Joel
Chapter 1
This is the word of the Lord that came to Joel, son of Pethuel.
PENITENTIAL LITURGY FOR A PLAGUE
Description and Lament
Hear this, you elders! Listen, all you land dwellers! Has this happened in your days or in the days of your ancestors?
Tell it to your children, then to their children, and then to the next generation.
What the cutter left, the swarming locust devoured. What the swarming locusts left, the hopper ate. What the hopper left, the destroying locusts have eaten.
Wake up, drunks, and weep! Wail, wine drinkers, because the sweet wine is withheld from your mouths.
A powerful and numerous nation has invaded my country. It has the teeth of a lion and the fangs of a lioness.
It has destroyed my vines and ruined my fig trees. It has stripped their bark and left their branches white.
Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth, grieving for her young husband.
Grain and drink offerings are not offered in the house of the Lord. The priests serving before the Lord are mourning.
The fields are ruined. The land mourns because the grain is gone; the wine fails, and the oil runs out.
Mourn, you farmers; cry, you vine growers, over the barley and wheat, for the harvest of the field is lost.
The vine withers, the fig tree droops; pomegranate, palm, and apple, all the trees of the field dry up. Oh, how happiness has vanished among all these people!
Mourning and Supplication
Gird yourselves, O priests, and weep; mourn, O ministers of the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God! For the house of your God lacks grain and drink offerings.
Proclaim a fast, call an assembly. Summon the elders, and all who live in the land, into the house of your God, and cry out to the Lord:
“What a dreadful day —the day of the Lord, that draws near, and comes as a ruin, from the Almighty!”
Hasn’t the food been taken away from us before our very eyes, and joy and gladness, too, from the house of our God?
The seed beneath the soil is shriveled; the granaries are ruined; the barns are fallen down, because the harvest has dried up.
How the cattle groan! The herds wander and moan because they have no pasture. Even the flocks of sheep suffer.
To you, Lord, I call out. A fire has consumed the open pasture; flames have burned the trees.
Even wild animals cry out to you, because the streams have dried up and the pastures have been consumed by fire.
Commentaries
Identification of the Author and Attribution of His Words.
Joel means “Yahweh is God.” This book does not specify when Joel’s prophecy occurred.
Description and Lament.
The disaster caused by a severe plague of locusts, which leaves the population and livestock hungry, serves as a warning of an even greater catastrophe on “the day of the Lord.”
Mourning and Supplication.
The priests are called to lead a period of repentance. The locust plague that destroys everything in its path signals the terrible “day of the Lord.” With the shortage of shortage, the celebrations and joy in the Lord’s temple also come to an end (16). The prophet shows solidarity with the people suffering from the devastating plague that strikes like fire (19-20).