. Cut off are the
meal and drink offerings from the house of Jehovah! In grief are the priests, the
ministers of Jehovah. The fields are blasted, the ground is in grief, Blasted is the
corn, abashed is the new wine, the oil pines away. Be ye abashed, O ploughmen!
Wail, O vine-dressers, For the wheat and the barley; The harvest is lost from the
field! The vine is abashed, and the fig-tree is drooping; Pomegranate, palm too
and apple, All trees of the field are dried up: Yea, joy is abashed and away from
the children of men."
26

In this passage the same feeling is attributed to men and to the fruits of the land:
"In grief are the priests, the ground is in grief." And it is repeatedly said that all
alike are "abashed." By this heavy word we have sought to render the effect of
the similarly sounding "hobhisha," that our English version renders "ashamed."
It signifies to be frustrated, and so "disheartened," "put out" "soured" would be
an equivalent, applicable to the vine and to joy and to men’s hearts.
"Put on mourning, O priests, beat the breast; Wail, ye ministers of the altar;
Come, lie down in sackcloth, O ministers of my God: For meal-offering and
drink-offering are cut off from the house of your God."
"Hallow a fast, summon an assembly, Gather all the inhabitants of the land to
the house of your God; And cry to Jehovah! ‘Alas for the Day! At hands the Day
of Jehovah. And as vehemence from the Vehement doth it come.’ Is not food cut
off from before us, Gladness and joy from the house of our God? The grains
shrivel under their hoes, The garners are desolate, the barns broken down, For
the corn is withered-what shall we put in them? The herds of cattle huddle
together, for they have no pasture; Yea, the flocks of sheep are forlorn. To Thee,
Jehovah, do I cry":
"For fire has devoured the pastures of the steppes, And the flame hath scorched
all the trees of the field. The wild beasts pant up to Thee: For the watercourses
are dry, And fire has devoured the pastures of the steppes."
Here, with the close of chapter 1, Joel’s discourse takes, pause, and in chapter 2
he begins a second with another call to repentance in face of the same plague.
But the plague has progressed. The locusts are described now in their invasion
not of the country but of the towns, to which they pass after the country is
stripped. For illustration of the latter see above. The "horn" which is to be
blown, Joel 2:1, is an "alarm horn," to warn the people of the approach of the
Day of the Lord, and not the Shophar which called the people to a general
assembly, as in Joel 2:15.
"Blow a horn in Zion, Sound the alarm in My holy mountain! Let all inhabitants
of the land tremble, For the Day of Jehovah comes-it is near! Day of darkness
and murk, day of cloud and heavy mist. Like dawn scattered on the mountains,
A people many and powerful; Its like has not been from of old, And shall not
again be for years of generation upon generation. Before it the fire devours, And
behind the flame consumes. Like the garden of Eden [Ezekiel 36:35] is the land
in front, And behind it a desolate desert; Yea, it lets nothing escape. Their visage
is the visage of horses, And like horsemen they run. They rattle like chariots over
the tops of the hills, Like the crackle of flames devouring stubble, Like a
powerful people prepared for battle. Peoples are writhing before them, Every
face gathers blackness."
"Like warriors they run, Like fighting men they come up the wall; They march
every man by himself, And they ravel not their paths. None jostles his comrade,
They march every man on his track, And plunge through the missiles unbroken.
They scour the city, run upon the walls, Climb into the houses, and enter the
27

windows like a thief, Earth trembles before them, Heaven quakes, Sun and moon
become black, The stars withdraw their shining. And Jehovah utters His voice
before His army: For very great is His host; Yea, powerful is He that performeth
His word, Great is the Day of Jehovah, and very awful: Who may abide it?"
"But now hear the oracle of Jehovah: Turn ye to Me with all your heart, And
with fasting and weeping and mourning. Rend ye your hearts and not your
garments, And turn to Jehovah your God: For He is gracious and merciful,
Long-suffering and plenteous in love, And relents of the evil. Who knows but He
will turn and relent, And leave behind Him a blessing, Meal-offering and drink-
offering to Jehovah your God?"
"Blow a horn in Zion, Hallow a fast, summon the assembly! Gather the people,
hallow the congregation, Assemble the old men, gather the children, and infants
at the breast; Let the bridegroom come forth from his chamber, And the bride
from her bower.
Let the priests, the ministers of Jehovah, weep between porch and altar; Let
them say, Spare, O Jehovah, Thy people, And give not Thine heritage to
dishonor, for the heathen to mock.
Why should it be said among the nations, Where is their God?"
An Invasion of Locusts
2 Hear this, you elders;
listen, all who live in the land.
Has anything like this ever happened in your
days
or in the days of your ancestors?
BARNES, "Hear this, ye old men - By reason of their age they had known and
28

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.
CLARKE, "Ye old men - Instead of ‫הזקנים‬ hazzekenim old men, a few MSS.
have ‫הכהנים‬ haccohanim, ye priests, but improperly.
Hath this been in your days - He begins very abruptly; and before he proposes
his subject, excites attention and alarm by intimating that he is about to announce
disastrous events, such as the oldest man among them has never seen, nor any of
them learnt from the histories of ancient times.
GILL, "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.
HENRY, " 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
29

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.
JAMISON, "A spirited introduction calling attention.
old men — the best judges in question concerning the past (Deu_32:7; Job_32:7).
Hath this been, etc. — 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.
COFFMAN, ""Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land.
Hath this been in your days, or in the days of your fathers?"
"Old men ..." This is not a reference to some special class of leaders among the
people, but merely an appeal to those of the most advanced age who could more
readily confirm the uniqueness of the disaster that was upon them.
"All ye inhabitants of the land ..." The whole prophecy is addressed to all the
people, and not merely, to special classes.
"Hear this ..." The prophet, having himself heard God's Word is constrained to
share it with others.
God's Word is never for our selfish enjoyment; it brings with it a responsibility
for others. Perhaps that is why, in the N.T., so much stress is laid on oral
confession of Jesus Christ (Romans 10:9)[5]
The New English Bible is obviously correct in rendering "aged men" in this
verse instead of "elders," since it is not of "the rulers" of the people that the
prophet speaks here, but merely of those of great age, who neither in their own
lives or that of their ancestors as communicated to them had there ever occurred
anything of the magnitude of that overwhelming infestation of locusts.
COKE, “Joel 1:2. Hear this, ye old men— This prophesy begins with threatening
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the land of Judah, with such desolation of their
country, by swarms of locusts, as had never happened to them before in the
memory of the oldest inhabitants of the land, and as should occasion the utmost
distress to all sorts of persons among them. The havock that should be made by
these creatures is described in a lively manner. Their corn of all sorts should be
devoured, and all their choicest fruit-trees entirely destroyed; so that there
should be the greatest scarcity of provision in the land, and not enough to supply
30

the meat and drink-offerings for the altar of God. And what should increase this
calamity was, the excessive heat and drought which should happen at the same
time, whereby their herds and flocks should be almost ready to perish for want
of water. Chandler.
ELLICOTT, “(2, 3) Hath this been in your days.—The introduction points to the
startling nature of the portent: it was unexampled; it was a cause of
consternation to all who beheld it; it would be recollected as a subject of
wondering comment among succeeding generations. The hand of God was
evident, recalling the marvellous things he did in the land of Egypt, in the field of
Zoan.
WHEDON, “2. Hear this — A solemn summons to give attention to the words
about to be uttered (Amos 3:1; Amos 4:1; Amos 5:1).
Inhabitants of the land — With Joel, Judah, since all his interest seems to center
there (see Joel 1:14; Joel 2:1; Joel 2:32; Joel 3:1; Joel 3:17, etc.).
Old men — Not “elders” in an official sense, for, if mentioned at all by Joel, these
do not appear until Joel 1:14; but those who have lived longest, who have
experienced most, whose memories run back farthest, and whose testimony,
therefore, will be of greatest weight in a case where appeal to past experiences is
made.
This — That is, a calamity such as the one described in Joel 1:4. The witnesses
are asked whether such a calamity had been in their days, or whether the present
generation had been told that there had ever been one like it.
In the days of your fathers — “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.” 3. The reply is not stated; the prophet continues, well
aware that the answer could only be an emphatic No! He requests his hearers to
hand down the story of the calamity from one generation to another as an event
unique and unparalleled.
Tell — The Hebrew verb comes from the same root from which is derived the
word “book.” Here the verb is in the intensive form; it means more, therefore,
than ordinary telling; it means the giving of careful, detailed information. This
verse may be compared with Psalms 78:5-7; Deuteronomy 4:9; Deuteronomy
6:6-7; Deuteronomy 6:20-24; Deuteronomy 11:19, etc. The memory of the
wonders of Jehovah’s love, his deliverances, his laws and statutes were to be
handed down from father to son; here the memory of unparalleled woe and
judgment; such story would not be without its lessons.
PETT, "Verses 2-5
The Call To Hear What God Has To Say (Joel 1:2-5).
The prophecy opens with a call to all in Judah to hear what God has to say. The
31

opening call has in mind Exodus 10:1-2 which, in the context of a plague of
locusts, says, ‘Then YHWH said to Moses, --- “And that you may tell in the
hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the
Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am
YHWH.” Here Joel similarly calls on the old men, and all the inhabitants of the
land, to recognise the uniqueness of the occasion, and pass on what they learn to
those who will follow them, for he wants them to see that it is a judgment from
YHWH, a warning shot concerning what is to come in even greater measure in
the final Day of YHWH.
The judgment that they have experienced is then portrayed in terms of huge
plagues of locusts, both of flying locusts and of hopping locusts, possibly
following one after another in vast numbers, which have eaten up all that is in
the land and left it desolated.
Analysis of Joel 1:2-5.
a Hear this, you old men, and give ear, all you inhabitants of the land. Has this
been in your days, or in the days of your fathers? Tell you your children of it,
and your children their children, and their children another generation (Joel
1:2-3).
b What the adult locust (or ‘shearing locust’) has left the maturing locust (or
‘swarming locust’) has eaten, and what the maturing locust has left the young
locust (or ‘hopping locust’) has eaten, and what the young locust has left the
infant locust (or ‘destroying locust’) has eaten (Joel 1:4).
a Awake, you drunkards, and weep, and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because
of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth (Joel 1:5).
Note how the emphasis is on the huge plagues of locusts, with the call to consider
it going out in ‘a’ to the old men and all the people, and in the parallel to the
drunkards and drinkers of wine.
Joel 1:2-3
‘Hear this, you old men,
And give ear, all you inhabitants of the land.
Has this been in your days,
Or in the days of your fathers?’
‘Tell you your children of it, and your children their children,
And their children another generation.
The fact that the message has to be passed on for a number of generations
32

Joel 1 commentary

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (17)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (13)

Similar to Joel 1 commentary

Similar to Joel 1 commentary (12)

More from GLENN PEASE

More from GLENN PEASE (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Joel 1 commentary