1
📚The word of the LORD that came 📖 to Joel the son of Pethuel.The destruction caused by locusts
2 📚Hear this,
you elders, and listen,
all you inhabitants of the land.
Has anything like this happened
in your days,
or even in the days of your fathers?
3 📚Tell your children of it,
and may your children
tell their children,
and their children another generation.
4 📚What the gnawing locust has left
the large locust has eaten;
and what the large locust has left
the crawling locust has eaten;
and what the crawling locust has left
the shearing locust has eaten.
1:2-4 Locust swarms are referred to in other parts of the Bible and were regarded as a judgment of God (Ex 10:13-15; Deut 28:38, 42; 2 Chron 7:13). The one Joel speaks of here was the worst in the land of Israel for a very long time. The locust is similar to the grasshopper of India but not the same. Verse 4 in Hebrew has four different names for locusts – either different kinds of locusts or locusts in four different stages of development (the exact meaning of each of the four Hebrew words used here for locusts is unclear).⚜
5 📚Wake up, you drunkards,
📖 and weep 📖. And wail,
all you drinkers of wine,
because of the new wine,
for it has been cut off from your mouth.
6 📚For a nation 📖 has invaded my land,
strong, and without number.
Its teeth are the teeth of a lion,
and it has the fangs of a great lion.
7 📚It has laid waste my vine,
and splintered my fig tree.
It has stripped it bare,
and thrown it away.
Its branches have become white.
8 📚Lament as a virgin 📖 dressed
in sackcloth mourns
for the husband of her youth.
9 📚The grain offering and the drink offering 📖
have been cut off from the house
of the LORD. The priests,
the LORD’s ministers, mourn.
10 📚The field lies waste,
the land mourns,
for the grain is ruined,
the new wine is dried up, the oil fails.
11 📚Be dismayed, you farmers! Wail,
you vinedressers!
Weep for the wheat and the barley,
because the harvest of the field has perished.
12 📚The vine has dried up,
and the fig tree has withered.
The pomegranate tree,
the palm tree also,
and the apple tree,
all the trees of the field are withered.
Indeed,
joy has withered away from the sons of men.
13 📚Put on sackcloth and lament,
you priests. Wail,
you ministers of the altar. Come,
lie all night in sackcloth 📖,
you ministers of my God.
For the grain offering and
the drink offering are withheld
from the house of your God.
14 📚Sanctify a fast 📖. Call a solemn
assembly.
Gather the elders and
all the inhabitants of the land
to the house
of the LORD your God,
and cry out 📖 to the LORD.
15 📚Alas for the day!
For the day of the LORD 📖 📖 is
at hand,
and it will come as a destruction 📖
from the Almighty 📖.
16 📚Has not the food been cut off
before our eyes;
yes, joy and gladness
from the house of our God?
17 📚The seeds shrivel under their clods,
the storehouses are in ruins,
the barns are broken down,
for the grain is withered.
18 📚How the beasts groan!
The herds of cattle are bewildered,
because they have no pasture; yes,
the flocks of sheep are made desolate.
19 📚O LORD, to you I cry out 📖,
for the fire 📖 has devoured
the wilderness pastures,
and flames have burned up
all the trees of the field.
20 📚The beasts of the field also cry out to you, for the streams of water have dried up, and the fire has devoured the wilderness pastures.
1:16-20 Joel resumes his description of the event in his day which was a small picture of the great and terrible day of the LORD still to come.⚜