Joel 1:2-14
2 Hear this, you elders,
And listen, all inhabitants of the land.
Has anything like this happened in your days,
Or in your fathers’ days?
3 Tell your sons about it,
And have your sons tell their sons,
And their sons the next generation.
4 What the gnawing locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten;
And what the swarming locust has left, the creeping locust has eaten;
And what the creeping locust has left, the stripping locust has eaten.
5 Awake, you heavy drinkers, and weep;
And wail, all you wine drinkers,
Because of the sweet wine,
For it has been eliminated from your mouth.
6 For a nation has invaded my land,
Mighty and without number;
Its teeth are the teeth of a lion,
And it has the jaws of a lioness.
7 It has made my vine a waste
And my fig tree a stump.
It has stripped them bare and hurled them away;
Their branches have become white.
8 Wail like a virgin clothed with sackcloth
For the groom of her youth.
9 The grain offering and the drink offering have been cut off
From the house of the Lord.
The priests mourn,
The ministers of the Lord.
10 The field is ruined,
The land mourns;
For the grain is ruined,
The new wine has dried up,
Fresh oil has failed.
11 Be ashamed, you farm workers,
Wail, you vinedressers,
For the wheat and the barley;
Because the harvest of the field is destroyed.
12 The vine has dried up
And the fig tree has withered;
The pomegranate, the palm also, and the apple tree,
All the trees of the field have dried up.
Indeed, joy has dried up
From the sons of mankind.
13 Put on sackcloth
And mourn, you priests;
Wail, you ministers of the altar!
Come, spend the night in sackcloth,
You ministers of my God,
For the grain offering and the drink offering
Have been withheld from the house of your God.
14 Consecrate a fast,
Proclaim 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.
The Great Disaster of Locusts
An unprecedented disaster
A vast swarm of locusts attacked the land of Judah. The damage was so severe and devastating that it was unlike anything ever heard before. Four expressions are used: “gnawing locust,” “swarming locust,” “creeping locust,” and “stripping locust.” These do not refer to four different kinds of locusts; rather, they refer to four successive waves of locust plagues. What the first swarm left behind was consumed by the next, and after the fourth invasion of locusts, nothing remained. This is Joel’s point. In the Old Testament, the number four is used symbolically to express the intensity of destruction (ref. Jer. 15:3; Ezek. 14:21). Because of this disaster, four groups of people are lamenting. (1) Drunkards are lamenting because the wine has been cut off. The grapevines have been stripped bare, and even the bark of the branches has been eaten away, leaving them white. (2) The general populace is weeping and mourning as a young wife mourns for the husband of her youth. (3) The priests are in mourning, because the grain offering and the drink offering presented before the Lord have been cut off. Part of these offerings became the priests’ income, and the loss of them meant the collapse of their livelihood. (4) The farmers also feel shame and are wailing, because the harvest of the fields – grapes, wheat, and barley – has vanished. Moreover, all the trees of the field, such as the pomegranate, the date palm, and the apple tree, have withered.
The proclamation to fast
Joel calls upon the priests to proclaim a fast and to convene a sacred assembly. Wearing sackcloth is an expression of mourning and repentance, but Joel commands them to “spend the night in sackcloth.” Sleeping while wearing sackcloth indicates how grave the situation is. The great locust disaster became an opportunity for the people of Judah to repent before the Lord. Using this calamity that had already occurred as a foundation, Joel begins to prophesy about an even more dreadful judgment that is to come upon the people of Judah. This is recorded from 1:15 onward. Devastating earthquakes and hurricane damage have been occurring frequently. According to the logic of the Book of Joel, these disasters should become a catalyst and an opportunity for us to cry out to the Lord. First, we Christians should take on the posture of those clothed in sackcloth and cry out to the Lord. Today, let us straighten our posture and go out into this world as ambassadors of heaven sent by the Lord.
Today's prayer
God the Creator of heaven and earth, please encourage me so that I will not panic or become unsettled, but will walk before You day by day as one clothed in sackcloth. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.