Joel 1
20 verses
A devastating plague of locusts—described in relentless detail as overlapping waves of cutting locusts, swarming locusts, crawling locusts, and consuming locusts—strips the land bare of all vegetation and agricultural abundance, leaving famine and desolation in its wake. The prophet summons the people to lament and weep, calling on priests to gird themselves with sackcloth and spend the night in weeping, for the grain offering and drink offering have ceased in the house of the LORD and the fields are ruined. The metaphor of the plague as a military invasion, with the locusts as an unstoppable army, evokes the terror of war while suggesting that this natural catastrophe is a sign of God's judgment and a harbinger of greater judgment to come. The prophecy encompasses multiple registers of loss—agricultural devastation, ritual impotence (inability to offer sacrifices), emotional trauma (mourning and weeping)—demonstrating that covenant violation ruptures the entire created and social order. The chapter calls for corporate repentance and lamentation, suggesting that this plague, though destructive, serves as a wake-up call to a people who have drifted from covenant fidelity and must recognize the hand of God in their affliction.
VERSES IN THIS CHAPTER
1
The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.
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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?
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3
Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.
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God is faithful in every circumstance.. When we read this alongside the surrounding chapters, the narrative arc becomes ...
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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8
Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
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9
The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the Lord; the priests, the Lord’s ministers, mourn.
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10
The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth.
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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.
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Now I understand why — it's a daily declaration of dependence on God.. God is faithful in every circumstance.. The threa...
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.
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God is faithful in every circumstance.. There's something deeply comforting about knowing that the same God who spoke th...
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.
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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,
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15
Alas for the day! for the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.
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16
Is not the meat cut off before our eyes, yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God?
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The contrast between human weakness and divine strength is so vivid in this passage. Faith isn't the absence of doubt — ...
17
The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS
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