Joelchapter 1
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Key verse
The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.
It stands in What one locust swarm left, the next one ate, verses 1 to 4.
The chapter
Chapter summary
A locust plague so total it becomes revelation. 'That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten' (1:4): four waves, nothing remaining. Joel summons everyone in turn: old men, has this been in your days? drunkards, weep, for the new wine is cut off; priests, gird yourselves with sackcloth, for the meal-offering and drink-offering are cut off from the house of Jehovah. Vine withered, fig-tree languishing, seed rotting under the clods, cattle groaning for want of pasture. And through the stripped fields Joel sees further: 'the day of Jehovah is at hand.'
Context
Prophecy · Joel · Joel overview
The world behind this chapter
Joel 1The history
Desert locusts are not oversized grasshoppers. When crowding triggers the swarming phase they change colour and behaviour, form swarms that can run to billions of insects covering hundreds of square miles, travel over a hundred miles in a day on the wind, and eat roughly their own body weight daily. Modern swarms have been recorded stripping a region bare in hours. Joel's readers had just watched it.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The four Hebrew words for the locust in the opening verse have been read as four life stages of the same insect, four successive waves, or four poetic names piled up for effect. What they describe together is total loss, one wave finishing what the last one left.
The specific damage listed is exactly what swarms do. Grain is taken in the field, the vine is stripped, and the fig tree is barked, locusts gnaw the bark off young branches, which kills the tree rather than merely costing a season. Pomegranate, palm, and apple are all named, because when the leaf is gone the orchard is gone for years.
The religious consequence is concrete. The daily grain offering and drink offering required flour, oil, and wine, and the swarm had eaten all three. The temple's regular worship physically stopped for lack of supplies, which is why the priests are told to gird themselves with sackcloth and lie all night on the altar steps.
What it meant to them
The command that opens the book is to tell the children, and their children after them, so that the disaster becomes a story a family passes down. Joel treats the swarm as a message, not just a misfortune.
Calling a fast and a solemn assembly meant shutting the country down and gathering the elders and all the inhabitants to the house of the LORD to cry out. For hearers, that was the one action a ruined agricultural people could still take.
Sources cited
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament: The Minor Prophets
Where the chapter sits
Joel 1 falls in Locust plague and call to return (chapters 1–2). The land devoured by locusts; the day of the LORD announced; the trumpet in Zion; ‘rend your heart, and not your garments.’
The locust plague. ‘That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten.’
After it: Spirit poured out; nations judged; Zion blessed, chapters 2:28–3:21.
The whole shape of Joel→The structure of this chapter
People1
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. What one locust swarm left, the next one atevv. 1-4
The word of the Lord that came to Joel: The book opens with only a patronymic, Joel the son of Pethuel, a name found nowhere else in the Old Testament, and no king or era is named as with most of the other prophets, which is why proposals for the book's date have ranged across several centuries. The word of the Lord announces a locust plague under four names in sequence, the palmerworm, the locust, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the commentators divide over whether these describe four successive stages of one insect's life or four separate waves of devastation. Whatever the entomology, the command tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children echoes the Passover's own pattern of a disaster turned into a generation-spanning testimony.
Joel 1:1
“Hath this been, &c.--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. Ex 10:14 is not at variance with this verse, which refers to Judea, in which Joel says there had been no such devastation before.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Joel 1:2
“Hear this, ye old men - By reason of their age they had known and 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.”
2 more voices on this verse
Joel 1:2
“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.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Joel 1:4
“That which the palmerworm hath left - Here he begins to open his message, and the words he chooses show that he is going to announce a devastation of the land by locusts, and a famine consequent on their depredations. What the different insects may be which he specifies is not easy to determine. I shall give the words of the original, with their etymology. The palmerworm, גזם gazam, from the same root, to cut short; probably the caterpillar, or some such blight, from its cutting the leaves of the trees into pieces for its nourishment.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
B. Wake, drunkards; mourn, farmers: the harvest is gone
1. (vv. 5-7)
Joel 1:5
“It should touch them in a tender part; the new wine which they loved so well should be cut off from their mouth. Note, It is just with God to take away those comforts which are abused to luxury and excess, to recover the corn and wine which are prepared for Baal, which are made the food and fuel of a base lust. And to them judgments of that kind are most grievous.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Joel 1:6
“A nation is come up upon my land - That real locusts are intended there can be little doubt; but it is thought that this may be a double prophecy, and that the destruction by the Chaldeans may also be intended, and that the four kinds of locusts mentioned above may mean the four several attacks made on Judea by them.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Joel 1:6
“Strong - Mighty in power, and undaunted in courage, if you refer it to the Assyrian or Babylonians; if to those vermin, they are, though each weak by itself, yet in those multitudes, strong and irresistible.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Joel 1:7
“He hath laid my vine waste - The locusts have eaten off both leaves and bark. חשף חשפה chasoph chasaphah, he hath made it clean bare; שדד שדה suddad sadeh, the field is laid waste, Joe 1:10; and כשד משדי kesod mishshaddai, a destruction from the Almighty, Joe 1:15; are all paronomasias in which this prophet seems to delight.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
3 more voices on this verse
Joel 1:7
“He hath laid my vine waste,....”
Joel 1:7
“O wretched beings, who by going after the praises of men waste to themselves all the fruits of their labors, and while they aim to show themselves to the eyes of others, blast all that they do. When the evil spirits prompt them to boastfulness, taking them for a prey they strip bare their works, as we have said.”
Gregory the Dialogist· written before 604· MORALS ON THE BOOK OF JOB 2:8.82patristic
Joel 1:7
“He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree - This describes an extremity of desolation.”
Awake, ye drunkards, and weep: The drunkards are roused first because the vine is the plague's earliest casualty, the new wine cut off from their mouth before any theology is preached to them. Verse 6 names the locust swarm a nation, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, the double vision the book will not let go of, an insect plague described in an invading army's own vocabulary. The vine laid waste and the fig tree barked clean bare, its branches made white, pictures trees stripped to bare wood, a report travelers in genuine locust years have called accurate rather than exaggerated.
2. (vv. 8-10)
Joel 1:8
“Lament like a virgin - for the husband of her youth - Virgin is a very improper version here. The original is בתולה bethulah, which signifies a young woman or bride not a virgin, the proper Hebrew for which is עלמה almah. See the notes on Isa 7:14 (note), and Mat 1:23 (note).”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Joel 1:9
“The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off - The meat offering and drink offering were part of every sacrifice. If the materials for these, the grain and wine, ceased, through locusts or drought or the wastings of war, the sacrifice must become mangled and imperfect. The priests were to mourn for the defects of the sacrifice; they lost also their own subsistence, since the altar was, to them, in place of all other inheritance.”
1 more voice on this verse
Joel 1:9
“The greatest sorrow to the mind of a religious Jew, and what ought to impress the whole nation with a sense of God's displeasure, is the cessation of the usual temple-worship. meat offering--Hebrew, mincha; "meat" not in the English sense "flesh," but the unbloody offering made of flour, oil, and frankincense.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Joel 1:10
“Thus, "a man of the field," in Hebrew, is a "hunter"; a "man of the ground" or "land," an "agriculturist" (Ge 25:27). "Field" and "land" are here personified. new wine--from a Hebrew root implying that it takes possession of the brain, so that a man is not master of himself.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth: for the husband of her youth turns the plague from agriculture to grief, a young widow's mourning borrowed for a ravaged land. The meat offering and the drink offering cut off from the house of the Lord marks the plague's deepest wound for a covenant people, worship itself interrupted for want of grain and wine, and the priests, the Lord's ministers, mourn because their office has nothing left to bring. The field wasted and the land mourning is stated twice in two verses, the ground itself given the mourner's part alongside the people.
3. (vv. 11-12)
Joel 1:12
“The vine is dried up - Dr. Shaw observes that in Barbary, in the month of June, the locusts collect themselves into compact bodies a furlong or more square, and march on, eating up every thing that is green or juicy, and letting nothing escape them, whether vegetables or trees. They destroy the pomegranate, the palm, the apple, (תפוח tappuach, the citron tree), the vine, the fig, and every tree of the field. See the note on Joe 2:2 (note).”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen: The husbandmen are told to be ashamed and the vinedressers to howl for the wheat and the barley, since the harvest itself, not the vine alone, has failed. Verse 12 lists six trees by name, the vine, the fig, the pomegranate, the palm, and the apple, all withered together, an inventory the commentators read as deliberately exhaustive, nothing left standing in the field. The chapter's own explanation follows in the same verse, because joy is withered away from the sons of men, the crop failure and the human grief named as one event.
C. Gird yourselves, priests, and call a solemn assemblyvv. 13-14
Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: The priests who mourned in verse 9 are now given their task, gird yourselves, and lament, and lie all night in sackcloth, the altar's own ministers made the chapter's chief mourners since the offering they exist to bring has failed. Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly gathers every rank, elders and all the inhabitants of the land, into the house of the Lord for a single corporate act. The cry unto the Lord that closes verse 14 is the first prayer the book has offered after a chapter of pure description of ruin.
Joel 1:13
“Gird yourselves - that is, with haircloth, as is elsewhere expressed Isa 22:12; Jer 4:8; Jer 6:26. The outward affliction is an expression of the inward grief, and itself excites to further grief. This their garment of affliction and penitence, they were not to put off day and night. Their wonted duty was to “offer up sacrifice for their own sins and the sins of the people” Heb 7:27, and to entreat God for them.”
Joel 1:14
“Call a solemn assembly - עצרה atsarah signifies a time of restraint, as the margin has it. The clause should be translated - consecrate a fast, proclaim a time of restraint; that is, of total abstinence from food, and from all secular employment. All the elders of the land and the representatives of the people were to be collected at the temple to cry unto the Lord, to confess their sins, and pray for mercy. The temple was not yet destroyed. This prophecy was delivered before the captivity of Judah.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
D. The day of the LORD is at hand; even the beasts cry out
1. (vv. 15-18)
Joel 1:16
“Is not the meat cut off before our eyes? - The prophet exhibits the immediate judgment, as if it were already fullilled in act.”
Joel 1:17
“The seed is rotten under the clods - Not only was all to be cut off for the present, but, with it, all hope for the future. The scattered seed, as it lay, each under its clod known to God, was dried up, and so decayed. The garners lay desolate, nay, were allowed to go to ruin, in hopelessness of any future harvest.”
3 more voices on this verse
Joel 1:17
“The seed is rotten under their clods,....”
Joel 1:17
“What is a basket of dung, except the memory of sins? For the sins of the flesh are called dung. Hence it is also said through the prophet: "The beasts have rotted in their dung." For the beasts to rot in their dung is for carnal people to end their lives in the stench of luxury.”
Gregory the Dialogist· written before 604· Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 31patristic
Joel 1:17
“The seed is rotten under their clods - When the sprout was cut off as low as possible by the locusts, there was no farther germination. The seed rotted away.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Joel 1:18
“How do the beasts groan! - I really think that the neighing of horses, or braying of asses, is wonderfully expressed by the sound of the original: מה נאנחה בהמה mah Neenchah behemah, how do the horses neigh! how do the asses bray! בהמה behemah is a collective name for all domestic cattle, and those used in husbandry. Cattle are perplexed - They are looking everywhere, and wandering about to find some grass, and know not which way to run.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Alas for the day!: introduces the book's refrain, the day of the Lord is at hand, a phrase Joel repeats at 2:1, 2:11, and 3:14, binding the locust year to a horizon larger than any one harvest. The word rendered destruction plays in the Hebrew on the divine name Shaddai, shod mishaddai, a wordplay the commentators note the King James cannot carry across into English. Even the animals are drawn into the lament, the beasts groan, the herds of cattle are perplexed for lack of pasture, and the flocks of sheep made desolate, creation itself given a voice in the book's grief.
2. (vv. 19-20)
Joel 1:19
“O Lord, to Thee will I cry - This is the only hope left, and contains all hopes. From the Lord was the infliction; in Him is the healing. The prophet appeals to God by His own Name, the faithful Fulfiller of His promises, Him who Is, and who had promised to hear all who call upon Him. Let others call to their idols, if they would, or remain stupid and forgetful, the prophet would cry unto God, and that earnestly.”
Joel 1:20
“The beasts are here said to cry unto God, as from him the lions seek their meat ( Ps. civ. 21 ) and the young ravens, Job xxxviii. The complaints of the brute-creatures here are for want of water ( The rivers are dried up, through the excessive heat), and for want of grass, for the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
O Lord, to thee will I cry: The prophet's own prayer closes the chapter, O Lord, to thee will I cry, the first time in the book Joel speaks for himself rather than summoning others to lament. Fire joins drought as a second disaster, the pastures of the wilderness devoured by flame as well as by locust, which some commentators read as the same locust imagery intensified and others as an actual accompanying drought and fire. The beasts of the field crying unto God in verse 20 repeats verse 18's turn to the animals, ending the chapter on the whole created order's need, which chapter 2 will begin to answer.
This page carries no textual note on Joel 1. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
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