The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethuel. Joel 1:1-4 Joel Isaac Williams, B. D. Great as is the variety in the works of nature, it is no less so in the treasury of God's Word. The "prophets" are quite unlike the rest of the books; and between the prophets themselves there is a marked distinction of character. This is seen in the case of the four great prophets, it is even yet more striking in the twelve lesser, or minor, prophets. Notice particularly the three, Joel, Micah, and Habakkuk. Strongly defined are the individual characters of each as different members of the same body, while all alike are animated by one life and spirit; or as varied instruments of music made use of by one and the same poet or musician, and chosen as best suited for his purpose, according to the character of his message or the mind he would convey. The prophet Habakkuk is remarkable for very striking figurative expressions, which have become familiar in the mouths of all. Micah is the one of all the prophets chosen to foretell the place of our Lord's birth — Bethlehem Ephrata. Micah associates the mercies of the Incarnate Son of God with pastoral scenes, well meet for the herald of Bethlehem. Different to this is the prophet Joel. One object fills his mind from first to last, one subject in which he is altogether wrapt. There are no little sentences of wisdom like Habakkuk, who might be called the prophet of faith; no rural images like Micah, who might be termed the prophet of mercy; but one absorbing spirit throughout; and the question is not about expressions, but about the meaning and intent of them. He is beyond all others, and it might be said, solely and entirely the prophet of judgment. He is full of the trumpet; it is in all he says. What are we to consider the exact subject of this prophet? It is, but more especially at the beginning, the description of a plague of locusts. The description is most exact and striking in all its parts. It is figurative and allegorical of an armed host. In detailing one it foretells the other. This introducing into the same description many judgments is usual in the Bible; more than one thing is contained in the same prophecy; — one near and soon to happen, the other more distant; one of things temporal, the other of things eternal. One great lesson God would impress upon us by His prophet Joel, of constantly hearing the trumpet call, and realising the Great Day. Another remarkable point m Joel is, the voice of joy and exultation that is combined throughout with the terrible theme, and pervades each subject of his prophecy. The more we are impressed with a serious expectation of the Great Day, the more shall we be able to look forward to it with joy and comfort. ( Isaac Williams, B. D. ) Joel Bishop Boyd-Carpenter. He is the prophet of the great repentance, of the Pentecostal gift, and of the final conflict of great principles. Of the man himself and his age we know practically nothing. The man is little more than a name to us. 1. He was a successful prophet. He accomplished s remarkable moral revolution. He bowed the hearts of his contemporaries as the heart of one man; he drew them to the altar of God! and united them in a great national fast and supplication. The prophet is raised up to do his work. He is to live, to speak, to die if necessary; to rouse the conscience, and, as far as he can, to persuade the world of the truth of his message. He is to do his errand, — he is not to be talked of. And what are we compared with the work which we have to do? 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 be forgotten? Where the 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. The date in which Joel lived is not necessary to be known in order to understand the direction and drift of his ministry. The spiritual value of many things is independent of chronology. 2. What was his message? He teaches spiritual principles, not for an age but for all time.(1) He is a prophet of rebuke and repentance. He so influences the people that they gather to a great day of humiliation. A grievous calamity spoke with the prophet's words. The calamity was awful, and unparalleled in its severity. It was the utter desolation of the land by locusts. Joy ceases among the people as they gaze at their desolated land, and contemplate the famine that must follow. 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, rightly understood, is a day of the Lord. This calamity breaks 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. There being no gifts, the daily sacrifice ceases. To the people no two things could be more dread-inspiring. The twofold bond which bound the people to their God, and God to the people, seemed to them to be broken. The order of nature and the order of worship were both upset. All order is witness of another order, the order of righteousness. If there be a bond between the Lord and the people, that bond must be of the highest and most enduring order. It must be a bond in the order of the moral life. The suspension of the accustomed order of things may be the witness to the existence of the highest order — the righteous order in which the righteous God rules. So 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. It bids the people to look at the broken links of that golden chain which is righteousness, purity, faith. The prophet exercises his function of rebuke. And this power it is hard for ministers to retain. 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. Will the prophet give us hints as to the principles which would enable us to maintain this power in purity and efficiency, and enable us to discharge this duty with impartial fairness? Notice the large sympathy of the prophet. He has the completest power of identifying himself with the sorrows and troubles of the land and people. He is one with them; their sorrow is his sorrow. Here is one condition of the capacity of rebuke. It has often been said that we can only help men by putting ourselves in their place. Want of tenderness almost certainly involves want of tact; and want of tact renders us ineffective in reproof and in persuasion. Along with sympathy there must be a spirit which is profoundly convinced of the reality of the Divine rule. No man is or can be a prophet to whom the kingdom of God is not the most real thing in the universe. Repentance must be deep and natural. It must be the hatred of the moral evil that hinders them. It must be the awakening of the spirit to the gulf which small and unobserved sins may make between them and God. The vainglorious spirit which so often follows in the wake of earnest and victory seeking desires, robs away the protections which humility affords. What is needed is repentance for the whole spiritual tone — repentance which implies a recognition of the claim of God upon our whole spirit; repentance for the deviations from true and inward righteousness — repentance for the dulness and downwardness of our spirits. Joel does not mention specific sins. What then do we all need? We need the strong and vivid conviction of the reality of the kingdom of righteousness to make true our efforts for good. We need spirits which are united in sympathy with the Spirit of Him who sent us, for are we not fellow-workers with Him? Quick in tenderness, firm in righteousness, and with spirits possessed of the consciousness of God, we may attempt our work. ( Bishop Boyd-Carpenter. ) The individuality of men's messages Joseph Parker, D. D. Not the word that came to Hosea or to Amos, but the word that came to Joel, — intimating that there is a word that comes to every man. Each man has his own view of God, his own kingdom of heaven, his own way of telling what God has done for him. And the mischief is that we expect every man to speak in the same tone, to deliver the same words, and to subject himself to the same literary yoke or spiritual discipline. The Bible sets itself against all this monotony. Every man must speak the word that God has given to him through the instrumentality of his own characteristics. A man cannot say what word has to come to him. A man cannot be both the message carrier and the message originator. We are errand-runners; we have to receive our message and to repeat it; we have not first to create it, then to modify it, then to deliver it. The prophets assumed the position of being instruments, mediums for communications which the Lord wished to make with His children near and far, and with the world at large, and through all time. A man cannot say he will sing his Gospel; the Lord has only sent a certain number of singers, and we cannot increase the multitude. No man can say. I will go forth, and thunder the Word of the Lord in the ear of the age; the Lord hath not given His thunder to that tongue; it was meant to speak peacefully, soothingly, kindly, and when it tries to thunder creation would smile at the feebleness of the effort, and the palpableness of the irony. So we have in the Bible all kinds of ministry. There are thunders and judgments in the Book, and there are voices like lutes; there are whispers which you can only hear when you incline your ear with all the intensity of attention. There are words that roll down the mountains like splintered rocks, granites that have been ripped in two by the lightning; and there are words that fall from another mountain as flowers, beatitudes, tender speeches. The Lord hath need of all kinds of men; He wants the fire and the whirlwind and the tempest, and the dew, and the still small voice — all are God's ministry, God's husbandry. ( Joseph Parker, D. D. ) The Word of the Lord to a sinful nation J. S. Exell, M. A. The prophet here informs us that the Word of the Lord came to him, and that it had reference to the most alarming calamities which could possibly happen to a nation. The messages of God sometimes come in a loud voice, and have in them more of judgment than of mercy. I. THAT THE WORD OF GOD TO A SINFUL NATION IS COMMUNICATED THROUGH THE INSTRUMENTALITY OF ONE MAN. "The Word of the Lord that came to Joel." Here we learn that it is the ordinary way of God to communicate with the race through human instrumentality. The Divine Being did not present Himself to the wicked people of Judah and threaten woe; they could not have endured the brightness of His presence; they would have fled from before the majesty of His voice. He did not send an angel to convey His message; an angel would not have gained the confidence required. And so it is the way of God to speak by man to men, that He may dim His infinite glory by wrapping it in human vesture, and thus adapt it to human vision; but the word thus spoken is none the less Divine, and none the less worthy of regard. Christ was incarnate that He might utter the unfathomable Word of God, and that Word is still prolonged by human lips. 1. This one man was Divinely selected. The prophet Joel was selected by God to convey the message of woe and the need of repentance to the people of Judah. But who was Joel? Was he a man of social reputation, of advanced scholarship, of eminent talent? We know not. Nothing of his history is written; simply the name of his father is given. He was anxious to be known only as the servant of God. And we find that God often chooses modest agencies, unknown to fame, to speak His Word to mankind; He uses the foolish things of the world to confound the mighty. Thus the word uttered derives emphasis from the absence of human greatness in the speaker. Fame is not a condition of ministerial success. A man must be chosen by God before he has any right to preach the Word to the nations. 2. This one man was greatly honoured. The Word of the Lord which came to Joel imparted to him the highest dignity. It honoured him by coming to his soul, even as the presence of a king confers renown upon those who are favoured therewith. He was the chosen of God out of a vast nation, and was entrusted with prophetic communications. New abilities were awakened within him, and his life, which had hitherto been solitary and of little influence, was to become the centre of a nation's life. Manhood can have no greater honour conferred upon it than to be sent with the Word of God to men. 3. This one man was supremely trusted. Joel was entrusted with a great position. He was selected as one man out of a vast people to receive and make known the Word of the Lord. This might have led him to assume false claims and empty titles; he might have been tempted to use the moral authority thus given to him for secular ends. A minister holds his unique position in society as a sacred trust, and betrays it if he uses it for any other purpose than the moral welfare of those around him. Joel was also entrusted with a valuable deposit, even with the Word of the Lord. This he was not to conceal, but to declare. This he was not to adulterate, but to defend. This he was bravely to announce to a sinful people, unawed by numbers or results. 4. This one man was arduously worked. To Joel was committed the task of effecting a moral reformation in the national life of Judah. He stood almost alone with a great work to accomplish, lie had to proclaim great calamities to which few would listen. And the true minister has arduous work before him; he has oft, single-handed, to contend with a degenerate crowd; he has to preach great doctrines rejected and despised; he cannot guarantee success. II. THAT THE DIVINE WORD TO A SINFUL NATION REQUIRES THE EARNEST ATTENTION OF ALL CLASSES OF INDIVIDUALS (vers. 2, 3). 1. It should awaken the attention of the aged. The old men in the land of Judah were to listen to the prediction of Joel, and say whether anything so calamitous had ever occurred before. They could remember the past, and hence were competent to speak concerning it. Attention to the truth is the first condition of a renewed and sober life; even old men, who ought to be wiser, are sometimes heedless concerning it, and need to be reminded of its importance. 2. It should awaken the attention of the general multitude. All the inhabitants of the land of Judah were called upon to hear the message of Joel. It not only concerned the wise, but also the ignorant; not only the rulers, but those under them. It would not be the fault of the prophet if any did not feel the importance of his communication. The common multitude arc not generally observant of the judgments of God occurring around them, they need some one to unveil their inner and solemn meaning. 3. It should awaken the attention of remote posterity. The calamity predicted by Joel was to be handed down to a remote posterity. Not only are the memories of Divine mercy to be preserved, but also of Divine judgment, that they may in future deter from evil. Children must be instructed in the historical revelation which God has made concerning Himself, that they may see the wisdom of piety demonstrated in the facts of life. We should ever remember that the ages are mysteriously linked together, and that we are transmitting moral influences and instruction which the future must inherit. Let us heed the teaching of the past. III. THAT THE DIVINE WORD TO A SINFUL NATION SOMETIMES HAS REFERENCE TO THE MOST AWFUL CALAMITIES (ver. 4). 1. It was a calamity occasioned by a wondrous increase of useful creatures. God can turn the existing arrangements of the universe into an army of eternal justice. He has no need to create new agencies to rebuke sin; there are myriads awaiting His command. Locusts will execute His judgments. The Divine resource of retribution is beyond human imagination. 2. It was a calamity which employed the weakest agencies to execute its purpose. God's weak things are strong enough to work mischief to the wicked. Man is soon smitten down by little creatures. 3. It was a calamity which for continuous destruction was unequalled in the national history. One agency of ruin was succeeded by another, until the effect of the whole was utter desolation of resource and joy. Lessons — 1. That men must give themselves to the work which God appoints them. 2. That men should heed the Word of the Lord before the hour of retribution comes. 3. That sin is sure to be followed by the most awful calamities. ( J. S. Exell, M. A. ) National calamity Homilist. We learn from this passage — I. THAT THIS CALAMITY WAS DIVINELY REVEALED AT FIRST TO THE MIND OF ONE MAN. "The Word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethuel." No one knew at first what a sad calamity was coming on the country but Jehovah Himself. No sage, seer, or priest knew anything of it. Such a fact as this suggests — 1. The distinguishing faculty of man. Of all the creatures on earth, man alone can receive communications from heaven. We know not how the Word came unto him. The great Father of Spirits has many ways of striking His thoughts into the souls of His children. Souls are ever accessible to Him. 2. The manifest sovereignty of God. Why did He select Joel more than any other man? II. That this calamity was UNPRECEDENTED IN HISTORY. "Hear ye this, ye old men," etc. Observe — 1. That no Divine judgments have been so great as to preclude the possibility of greater. The penal resources of the righteous Judge are unbounded. Great as your afflictions have been, they can be greater. 2. That the greater the sins of a people, the greater the judgments to be expected. It is probable that Judah's sins were greater at this time than they had ever been before, and that, consequently, severer penalties were to come. Take care, sinner, in every sin you commit you are treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath. III. That this calamity was so TREMENDOUS AS TO COMMAND THE ATTENTION OF ALL GENERATIONS, "Tell ye your children," etc. 1. Because it shows that God rules the world. It is not controlled by chance or necessity. 2. Because it shows that God takes cognisance of the world's sin, and abhors it. IV. THIS CALAMITY WAS INFLICTED BY THE MOST INSIGNIFICANT OF GOD'S CREATURES. There is no authority for the opinion that the creatures here mentioned were symbols of hostile armies. Locusts are mentioned in their different stages and species. So to punish sinners God needs no thunderbolts. He can kill a man with a moth. ( Homilist. ) Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land — Terrible Divine judgments George Hutcheson. 1. When men become incorrigible, and sin ripens to a height, then the Lord will reprove and plead against it by judgments, and not by His Word only; for whereas the method of other prophets is, first, to reprove sin, then to threaten for it, and then to subjoin exhortations to repentance with encouragements and promises; this prophet doth at first point out their sin and guilt, as to be read in visible judgments, 2. Famine is one of the rods whereby the Lord pleads against the Church for her sin, and strips her of abused mercies, and of temptations to wantonness and rebellion. 3. God can, when He pleaseth, arm very mean and contemptible creatures to execute His judgments, and particularly, to deprive men of the fruits of the ground; for here He sends out "the palmer-worm, the locust, the canker-worm, and the caterpillar," and they eat up all. 4. As God hath still one scourge after another with which to plague a sinful and incorrigible people, who will not repent, but think to escape with the plagues that have come on them. So it speaks sad things when one calamity stints not the controversy, but He pursueth still one judgment after another, and with breach upon breach, for so it is here, what one left another did eat up. 5. Albeit the Lord in every age be testifying His displeasure against sin, yet at some times, and when sin is come to a great height, He may make one age a remarkable spectacle of justice, and bring judgments on them, the like of which have not been seen in many generations; for such was His dealing with this generation, their fathers, past memory of man, had not seen the like, nor should the like be seen for many generations to come. ( George Hutcheson. ) That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust oaten Palmer-worm, etc Dean Farrar, D. D. The Hebrew words arc the gazam, the arbeh, the yeleg, the chasil, and they seem to mean, in accordance with their etymology, the gnawer, the swarmer, the licker, and the consumer. But are they four different kinds of locusts? As there are eighty known species of this "gryllus migratorius," the supposition would be possible. But all known ravages of locusts are caused by successive flights of the same insect, not by different varieties. Are they then, as Credner argues, successive stages in the growth of the same insect, meaning the unwinged, the partially winged, the full-winged locust, and that changing in colour? Such is the view of Ewald, and he says that these four stages are well marked. There are insuperable difficulties in this theory. For if four successive stages had been intended in Joel 1:4 , why is the order confused and altered in Joel 2:25 , where the arbeh is put first, and the gazam last? This is inexplicable if, as Credner thought, the gazam in Joel 1:4 meant the mother-swarm, and the arbeh, yeleg, and chasil, its three metamorphoses. In point of fact, there are only two broadly marked changes in the development of the locust — from larva to pupa — and from pupa to the full-grown insect. In hot climates the creature can use its wings in about three weeks. It seems certain that the prophet is in no sense writing as a natural historian. The use of the four terms is only due to poetry and rhetoric, just as the Psalmist, in Psalm 78:46 ; Psalm 105:34 , freely employs the words chasil and jeleg as interchangeable with the word arbeh , which used in the Pentateuch to describe "the Egyptian" plague. ( Dean Farrar, D. D. ) God's locusts Joseph Parker, D. D. What is to be told? God hath many locusts. Only four of them are named here, but they are the greatest devourers that ever fell upon a landscape. They came but an hour ago; they are multitudinous beyond the power of arithmetic to enumerate, and in a few hours not one green thing will be left upon the land. Nay, their jaws are like stones, they will seize the bark upon the trees and tear it off, and none can hear the crunching of that gluttony; and to-morrow what will the fair landscape be like? It will be like a country smitten by sudden winter; the trees that yesterday were green and fair and lovely will be naked, and their whiteness shall resemble the whiteness of snow. All the fourfold locust tribe belong to the Lord. The great providence of God is responsible for its own acts. Man needs to be severely humbled; it does not always suffice simply to bend him a little; sometimes he must be doubled and thrown down as out of a scornful hand — not that he may be destroyed, but that he may be brought to himself. Soldiers with their sabres and bayonets cannot turn back the beetle. The Lord hath made some things so small that no bayonet can strike them; yet how they bite, how they devour, how they consume, how they plague the air, how they kill kings, and make nations weak, and turn armies white with panic. Joel knew what he was talking about, and could point to the landscape. ( Joseph Parker, D. D. ) Successive foes of spiritual life G. H. Morgan, Ph. D. The text speaks of the ravages of the locust in the different stages. If to the Jew the locust was a vivid type of the repeated wastings of his nation by the Assyrian, Persian, Macedonian, and Roman invasions, it may be to us a no less vivid picture of sin's successive swarm and scourge of our own spiritual heritage. Three thoughts respecting spiritual life. I. ITS FOES. Nature reveals life in its myriad lower forms begirt by foes. In our own physical life, the foreign fact becomes a near experience. Intellectual life has its foes. That spiritual life should have its foes is therefore no anomaly. II. THEIR SUCCESSION. In a garden, you save the plants from their first enemies only to find that later foes attack them. There are successive foes for every stage of the spiritual life. III. THEIR CONNECTION. The foes of the text were of one kind. They were several species of locusts, or several forms of the same species. So sin in one form is often followed by its fellows or its progeny, each working a wider ruin. We see pleasure-seeking followed by a breed of worthless traits; speculation followed by falsehood and dishonour; worldly yielding followed by neglect in prayer; compromise followed by compliance; doubt followed by intellectual pride; ignorance followed by fanaticism; covetousness by pharisaism; selfish success by indolence. What is the lesson? Beware of the coming into the field of your spiritual life of any sin. It will draw others after it. It will itself be metamorphosed into something worse. ( G. H. Morgan, Ph. D. ) Awake, ye drunkards, and weep. Joel 1:5-9 The insensibility and misery of the drunkard J. S. Exell, M. A. The prophet now endeavours to awaken certain characters in the nation to an earnest sense of the woe that has overtaken them, and to deep repentance, that it may be averted. His first warning cry is to the drunkard. The evils of intoxication are often intimately connected with national plagues, and require that earnest ministries should be directed against them. I. THAT THE DRUNKARD IS INSENSIBLE TO THE MOST IMPORTANT CONCERNS OF LIFE, "Awake." The prophet knew that it was the tendency of intoxicating drink to cast men into an unholy slumber, and to render them dangerously insensible to the most important things around them. 1. Intoxicating drink has a tendency to darken the intelligence of man. 2. Intoxicating drink has a tendency to deaden the moral susceptibilities of man. These drunkards of Judah were not merely mentally blind to the calamities which had come upon their country, but were morally incapable of estimating their due social effect. 3. Intoxicating drink has a tendency to destroy the conscience of man. These drunkards of Judah probably did not consider that they were working their own moral degradation, and that they were inviting the retribution of heaven. They imagined that they were enjoying the plenty they possessed, and that they were the happiest of men. The prosperity of fools shall slay them. II. That the drunkard is exposed to the most abject misery. "And howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth." 1. He is liable to the misery of self-loathing. We can readily imagine that these drunkards of Judah would now and then awake from their sottish slumber, and that in the moment of bodily pain they would be seized with sad thoughts of their own degradation. 2. He is liable to the misery of social con. tempt. Drunkards are the object of social scorn, they are incapable of industrious work, they are injurious to the common good. They prostitute great abilities. They misuse golden opportunities. They place manhood on a level with the brute. 3. They are liable to the misery of unsatisfied appetite. The drunkards of Judah would howl because the new wine was cut off from their mouth. They had abused the gifts of providence, and now they are no longer allowed to enjoy them. Sin brings the wealthiest of sinners to want. Plenty at one time is no guarantee against penury at another. In the next life the appetite which sin has created will be for ever unsatisfied; then the wine will indeed be cut off from the mouth. III. THAT THE DRUNKARD IS IN IMMEDIATE NEED OF THE MOST EARNEST MINISTRY WHICH CAN BE ADDRESSED TO HIM. We cannot but see in this verse that the prophet addressed the drunkards of Judah in earnest and faithful speech. He called them by their right name. He urged them to thoughtfulness and repentance. There is need that the pulpit of our age should take up his cry. Lessons — 1. That the drunkard is incapable of the qualities necessary for true citizenship. 2. That many national calamities are occasioned by the drunkard. 3. That the most effective ministries of the Church should be directed against this, terrible evil. ( J. S. Exell, M. A. ) Judgments adapted to sins C. Robinson, LL. D. Prevailing Sins are often visited with corresponding judgments. The Lord in His righteous dealings withholds those gifts of His providence which have been abused. He takes from an ungodly people the means of gratifying their lusts, and leads them to repentance by afflictions which are not capriciously ordered, but with exactest wisdom suited to their character. Thus, to check a thoughtless indifference to religion, He sends forth pestilences which strike down thousands and spread universal dismay. To restrain from habits of self-indulgence and extravagance, He causes a blight to fall upon the earth, bringing on scarceness and want. To put a rein upon the unsatiated pursuit of wealth, He allows a panic on the Stock Exchange. So here the prophet denounces no other woe against the drunkards than the deprivation of the wine they had abused. It is not unlikely that this part of the prophecy has a literal as well as symbolical aspect, that it inveighs against intemperance as well as idolatry. It was sensuality that first led the Israelites into idolatry. Persistence in indulgences so debilitated their minds and blinded their understandings as to cause them to apostatise from Jehovah, and fall down before images of wood and stone. On no class of persons do God's judgments fall more heavily than on those who embrute their souls with the intoxicating delights of idolatrous worship. ( C. Robinson, LL. D. ) Woe to drunkards T. De Witt Talmage. Satan has three or four grades down which he takes men to destruction. One man he takes up, and through one spree pitches him into eternal darkness. That is a rare case. Very seldom, indeed, can you find a man who will be such a fool as that. Satan will take another man to a grade, to a descent at an angle about like that of the Pennsylvania coal-shute or the Mount Washington rail-track, and shove him off. But that is very rare. When a man goes down to destruction Satan brings him to a plane. It is almost a level. The depression is so slight that you can hardly see it. The man does not actually know that he is on the down grade and it tips only a little towards darkness — just a little. And the first mile it is claret, and the second mile it is sherry, and the third mile it is punch,, and the fourth mile it is ale, and the fifth mile it is porter, and the sixth mile it is brandy, and then it gets steeper and steeper and steeper and the man gets frightened and says, "Oh, let me get off!" "No, says the conductor, "this is an express train, and it does not stop until it gets to the Grand Central Depot at Smashupton." ( T. De Witt Talmage. ) For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number The agencies of Divine retribution J. S. Exell, M. A. It is generally the way of God to meet sin by appropriate retribution; hence He destroys the vines of the drunkard. Some men are only reached through the lowest propensities of their nature, and are only conscious of penalty when their carnal wants are unsupplied. I. THAT THE AGENCIES OF DIVINE RETRIBUTION ARE GREAT IN THEIR NUMBER, "For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number." 1. These agencies are numerous; The locusts did not come in a single flight, but in incredible and successive swarms, Heaven has an infinite resource of retributive messengers waiting its behest, It can soon darken our lives by a throng of hostile energies. 2. These agencies are strong. True, these locusts were in themselves weak and diminutive creatures, They were not like the proud monarch of the forest, and had not the majestic appearance or strength of the lion or the bear. They were insects. And so the most trivial agencies of the universe, when sent by God to punish sin, become mighty and resistless. Then the superior intelligence o

Benson Commentary Joel 1:1 The word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Pethuel. 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. Joel 1:2 Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? Joel 1:3 Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. Joel 1:4 That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten. Joel 1:4 . That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten — A succession of noxious creatures hath perfectly destroyed the fruits of the earth; which makes this judgment so strange and remarkable. It is usual with the prophets to speak of things which were certainly about to take place, as already come to pass; and it is likely that the prophet speaks thus here; and that the sense is, That which the palmer-worm shall leave the locust shall eat. Bochart hath assigned many probable reasons to show that the four Hebrew words here used signify four species of locusts. Joel 1:5 Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth. Joel 1:5 . Awake, ye drunkards — From the long sleep occasioned by your intoxication. Kimchi comments thus on the place: “You, who accustom yourselves to get drunk with wine, awake out of your sleep, and weep night and day; for the wine shall fail you, because the locust shall devour the grape.” The exhortation implies, that the calamity should particularly affect those who were given to an excess of drinking, and that it should touch them in a tender part; the wine which they loved so well should be cut off from their mouths. Observe, reader, it is just with God to take away those comforts which are abused to luxury and excess. Joel 1:6 For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion. Joel 1:6 . For a nation is come up upon my land — Insects are described as a nation or people marching in order under their leaders, both by sacred and profane writers, because of their power to do mischief, and their being irresistible by human strength or art. Whose teeth are the teeth of a lion — They devour every thing that comes in their way, and there is no possibility of rescuing it from them. Pliny and other writers tell us, that they will not only destroy the leaves and fruits of the trees on which they fasten, but will even devour the very bark and stock thereof. Joel 1:7 He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white. Joel 1:8 Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. Joel 1:8 . Lament, &c. — The prophet here calls upon the inhabitants of Judea to deprecate this grievous judgment, by humiliation and unfeigned sorrow for their sins; like a virgin for the husband of her youth — That is, bitterly, and from the very heart; for the grief of a woman is generally very poignant and sincere for the loss of her first husband, to whom she was married in her youth. The expression is still stronger, if we suppose it spoken of a virgin betrothed to a man she loves, and whom she loses before they come together as man and wife. Joel 1:9 The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the LORD'S ministers, mourn. Joel 1:9-10 . The meat-offering and the drink-offering — These offerings always accompanied the daily sacrifice: see Numbers 28:4 ; Numbers 28:7 . The word here and elsewhere translated meat-offering, properly signifies the bread- offering, which was made of flour. It is here foretold, that these daily sacrifices could not be offered as they were wont to be, on account of the scarcity of corn and wine. The field is wasted, &c. — The fields and the whole land have a mournful appearance, being altogether bare, and destitute of fruit for the food of either man or beast. The oil languisheth — The olive-tree fadeth and produceth no fruit. Joel 1:10 The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth. Joel 1:11 Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished. Joel 1:11-12 . Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen — Be struck with confusion to see all your hopes disappointed, and no fruit arising from your labour; to find nothing of that which you had made yourselves sure of. Howl, O ye vine-dressers — This is to be referred to what is said in the next verse, and not to the words immediately following, which belong to the husbandmen, as the subject for their lamentation; as the vine, being dried up, was the cause of the sorrow of the vine-dressers. Because joy is withered away from the sons of men — Through want of food and wine. Or, he refers to the joy they used to show at the gathering in of the fruits of the earth. Joel 1:12 The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is withered away from the sons of men. Joel 1:13 Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the meat offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God. Joel 1:13 . Gird yourselves — Namely, with sackcloth; and lament, ye priests — Because the meat-offerings and drink-offerings were cut off: see Joel 1:9 . Lie all night in sackcloth — Let those priests, whose turn it is to keep the night-watches in the temple, cover themselves with sackcloth, as is usual in times of the greatest calamity; and let them not put it off when they betake themselves to rest, but sleep in sackcloth instead of their ordinary garments. Joel 1:14 Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD, Joel 1:14 . Sanctify ye a fast, &c. — In order to avert God’s wrath and deprecate his judgments. Gather the elders, &c., into the house of the Lord — The house where God hath placed his name, and where he hath promised to hear the prayers which are addressed to him by his people, when they are afflicted with judgments of this kind: see 1 Kings 8:37 . Joel 1:15 Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come. Joel 1:15-17 . Alas for the day! — Wo to us! The time in which God will inflict on us the punishments we have long deserved is now near; and if they be not averted by our repentance, they will fall upon us in an irresistible manner, and will end in our utter destruction, as coming from a God who is infinite in power, and terrible in his judgments. Is not the meat cut off before our eyes — Hebrew, before your eyes, namely, devoured by locusts or withered with drought. Yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God — The dearth hath obliged us to discontinue our daily offerings for want of corn and wine; and has deprived us of those rejoicings, wherewith we used to keep our solemn feasts at Jerusalem, and partake of the sacrifices there offered. It must be remembered, that the prophet all along speaks of the calamity as present, although, most probably, as was said before, this is a prophecy of what was to come. The seed is rotten under the clods — The corn which is sown dies away and rots in the ground, so that the barns and granaries become useless and desolate. Joel 1:16 Is not the meat cut off before our eyes, yea , joy and gladness from the house of our God? Joel 1:17 The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered. Joel 1:18 How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate. Joel 1:18 . How do the beasts groan! — “How grievous will be the distress of the beasts of the field! How sadly will they complain through the vehemency of thirst! How will the herds of cattle be troubled and perplexed! For their verdant pastures shall be all scorched up, and they will have none wherein to feed. The flocks also shall be desolate, and ready to perish.” Scarce any thing can be more strongly or more movingly descriptive of the effects of a dearth and drought than this is. Joel 1:19 O LORD, to thee will I cry: for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field. Joel 1:19-20 . O Lord, to thee will I cry — The prophet carries on the beautiful hypotyposis, (or description of the calamity, painted in such strong and bright colours as rendered it, as it were, present before the eyes of the people,) by representing himself as a sharer in the calamity. And by crying to God himself, he endeavours to stir up the people to cry to him. For the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness — The fiery drought hath burned up all the pasture-grounds. The wilderness is sometimes opposed to the hills and mountains, and then it signifies the plains and places for pasture. Or, if the expression be here understood of deserts, it must be observed, that there were spots in them where flocks and herds might feed. The beasts of the field also cry unto thee — Even the cattle and wild beasts utter their complaints, and express their want of food by the mournful noise which they make, as it were beseeching thee to have pity on them and relieve their wants. Even they have a voice to cry, as well as an eye to look to God. The rivers of water are dried up — The drought drying up the springs, the rivers have failed, and have little or no water in them. Thus, throughout the chapter, the prophet foretels a drought, as well as a plague of locusts; and these two calamities often go together, a great increase of locusts, according to Pliny and Bochart, being occasioned by heat. Joel 1:20 The beasts of the field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Joel 1:1 The word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Pethuel. Joel 1:2 Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? 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: "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 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, 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 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 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 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." 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 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?" The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.