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1. An Invasion of Locusts

¹ The word of the LORD that came to Joel son of Pethuel.

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?
³ Tell it to your children,
   and let your children tell it to their children,
   and their children to the next generation.
⁴ What the locust swarm has left
   the great locusts have eaten;
what the great locusts have left
   the young locusts have eaten;
what the young locusts have left
   other locusts The precise meaning of the four Hebrew words used here for locusts is uncertain. have eaten.

    ⁵ Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!
   Wail, all you drinkers of wine;
wail because of the new wine,
   for it has been snatched from your lips.
⁶ A nation has invaded my land,
   a mighty army without number;
it has the teeth of a lion,
   the fangs of a lioness.
⁷ It has laid waste my vines
   and ruined my fig trees.
It has stripped off their bark
   and thrown it away,
   leaving their branches white.

    ⁸ Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth
   grieving for the betrothed of her youth.
⁹ Grain offerings and drink offerings
   are cut off from the house of the LORD.
The priests are in mourning,
   those who minister before the LORD.
¹⁰ The fields are ruined,
   the ground is dried up;
the grain is destroyed,
   the new wine is dried up,
   the olive oil fails.

    ¹¹ Despair, you farmers,
   wail, you vine growers;
grieve for the wheat and the barley,
   because the harvest of the field is destroyed.
¹² The vine is dried up
   and the fig tree is withered;
the pomegranate, the palm and the apple Or possibly apricot tree—
   all the trees of the field—are dried up.
Surely the people’s joy
   is withered away.

A Call to Lamentation

    ¹³ Put on sackcloth, you priests, and mourn;
   wail, you who minister before the altar.
Come, spend the night in sackcloth,
   you who minister before my God;
for the grain offerings and drink offerings
   are withheld from the house of your God.
¹⁴ Declare a holy fast;
   call a sacred assembly.
Summon the elders
   and all who live in the land
to the house of the LORD your God,
   and cry out to the LORD.

    ¹⁵ Alas for that day!
   For the day of the LORD is near;
   it will come like destruction from the Almighty. Hebrew Shaddai

    ¹⁶ Has not the food been cut off
   before our very eyes—
joy and gladness
   from the house of our God?
¹⁷ The seeds are shriveled
   beneath the clods. The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.
The storehouses are in ruins,
   the granaries have been broken down,
   for the grain has dried up.
¹⁸ How the cattle moan!
   The herds mill about
because they have no pasture;
   even the flocks of sheep are suffering.

    ¹⁹ To you, LORD, I call,
   for fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness
   and flames have burned up all the trees of the field.
²⁰ Even the wild animals pant for you;
   the streams of water have dried up
   and fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness.

He repeats the same thing as before, for he reproaches the Jews for being so slow to consider that the hand of God was against them. Has not the meat, he says, been cut off before our eyes? joy and exultation from the house of our God? Here he chides the madness of the Jews, that they perceived not things set before their eyes. He therefore says that they were blind in the midst of light, and that their sight was such, that seeing they saw nothing: they surely ought to have felt distressed, when want reached the temple. For since God had commanded the first-fruits to be offered to him, the temple ought not by any means to have been without its sacrifices; and though mortals perish a hundred times through famine and want, yet God ought not to be defrauded of his right. When, therefore, there was now no offering nor libation, how great was the stupidity of the people not to feel this curse, which ought to have wounded them more than if they had been consumed a hundred times by famine? We see then the design of the Prophet’s words, that is, to condemn the Jews for their stupidity; for they considered not that a most grievous judgment was brought on them, when the temple was deprived of its usual sacrifices.

He afterwards adds, that joy and gladness were taken away: for God commanded the Jews to come to the temple to give thanks and to acknowledge themselves blessed, because he had chosen his habitation among them. Hence this expression is so often repeated by Moses, ‘Thou shalt rejoice before thy God;’ for by saying this, God intended to encourage the people the more to come cheerfully to the temple; as though he said, “I certainly want not your presence, but I wish by my presence to make you glad.” But now when the worship of God ceased, the Prophet says, that joy had been also abolished; for the Jews could not cheerfully give thanks to God when his curse was before their eyes, when they saw that he was their adversary, and also when they were deprived of the ordinances of religion. We now then perceive why the Prophet joins joy and gladness with oblations: they were the symbols of thanksgiving.