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?
3 Tell ye
your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their
children another generation.
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.
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.
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.
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.
8 ¶Lament
like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
9 The
meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the Lord; the
priests, the Lord’s ministers, mourn.
10 The
field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is
dried up, the oil languisheth.
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.
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.
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.
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,
15 Alas
for the day! for the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the
Almighty shall it come.
16 Is not
the meat cut off before our eyes, yea, joy and gladness from the house of our
God?
17 The
seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are
broken down; for the corn is withered.
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.
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.
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.
Joel 1 is a peculiar chapter
because there is so much emotional language of distress about famine. This is famine is so bad that:
--four waves of different
insects have gone over eating up what’s left (v4)
--the drunkards with have no
new wine (v5)
--the vine is laid waste
(v7)
--an enemy has barked the fig
tree, or damaged it to kill it (v7)
--the field is wasted (laid
waste or completely destroyed) (v10)
--the harvest of the field
is perished (v11)
--all the trees of the field
are withered (vines, figs, pomegranates, palms, apples (v12)
--the seed is rotten in the
fields (v17)
--the garners (where harvest
is stored) are desolate and the barns are broken down (v17)
--there is no pasture for
the cattle or sheep, so the beasts grown, the cattle are perplexed, and the
sheep die (v18)
--wild pastures and trees have
been burned (v18)
--the rivers are dry (v20)
And then there is a thought
that is repeated three different times that shows us how bad it really is:
The
meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the Lord; the priests, the Lord’s
ministers, mourn. (v9)
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. (v13)
Is not
the meat cut off before our eyes, yea, joy and
gladness from the house of our God? (v16)
The Israelites were supposed
to bring to the temple their first fruits of harvest as a meat and drink
offering and a portion of that given to the priests so they could subsist while
serving in the temple. These
verses tell us of a famine that is so bad that no one has any first fruits to
bring in, assuming the people are faithful and would bring an offering if they
had any harvest). Thus, the
priests possibly are in danger of starving, as are any others who do not have
food stored.
This is a very sad and scary
situation, and Joel’s assessment of it is, “The day of the Lord is at hand.”
(v15) and the people are supposed to respond in a certain way –“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” (v14)
The famine is “as a destruction from the Almighty,” (v15) which will
require faith and prayer and fasting and lots of charity and miracles to get
through.
Verses 2-3 also say
something that should make us think very hard:
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?
3 Tell ye
your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their
children another generation. (Joel 1:2-3)
Joel wants us to think about
whether we’ve seen something like this happen. Do any old men remember a famine like this or did their parents or grandparents remember
something like this happening?
Odds are we haven’t. And if
we haven’t, then we must consider this a prophecy to be fulfilled some time in
the future, and we should pass it down through the generations so each generation
can prepare themselves for it if it should happen during their lives.
This is especially important
for us today, especially since many of us in first world countries are
insulated from effects of famine.
There is a global supply chain for food that brings us a huge variety
from all over the world. That
global supply chain is a very helpful thing for when one area of the world has
a bad harvest because the other harvests elsewhere can compensate and the price
goes up. But if we had a global famine, we would be in big
trouble. A global famine would
certainly be termed “as a destruction from the Almighty” (v15). It would be the very thing to take the
world by complete surprise and it is also the thing a year’s supply of food is
designed to get families through.
Joel doesn’t use the highly
charged language of distress to reach people already in famine. People in that kind of situation know when it is bad. They don’t need anyone to tell them
that.) He’s trying to reach people
who enjoy great abundance; he’s trying to wake them up to consider and prepare
for what is coming even though it is not known exactly when. It takes faith to gather food and
prepare for famine in the midst of abundance, just like it took faith for Noah
to build an ark before it rained.
It is interesting Joel
doesn’t seem to be doing much to call to repentance in this chapter, aside from
telling the drunkards (who have presumably been self-medicating) that they
aren’t going to have their fix for a long time because the supply is all
gone. Rather, he tutors on
appropriate response to the disaster—gathering together, fasting, and
prayer. (Repentance is more
implied.)
We might wonder what the
modern equivalent would be of meat and drink offerings cut off from the house
of the Lord. But imagine a famine
so bad that farmers can’t pay tithing or fast offerings. Or imagine if it moves up the chain
such that no one has money to pay tithing because their job has disappeared and
they’ve spent all their savings on food.
This chapter backs up the
prophetic counsel give over multiple generations to the church to build a
year’s supply. A year’s supply is
useful for an economic backup, but it is really designed for widespread famine
of the type Joel writes of.
Soo.. how’s your food
storage and your three-month supply?
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