Joel 1:18
in Joel 1How the cattle groan! The herds wander in confusion because they have no pasture. Even the flocks of sheep are suffering.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.
KJV
How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.
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This verse in Joel 1
Commentary
9 notes on this verse(Verse 17, 18.) The animals have trampled in their own dung; the barns have been destroyed, the storehouses have been scattered, because the grain has been mixed up; why does the animal groan, why do the herds of cattle moo? Because there is no pasture for them; and the flocks of sheep have also perished. LXX: The calves have jumped in their stalls; the treasuries have been scattered, the wine presses have been buried, because the grain has dried up; what shall we put aside for ourselves?
This site's exposition
Alas for the day
on Joel 1:15-18
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.
The record, by era
The Medieval Church1 voice
A commentator
Gregory the Dialogist40 Homilies on the Gospels, Homily X · Written before 604.
proposed
The prophet says, "The beasts of burden have become putrid in their own dung." For beasts of burden to become putrid in their own dung means for all those who are materialistic to end their lives in the stench of dissipation. As often as we prove a materialistic heart for its sins, as often as we draw back to its memory the wrongs it has committed, it is as if we are turning a measure of dung onto a barren tree.
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
How do the beasts groan?....
This Joel was long after that. He here speaks of a sad and sore judgment which was now brought, or to be brought, upon Judah, for their sins. The greatness of the judgment, expressed here in two things:-- 1.
This the prophet takes notice of, that the people might be affected with it and lay to heart the judgment. The groans of the cattle should soften their hard and impenitent hearts. The herds of cattle, the large cattle (black cattle we call them), are perplexed; nay, even the flocks of sheep, which will live upon a common and be content with very short grass, are made desolate.
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
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.
2 more voices on this verse
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
proposed
There is a tacit contrast between the sense of the brute creation and the insensibility of the people. yea, the . . . sheep--Even the sheep, which are content with less rich pasturage, cannot find food. are made desolate--literally, "suffer punishment." The innocent brute shares the "punishment" of guilty man (Ex 12:29;
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
How do the beasts groan! - There is something very pitiable in the cry of the brute creation, even because they are innocent, yet bear man’s guilt. Their groaning seems to the prophet to be beyond expression. How vehemently do they “groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed,” as though, like man, they were endued with reason, to debate where to find their food. Yea, not these only, but the flocks of sheep, which might find pasture where the herds could not, these too shall bear the punishment of guilt. They suffered by the guilt of man; and yet so stupid was man, that he was not so sensible of his own win for which they suffered, as they of its effect. The beasts cried to God, but even their cries did not awaken His own people. The prophet cries for them;
The words behind it
14 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| מַה־ | mah- | how! | H4100 → | 752 times |
| נֶּאֶנְחָ֣ה | neenchah | it has groaned | H584 → | |
| בְהֵמָ֗ה | vehemah | [the] livestock | H929 → | 190 times |
| נָבֹ֙כוּ֙ | navokhu | they have wandered in confusion | H943 → | |
| עֶדְרֵ֣י | ʾedrei | [the] herds of | H5739 → | |
| בָקָ֔ר | vakar | cattle | H1241 → | |
| כִּ֛י | ki | for | H3588 → | 4482 times |
| אֵ֥ין | ʾein | not | H369 → | 789 times |
| מִרְעֶ֖ה | mireh | pasture | H4829 → | |
| לָהֶ֑ם | lahem | [belongs] to them | ||
| גַּם־ | gam- | also | H1571 → | 769 times |
| עֶדְרֵ֥י | ʾedrei | [the] flocks of | H5739 → | |
| הַצֹּ֖אן | hatzon | <the> sheep | H6629 → | |
| נֶאְשָֽׁמוּ׃ | ne'shamu | they have suffered | H816 → |
מַה־how!
mah-H4100 →752 times
נֶּאֶנְחָ֣הit has groaned
neenchahH584 →
בְהֵמָ֗ה[the] livestock
vehemahH929 →190 times
נָבֹ֙כוּ֙they have wandered in confusion
navokhuH943 →
עֶדְרֵ֣י[the] herds of
ʾedreiH5739 →
בָקָ֔רcattle
vakarH1241 →
כִּ֛יfor
kiH3588 →4482 times
אֵ֥יןnot
ʾeinH369 →789 times
מִרְעֶ֖הpasture
mirehH4829 →
לָהֶ֑ם[belongs] to them
lahem
גַּם־also
gam-H1571 →769 times
עֶדְרֵ֥י[the] flocks of
ʾedreiH5739 →
הַצֹּ֖אן<the> sheep
hatzonH6629 →
נֶאְשָֽׁמוּ׃they have suffered
ne'shamuH816 →
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Romans 8:22We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until the present time.
it leads to
- Jeremiah 12:4
How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field be withered? Because of the evil of its residents, the animals and birds have been swept away, for the people have said,…
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Jeremiah 12:11
They have made it a desolation; desolate before Me, it mourns. All the land is laid waste, but no man takes it to heart.
- John 16:21
A woman has pain in childbirth because her time has come; but when she brings forth her child, she forgets her anguish because of her joy that a child has been born into the…
- Jeremiah 12:4
Through
Hosea 4:3Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it will waste away with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air; even the fish of the sea disappear.
it leads to
- Zephaniah 1:3
“I will sweep away man and beast; I will sweep away the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, and the idols with their wicked worshipers. I will cut off mankind…
- Isaiah 24:4–12
The earth mourns and withers; the world languishes and fades; the exalted of the earth waste away.
- Nahum 1:4
He rebukes the sea and dries it up; He makes all the rivers run dry. Bashan and Carmel wither, and the flower of Lebanon wilts.
- Zephaniah 1:3
Through
Jeremiah 12:4How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field be withered? Because of the evil of its residents, the animals and birds have been swept away, for the people have said,…
it leads to
- Jeremiah 9:10
I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, a dirge over the wilderness pasture, for they have been scorched so no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not…
- Psalms 107:34
and fruitful land into fields of salt, because of the wickedness of its dwellers.
- Jeremiah 9:10
Where this verse is studied
On this page
Studies1
About Joel
This page draws on 9 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary; Gregory the Dialogist, 40 Homilies on the Gospels, Homily X; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Joel; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763) and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.