Joel 1 King James Version (KJV)

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

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.

Commentary

Among the prophets of the Old Testament, Joel differs from most of the others in that he does not state the period during which he preached. One suggestion is that he prophesied in Judah around the period 835-830 BC, during the reign of the boy-king Joash. This would explain why the book does not mention Syria, Assyria or Babylon, the chief enemies during the time of the divided kingdom, as these nations had not yet begun to interfere in Judah’s affairs. It would also explain why the prophet does not mention a reigning king, for at that time the government of the country was largely in the hands of the priest Jehoiada (2 Kings 11:1-21; 12:1-2). The prominence of Jehoiada may also account for Joel’s interest in the temple and its services (Joel 1:9,13; 2:12,15-17).

An alternative suggestion is that the book was written after the Jews’ return from captivity. The most likely period is either 520-510 BC (after the ministry of Haggai and Zechariah and the rebuilding of the temple) or around 400 BC (a generation or so after the reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah). According to these suggestions, Joel is among either the first or the last of the writing prophets.

Purpose of the book

In spite of the absence of a specific date, the present-day reader should have no great difficulty in understanding the book of Joel. This is because the single event that forms the book’s basis is not concerned with details of Judah’s local politics or international affairs. The event is a severe locust plague, and the setting appears to be Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside.

The locust plague brought extensive agricultural damage and created widespread suffering to the people. What made the plague even more devastating was its occurrence at the height of a crippling drought. Joel interpreted these events as God’s judgment on Judah for its sin. He promised the people that if they repented, God would renew his blessing by giving them productive crops and a more enlightened knowledge of himself. Joel saw these events as symbolic of God’s future judgment on all enemies and his blessing on his people.