Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Joel 1:16 - 1:16
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
“Is not the food destroyed before our eyes, joy and exulting from the house of our God? Joe 1:17. The grains have mouldered under their clods, the storehouses are desolate, the barns have fallen down; because the corn is destroyed. Joe 1:18. How the cattle groan! the herds of oxen are bewildered, for no pasture was left for them; even the flocks of sheep suffer.” As a proof that the day of the Lord is coming like a devastation from the Almighty, the prophet points in Joe 1:16 to the fact that the food is taken away before their eyes, and therewith all joy and exulting from the house of God. “The food of the sinners perishes before their eyes, since the crops they looked for are snatched away from their hands, and the locust anticipates the reaper” (Jerome). אֹכֶל, food as the means of sustenance; according to Joe 1:19, corn, new wine, and oil. The joy is thereby taken from the house of Jehovah, inasmuch as, when the crops are destroyed, neither first-fruits nor thank-offerings can be brought to the sanctuary to be eaten there at joyful meals (Deu 12:6-7; Deu 16:10-11). And the calamity became all the more lamentable, from the fact that, in consequence of a terrible drought, the seed perished in the earth, and consequently the prospect of a crop the following year entirely disappeared. The prophet refers to this in Joe 1:17, which has been rendered in extremely different ways by the lxx, Chald., and Vulg., on account of the ̔απ. λεγ. עָֽבְשׁוּ, פְּרֻדוֹת, and מֶגְרָפוֹת (compare Pococke, ad h. l.). עָבַשׁ signifies to moulder away, or, as the injury was caused by dryness and heat, to dry up; it is used here of grains of corn which lose their germinating power, from the Arabic ‛bs, to become dry or withered, and the Chaldee עפשׁ, to get mouldy. Perudōth, in Syriac, grains of corn sowed broadcast, probably from pârad, to scatter about. Megrâphōth, according to Ab. Esr., clods of earth (compare Arab. jurf, gleba terrai), from gâraph, to wash away (Jdg 5:21) a detached piece of earth. If the seed-corn loses its germinating power beneath the clod, no corn-harvest can be looked for. The storehouses ('ōtsârōth; cf. 2Ch 32:27) moulder away, and the barns (mammegurâh with dag. dirim. = megūrâh in Hag 2:19) fall, tumble to pieces, because being useless they are not kept in proper condition. The drought also deprives the cattle of their pasture, so that the herds of oxen and flocks of sheep groan and suffer with the rest from the calamity. בּוּךְ, niphal, to be bewildered with fear. 'Ashēm, to expiate, to suffer the consequences of men's sin.
The fact, that even irrational creatures suffer along with men, impels the prophet to pray for help to the Lord, who helps both man and beast (Psa 36:7). Joe 1:19. “To Thee, O Jehovah, do I cry: for fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flame has consumed all the trees of the field. Joe 1:20. Even the beasts of the field cry unto Thee; for the water-brooks are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.” Fire and flame are the terms used by the prophet to denote the burning heat of the drought, which consumes the meadows, and even scorches up the trees. This is very obvious from the drying up of the water-brooks (in Joe 1:20). For Joe 1:20, compare Jer 14:5-6. In Jer 14:20 the address is rhetorically rounded off by the repetition of וְאֵשׁ אָֽכְלָה וגו from Jer 14:19.