Joel 1:16

The chapter opened with locusts devouring the land (Joel 1:2–7) and called the priests, the farmers and the vinedressers to mourn (Joel 1:8–13). Joel has just summoned the priests and people to fast and gather to cry to the LORD (Joel 1:13–14), and verse 15 gives the weightiest reason for doing so.

It opens with a cry of pain. ʼăhâhh, “Alas”, is a word that expresses pain as an exclamation, “Oh!” or “ah!”, and with it the prophet grieves over what is coming. The word “day” stands twice in this verse: “Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand”. yôwm, day, can mean a single day or a wider span of time, and yôwm Yᵉhôvâh, the day of the LORD, is the time when the LORD himself steps into history to act. Yᵉhôvâh is God’s own name, the self-existent and eternal God of Israel, which the KJV prints as “the LORD”.

That day is “at hand”. qârôwb means near, and it is used of nearness in place, in kinship or in time. Joel speaks of something close enough to call for an answer now.

It will come “as a destruction from the Almighty”. shôd means violence and ravage, desolation and spoil. Shadday, the Almighty, is one of God’s ancient titles. Its exact meaning is uncertain, and it may mean the All-Sufficient One, while the KJV’s “Almighty” names him as the God with power to carry out all his purposes, his judgments among them. So the ruin Joel announces has a source, and it carries God’s own purpose.

Joel asks a question to which everyone listening must answer yes: “Is not the meat cut off before our eyes?” In the KJV “meat” means food of any kind. ʼôkel is food, eating or a meal, from the root meaning to eat, and here it is the produce of the fields, the grain that made daily bread and supplied the offerings at the temple. kârath, cut off, means to cut off or cut down, and by implication to destroy or consume. The loss happened “before our eyes”, in full view of the whole people.

Then the question reaches the temple: “yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God?” simchâh is joy, gladness or mirth, often the joy of a religious festival, and gîyl is joy and rejoicing. The house of our God is the temple in Jerusalem, where the people gathered for worship and for the feasts.

Grain, wine and oil fed the people, and they also supplied the offerings God had commanded: the grain offerings (Leviticus 2:1–16), the drink offerings (Numbers 15:1–10) and the firstfruits (Deuteronomy 26:1–11). The feasts were meant to be glad. The Feast of Tabernacles was to be kept with rejoicing over the harvest God had given (Deuteronomy 16:13–15), and a psalm says that in God’s presence is fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11). When the fields were stripped, the offerings and the celebrations failed together, and the temple went quiet. Lamentations mourns a later loss in the same way, when the joy of the heart has ceased (Lamentations 5:15).

The law had spoken of such a time among the curses for disobedience (Deuteronomy 28:15–48). There Moses warns what will follow when God’s people refuse to serve him joyfully in their abundance (Deuteronomy 28:47–48). God’s provision and the joy of worship belong together, and both come from his hand.

Verse 17 follows the grain from the field to the barn and finds ruin at every point.

“The seed is rotten under their clods.” pᵉrudâh is a kernel, literally something separated, the grain sown in the field. migrâphâh is a clod, a lump of earth thrown up by the spade. ʻâbash, rotten, means to dry up or be rotten, so the seed lies shrivelled in the soil where it should have sprouted, and the next harvest is lost at its very start.

“The garners are laid desolate.” ʼôwtsâr is a storehouse or treasury, here a granary, and shâmêm describes a place left desolate. The storehouses stand empty because the fields yielded nothing to fill them.

“The barns are broken down.” mammᵉgurâh is another word for a granary, and hâraç means to tear down, throw down or break. With no grain to keep, the barns are left to fall.

“For the corn is withered.” In the KJV “corn” means grain. dâgân is grain, properly “increase”, the wheat and barley that were the people’s staple, and yâbêsh means to dry up or wither, and also to become weak or be ashamed. The withered crop explains everything else in the verse.

The prophets speak of God giving and withholding the harvest. The law names drought and famine among the curses (Deuteronomy 28:23–24), Amos tells of God’s discipline through famine (Amos 4:6–9), and Haggai speaks of God withholding blessing from his people when they neglected his house (Haggai 1:9–11).

“How do the beasts groan!” bᵉhêmâh is a beast, especially a large four-footed animal, and Strong’s traces it to a root probably meaning to be mute. The dumb beasts now have a voice for their pain. ʼânach is to sigh, groan or mourn, a word used for human grief.

“The herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture.” ʻêder is a herd, flock or drove, and the same word stands behind “flocks” at the end of the verse. bâqâr is cattle, animals of the ox family used for ploughing. bûwk means to be entangled or perplexed, and the herds wander about confused. The reason follows at once: mirʻeh, pasture, the place or the act of feeding, is gone.

“Yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.” tsôʼn is a flock of sheep or goats. ʼâsham ordinarily means to be guilty, and by implication to be punished or to perish, and here the flocks share in the punishment that has fallen on the land and perish with it. Verse 17’s garners “laid desolate” share the English word, but the Hebrew is different.

Other prophets join the land and its animals in the same grief. Hosea speaks of the land mourning and the beasts languishing (Hosea 4:3), and Jeremiah of the land mourning because of the wickedness of those who live in it (Jeremiah 12:4).

Joel, who has called the elders and all the people to the house of the LORD (Joel 1:14), now does what he asked of them. qârâʼ, to cry, means to call out to someone, to address them. He calls on Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name, so his prayer rests on who the LORD is to his people, the faithful God who alone can intervene and restore.

The reason for the prayer follows: “for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field.” ʼêsh is fire, and ʼâkal, devoured, is the ordinary verb to eat, used figuratively of devouring or consuming. The food of verse 16 has been cut off, and now the fire eats the land. The pastures, nâʼâh, are literally homes or pleasant places, and the midbâr here is the open country where cattle were driven to graze. “All the trees of the field” takes in fruit trees and wild trees alike, so every kind of growth has been struck.

Scripture keeps calling God’s people to pray in exactly this place. God says, “Call upon me in the day of trouble” (Psalm 50:15), he promises to answer those who call to him (Jeremiah 33:3), and the psalmist says his help comes from the LORD (Psalm 121:1–2). Joel brings the ruin to the same God from whom the destruction came, because he is also the one who can heal it.

The cry of verse 20 is a different word from Joel’s in verse 19, and the two share the English word. ʻârag means to long for or to pant, so the beasts pant toward God in thirst and need. They are the same bᵉhêmâh as the groaning beasts of verse 18, here placed “of the field”, out in the open country, and they may be the wild animals beyond the herds and flocks. The word “also” joins them to the prophet’s prayer.

“The rivers of waters are dried up.” ʼâphîyq is a channel, the bed or valley of a stream, and mayim is water, so the stream beds have run dry. “Dried up” is the same verb, yâbêsh, as the withered grain of verse 17. Israel’s fields depended on the early and the latter rain that God promised (Deuteronomy 11:14), and now even the streams have failed.

The last line repeats the first reason of verse 19 word for word: “the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.” The prophet and the beasts lament the same loss before the same God. He is the one who provides for every creature (Psalm 104:27–28), so the animals’ panting is directed to the right place.

Joel reads the plague as the hand of God. The law had set blessing and curse before Israel, and drought and famine were among the curses for disobedience (Deuteronomy 28:15–68, Leviticus 26:18–20). Joel 1 leaves the people’s sin unnamed and calls them straight to mourning, fasting and prayer. God is sovereign over the natural world, and he can use even its most basic gifts to bring his people back to himself.

The goal is return. The LORD soon says through Joel, “turn ye even to me with all your heart” (Joel 2:12–13), and he goes on to promise rain, full floors and restored years (Joel 2:21–27). The day of the LORD that fills Joel 2 is terrible, and the same chapter shows the LORD gracious to all who turn to him.

The New Testament shows Jesus as both the judge of that day and the one who delivers from its wrath. The destruction Joel announces is borne by Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). He will return as the Son of Man to judge the nations (Matthew 25:31–32), and so his people wait for that day in hope, looking for the blessed hope and his glorious appearing (Titus 2:13).

What was cut off in Joel’s day is given back in him. Jesus is the bread of life (John 6:35) and the grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies and brings forth much fruit (John 12:24). He spoke of his own body as the temple (John 2:19–21), he brings worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:23–24), and he gives his joy to his disciples so that their joy may be full (John 15:11). The Holy Spirit dwells in believers, whose bodies are his temple (1 Corinthians 6:19).

The parched land and the wandering flocks point the same way. Christ is the Good Shepherd, through whom his sheep go in and out and find pasture (John 10:9–11), and the Lamb will lead them to living fountains of waters (Revelation 7:17). He gives living water (John 4:10, John 7:37–38), and he is the true vine whose branches bear fruit (John 15:1–5). Our prayers are heard through him, for he ever lives to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25).

The groaning creation has a hope as well. All things were created by Christ (Colossians 1:16), and the creation itself will be delivered from the bondage of corruption (Romans 8:21). Scripture speaks of the restitution of all things (Acts 3:21) and of new heavens and a new earth where righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13), where God wipes away every tear and there is no more death or pain (Revelation 21:1–4).

These verses give us a prayer for the day when everything we live by fails. Joel names the loss honestly, the food, the joy of worship, the seed, the barns, the herds and the streams, and then he takes all of it to the LORD. He knows that the destruction has come from the Almighty, and he prays to the Almighty anyway, because the God who sends such a day is the God who hears.

They also show us how far God’s care reaches. The cattle in their confusion and the wild beasts panting by the dry stream beds are known to the God whom Psalm 104 praises as the maker and keeper of every creature, and Scripture records their cry beside the prophet’s. The day of the LORD is near, and in Christ it holds salvation for all who call on his name. Joel’s words “O LORD, to thee will I cry” are ours to pray as well.