12 The vine has become dry and the fig-tree is feeble; the pomegranate and the palm-tree and the apple-tree, even all the trees of the field, are dry: because joy has gone from the sons of men.
And all joy is gone; no longer are they glad for the fertile field; and in the vine-gardens there are no songs or sounds of joy: the crushing of grapes has come to an end, and its glad cry has been stopped.
There is a crying in the streets because of the wine; there is an end of all delight, the joy of the land is gone.
The fields are wasted, the land has become dry; for the grain is wasted, the new wine is kept back, the oil is poor.
And they came to the valley of Eshcol, and cutting down a vine-branch with its grapes, two of them took it on a rod between them; and they took some pomegranates and figs.
The good man will be like a tall tree in his strength; his growth will be as the wide-stretching trees of Lebanon.
The produce of the garden is pomegranates; with all the best fruits, henna and spikenard,
You are tall like a palm-tree, and your breasts are like the fruit of the vine. I said, Let me go up the palm-tree, and let me take its branches in my hands: your breasts will be as the fruit of the vine, and the smell of your breath like apples; And the roof of your mouth like good wine flowing down smoothly for my loved one, moving gently over my lips and my teeth.
You have made them very glad, increasing their joy. They are glad before you as men are glad in the time of getting in the grain, or when they make division of the goods taken in war.
There is the sound of crying from Horonaim, wasting and great destruction;
Have no joy, O Israel, and do not be glad like the nations; for you have been untrue to your God; your desire has been for the loose woman's reward on every grain-floor. The grain-floor and the place where the grapes are crushed will not give them food; there will be no new wine for them.
Is not food cut off before our eyes? joy and delight from the house of our God?
For though the fig-tree has no flowers, and there is no fruit on the vine, and work on the olive comes to nothing, and the fields give no food; and the flock is cut off from its resting-place, and there is no herd in the cattle-house: Still, I will be glad in the Lord, my joy will be in the God of my salvation.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Joel 1
Commentary on Joel 1 Matthew Henry Commentary
An Exposition, With Practical Observations, of
The Book of the Prophet Joel
Chapter 1
This chapter is the description of a lamentable devastation made of the country of Judah by locusts and caterpillars. Some think that the prophet speaks of it as a thing to come and gives warning of it beforehand, as usually the prophets did of judgments coming. Others think that it was now present, and that his business was to affect the people with it and awaken them by it to repentance.
Joe 1:1-7
It is a foolish fancy which some of the Jews have, that this Joel the prophet was the same with that Joel who was the son of Samuel (1 Sa. 8:2); yet one of their rabbin very gravely undertakes to show why Samuel is here called Pethuel. This Joel was long after that. He here speaks of a sad and sore judgment which was now brought, or to be brought, upon Judah, for their sins. Observe,
Joe 1:8-13
The judgment is here described as very lamentable, and such as all sorts of people should share in; it shall not only rob the drunkards of their pleasure (if that were the worst of it, it might be the better borne), but it shall deprive others of their necessary subsistence, who are therefore called to lament (v. 8), as a virgin laments the death of her lover to whom she was espoused, but not completely married, yet so that he was in effect her husband, or as a young woman lately married, from whom the husband of her youth, her young husband, or the husband to whom she was married when she was young, is suddenly taken away by death. Between a new-married couple that are young, that married for love, and that are every way amiable and agreeable to each other, there is great fondness, and consequently great grief if either be taken away. Such lamentation shall there be for the loss of their corn and wine. Note, The more we are wedded to our creature-comforts that harder it is to part with them. See that parallel place, Isa. 32:10-12. Two sorts of people are here brought in, as concerned to lament this devastation, countrymen and clergymen.
Joe 1:14-20
We have observed abundance of tears shed for the destruction of the fruits of the earth by the locusts; now here we have those tears turned into the right channel, that of repentance and humiliation before God. The judgment was very heavy, and here they are directed to own the hand of God in it, his mighty hand, and to humble themselves under it. Here is,