Joel

This is the message from the LORD that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.

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

Note"The word of the LORD came to..." is the standard opening formula for a prophetic book, marking what follows as a message received rather than composed. Where LORD appears in capitals it stands for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew consonants usually written YHWH, which Jewish readers did not pronounce aloud. Nothing else is known about Joel or his father Pethuel, and the book gives no king or date, so when it was written is disputed.

2Listen to this, you old men, and pay attention, all of you who live in the land. Has anything like this happened in your lifetime, or in the lifetime of your fathers?

2Hear 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?

NoteThe Hebrew word behind "old men" also means "elders" in the sense of community leaders. The question that follows is a standard test of scale: the old are asked because they hold the longest memory, and if they have never seen its like, the event is unprecedented.

3Tell your children about it. Let your children tell their children, and let their children tell the generation after them.

3Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.

4What one kind of locust left behind, another kind ate. What that kind left behind, a third kind ate. And what the third kind left behind, a fourth kind ate.

4That 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.

NoteThe Hebrew uses four different words for locust here. Interpreters disagree whether they name four stages in a locust's growth, four separate species, or are simply four words piled up to say that nothing was left. KJV's "palmerworm," "cankerworm" and "caterpiller" are old English names for crop-destroying grubs, not translations of distinct insect species.

5Wake up, you drunks, and cry. Wail out loud, all of you who drink wine, because of the sweet new wine, for it has been taken away from your mouth.

5Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.

NoteThe "new wine" (Hebrew tirosh) is the fresh juice of the just-pressed grapes, drunk young. Drinkers are addressed first because they are the first to notice the loss: no grapes means no wine at all, not merely a poor vintage.

6A nation has come up against my land. It is strong, and too many to count. Its teeth are a lion's teeth, and it has the fangs of a great lion.

6For 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.

NoteCalling the swarm a "nation" is deliberate: ancient writers routinely described locusts in military language, as an invading army with ranks and a front line. Whether Joel means an actual locust plague, a human army pictured as locusts, or intends both at once is disputed and the Hebrew does not settle it.

7It has ruined my grapevine and broken my fig tree. It has stripped the bark clean off and thrown it away, leaving the branches bare and white.

7He 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.

NoteThe vine and the fig tree were the standard image of settled, peaceful prosperity, since both take years to establish and a family that owned them was secure. Stripping the bark kills the tree outright rather than costing a single season's fruit.

8Cry out in grief like a young woman dressed in rough sackcloth, mourning the husband of her youth.

8Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

NoteA betrothal in ancient Israel was legally binding, so a woman still a virgin could already have a husband and could be widowed before the marriage was completed. That is the sharpest grief the prophet can name. Sackcloth was coarse dark cloth of goat hair, worn next to the skin as a public sign of mourning.

9The grain offering and the drink offering have stopped at the house of the LORD. The priests, who serve the LORD, are mourning.

9The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the LORD’s ministers, mourn.

NoteKJV's "meat offering" does not involve meat; in 1611 "meat" meant food of any kind. The offering was of grain, flour mixed with oil, and the drink offering was wine poured out beside it. Both were presented every morning and evening, so when the harvest fails the daily routine of the temple simply stops for lack of materials.

10The field is ruined and the ground is in mourning. The grain is destroyed, the new wine has dried up, and the olive oil has failed.

10The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth.

Note"Corn" in the KJV means grain in general, wheat and barley; maize was unknown in the ancient Near East and in England in 1611. Grain, new wine and oil are the three staple crops of the region, named together as a shorthand for everything the land produces.

11Be dismayed, you farmers. Wail out loud, you who tend the vines, over the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field is gone.

11Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished.

Note"Husbandmen" is an older English word for farmers who work the soil; vinedressers are the specialists who prune and tend grapevines. The Hebrew verb rendered "be ye ashamed" means to be let down or dismayed by something that failed you, and it sounds nearly identical to the word for "dried up" that runs through the next verse.

12The grapevine has dried up and the fig tree has withered. The pomegranate, the palm, and the apple tree, every tree in the field, are all dried out. Joy has dried up among the people.

12The 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.

NoteThe tree called "apple" in the KJV is a Hebrew word whose identification is uncertain; apricot and quince are also proposed, since apples grow poorly in that climate. Pomegranate, palm and this tree are named as the orchard crops that survive an ordinary bad year, so their withering shows the scale of the disaster.

13Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests. Wail out loud, you who serve at the altar. Come and spend the whole night in sackcloth, you who serve my God, because the grain offering and the drink offering are held back from the house of your God.

13Gird 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.

Note"Gird yourselves" means to tie the sackcloth around the waist, the way a garment was fastened for work or mourning. Spending the night in it means the priests stay at the sanctuary in mourning dress instead of going home, turning private grief into an official, continuous act.

14Set apart a day to go without food. Call a special gathering. Bring the elders and everyone who lives in the land together at the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD.

14Sanctify 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.

NoteTo "sanctify" a fast means to proclaim it formally and set the day apart, not to make it holy in feeling. Going without food was an emergency measure in a public crisis, a way of declaring distress rather than a private discipline. The "solemn assembly" is a called halt to ordinary work so the whole population can gather.

15What a terrible day this is! The day of the LORD is close, and it will come as destruction from the Almighty.

15Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.

Note"The day of the LORD" was already a fixed expression before Joel used it: a day when God acts decisively and in the open, which popular expectation took to mean victory over enemies and which the prophets repeatedly turn back against Israel itself. The Hebrew here is also a pun that translation loses, the word for "destruction" (shod) echoing the divine title "the Almighty" (Shaddai).

16Has the food not been cut off right in front of our eyes? And has joy and gladness not been cut off from the house of our God?

16Is not the meat cut off before our eyes, yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God?

NoteAgain "meat" in the KJV means food of any kind, not flesh.

17The seeds lie shriveled under the dirt clods. The storehouses are empty ruins and the barns are torn down, because the grain has dried up.

17The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered.

NoteThe Hebrew of the first clause is obscure; two of its words appear nowhere else in the Bible, so "the seed is rotten under their clods" is an educated guess and other versions render it differently. "Garners" is an old English word for granaries, the storehouses where threshed grain was kept.

18Listen to the cattle groan! The herds wander around confused because they have no pasture. Even the flocks of sheep are suffering.

18How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.

Note"Perplexed" here has its older sense of milling about in confusion. The picture is of penned or herded animals with nowhere to be driven, since every pasture has been eaten bare.

19LORD, I call out to you, because fire has eaten up the open pastures, and flames have burned every tree in the field.

19O 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.

NoteWhether the fire is literal, a wildfire running through parched scrubland at the end of a dry season, or a figure for scorching drought and heat, is left open by the Hebrew and read both ways.

20The wild animals cry out to you as well, because the streams of water have dried up, and fire has eaten up the open pastures.

20The 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.

Note"The rivers of waters" are wadis, seasonal watercourses that run in the rainy months and hold nothing in a drought; there are almost no year-round rivers in the region. The verb translated "cry" actually means to pant or long for, the sound of an animal gasping toward water it cannot find.