THE BOOK OF JOE L. ARGUMENT. THERE is much uncertainty as to the exact time when Joel prophesied. Some think he was cotemporary with Hosea and that as Hosea prophesied chiefly to the ten tribes, so Joel addressed chiefly the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin. It seems most probable, from some parts of this prophecy, that it was delivered in the reign of Ahaz, after the Edomites had smitten Judah, and used great violence; (compare 2 Chron. xxviii. 17, and Joel iii. 19;) and after the Philistines had invaded their cities, and slain or expelled their inhabitants, (compare 2 Chron. xxviii. 18, and Joel iii. 4,) and were both of them triumphing in their success: upon which account God particularly threatens them by this prophet. And as to the Philistines, Joel's prediction was executed against them in Hezekiah's reign, who succeeded Ahaz; it being expressly predicted of him by Isaiah, chap. xiv. 29, that he should dissolve and destroy them, which we find from his history he actually did. The prophecy consists of four parts: 1st, The prophet describes and bewails the destruction which should be made by locusts, and the distress the country should be in through an excessive drought, chap. i.-ii. 12. 2dly, He calls the people to repentance, to which he encourages them with promises of a removal of the judgment, and of God's taking them into his favour on their complying with his exhortation, chap. ii. 12-27. 3dly, He foretels the plentiful effusion of the Holy Spirit, which should take place in the latter days, namely, in the days of the Messiah, chap. ii. 28-32. 4thly, He proclaims God's judgments against the neighbouring nations, which had unjustly invaded, plundered, and carried his people into captivity: and foretels glorious things of the gospel Jerusalem, and of the prosperity and perpetuity of it, chap. iii. The style of Joel is essentially different from that of Hosea; but the general character of his diction, though of a different kind, is not less poetical. He is elegant, perspicuous, copious, and fluent; he is also sublime, animated, and energetic. In the first and second chapters he displays the full force of the prophetic poetry, and shows how naturally it inclines to the use of metaphors, allegories, and comparisons. Nor is the connection of the matter less clear and evident than the complexion of the style: this is exemplified in the display of the impending evils which gave rise to the prophecy; the exhortation to repentance; the promises of happiness and success, both ter restrial and eternal, to those who become truly penitent; the restoration of the Israelites; and the vengeance to be taken of their adversaries. But while we allow this just commendation to his perspicuity, both in language and arrangement, we must not deny that there is sometimes great obscurity observable in his subject, and particularly in the latter part of the prophecy. See Bishop Lowth, De Sacra Poesi Hebræorum, Prælec. xxi. CHAPTER I. In this chapter is contained, (1,) A description of an unparalleled devastation of the country by locusts, caterpillars, &c., 1–7. (2,) A call to drunkards and persons of all ranks, afflicted by the calamity, to consider and bewail it, 5,8-13. (3,) An exhortation to the people to fast and pray, and humble themselves before God, on account of the famine and drought, which the very beasts of the field are represented as bewailing, 14–20 B. C. 742. to Joel the son of Pethuel. B. C. 742. A. M. 3262. THE word of the LORD that came || inhabitants of the land. a Hath this A. M. 3262. been in your days, or even in the 2 Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye days of your fathers? NOTES ON CHAPTER I. a Chap. ii. 2. Verses 1-3. Hear this, ye old men—Ye that have seen and remember many things. Hath this been in your days, &c.-Give attention; and when you have heard and considered, say whether any thing like the calamities which I am about to denounce A prediction of the ruin B. C. 742. B. C. 742. A. M. 3262. 3 Tell ye your children of it, and || cast it away; the branches thereof A. M. 3262. let your children tell their children, are made white. and their children another generation. 4 That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the canker-worm eaten; and that which the canker-worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten. 5 Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth. e 6 For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion. 7 He hath & laid my vine waste, and 2 barked my fig-tree he hath made it clean bare, and b Psalm lxxviii. 4.- Deuteron. xxviii. 38; Chapter ii. 25. 1 Hebrew, the residue of the palmer-worm.- d Isaiah xxxii. 10. • Proverbs xxx. 25, 26, 27; Chap. ii. 2, 11, 25.—f Rev. ix. 8. Isaiah v. 6. hath ever happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers. In this way the prophet shows how great and unparalleled this dearth, which he foretels, would be. Tell ye your children-Let these prophecies be handed down to distant generations, and also an account of the events; that, the events being compared with the prophecy, it may be seen how exactly they were foretold. Verse 4. That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten-A succession of noxious creatures hath perfectly destroyed the fruits of the earth; which makes this judgment so strange and remarkable. It is usual with the prophets to speak of things which were certainly about to take place, as already come to pass; and it is likely that the prophet speaks thus here; and that the sense is, That|| which the palmer-worm shall leave the locust shall || eat. Bochart hath assigned many probable reasons to show that the four Hebrew words here used signify four species of locusts. Verse 5. Awake, ye drunkards-From the long sleep occasioned by your intoxication. Kimchi comments thus on the place: "You, who accustom yourselves to get drunk with wine, awake out of your sleep, and weep night and day; for the wine shall fail you, because the locust shall devour the grape." The exhortation implies, that the calamity should particularly affect those who were given to an excess of drinking, and that it should touch them in a tender part; the wine which they loved so well should be cut off from their mouths. Observe, reader, it is just with God to take away those comforts which are abused to luxury and excess. 8 Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. i 9 The meat-offering and the drink-offering is cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the LORD's ministers, mourn. 1 10 The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is 3 dried 3 up, the oil languisheth. 11 Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vine-dressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished. 12 The vine is dried up, and the fig-tree languisheth; the pomegranate-tree, the palmtree also, and the apple-tree, even all the trees Hebrew, laid my fig-tree for a barking. h Isaiah xxii. 12. or art. Whose teeth are the teeth of a lion—They devour every thing that comes in their way, and there is no possibility of rescuing it from them. Pliny and other writers tell us, that they will not only destroy the leaves and fruits of the trees on which they fasten, but will even devour the very bark and stock thereof. Verse 8. Lament, &c.-The prophet here calls upon the inhabitants of Judea to deprecate this grievous judgment, by humiliation and unfeigned sorrow for their sins; like a virgin for the husband of her youth-That is, bitterly, and from the very heart; for the grief of a woman is generally very poignant and sincere for the loss of her first husband, to whom she was married in her youth. The expression is still stronger, if we suppose it spoken of a virgin betrothed to a man she loves, and whom she loses before they come together as man and wife. Verses 9, 10. The meat-offering and the drinkoffering-These offerings always accompanied the daily sacrifice: see Num. xxviii. 4, 7. The word here and elsewhere translated meat-offering, properly signifies the bread-offering, which was made of flour. It is here foretold, that these daily sacrifices could not be offered as they were wont to be, on account of the scarcity of corn and wine. field is wasted, &c.-The fields and the whole land have a mournful appearance, being altogether bare, and destitute of fruit for the food of either man or beast. The oil languisheth-The olive-tree fadeth and produceth no fruit. The Verses 11, 12. Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen -Be struck with confusion to see all your hopes disVerse 6. For a nation is come up upon my land appointed, and no fruit arising from your labour; to -Insects are described as a nation or people march- find nothing of that which you had made yourselves ing in order under their leaders, both by sacred and sure of. Howl, O ye vine-dressers-This is to be profane writers, because of their power to do mis-referred to what is said in the next verse, and not to chief, and their being irresistible by human strength || the words immediately following, which belong to the husbandmen, as the subject for their lamentation; || as the vine, being dried up, was the cause of the sorrow of the vine-dressers. Because joy is withered away from the sons of men-Through want of food and wine. Or, he refers to the joy they used to show at the gathering in of the fruits of the earth. Verse 13. Gird yourselves—Namely, with sackcloth; and lament, ye priests—Because the meatofferings and drink-offerings were cut off: see verse 9. Lie all night in sackcloth-Let those priests, whose turn it is to keep the night-watches in the temple, cover themselves with sackcloth, as is usual|| in times of the greatest calamity; and let them not put it off when they betake themselves to rest, but sleep in sackcloth instead of their ordinary gar ments. Verse 14. Sanctify ye a fast, &c.—In order to avert God's wrath and deprecate his judgments. Gather the elders, &c., into the house of the LordThe house where God hath placed his name, and where he hath promised to hear the prayers which are addressed to him by his people, when they are afflicted with judgments of this kind: see 1 Kings viii. 37. y Isaiah xiii. 6, 9; Chapter ii. 1. Deut. xii. 6, 7; xvi. 11, 14, 15.- - Heb. grains. Hosea iv. 3. Psa. 1. 15. Jer. ix. 10; Chap. ii. 3.- -6 Or, habitations. Job xxxvIII. 41; Psa. civ. 21; cxlv. 15.- - 1 Kings xvii. 7; xviii. 5. Jerusalem, and partake of the sacrifices there offered. It must be remembered, that the prophet all along speaks of the calamity as present, although, most probably, as was said before, this is a prophecy of what was to come. The seed is rotten under the clods-The corn which is sown dies away and rots in the ground, so that the barns and granaries become useless and desolate. Verse 18. How do the beasts groan!-"How grievous will be the distress of the beasts of the field! How sadly will they complain through the vehemency of thirst! How will the herds of cattle be troubled and perplexed! For their verdant pastures shall be all scorched up, and they will have none wherein to feed. The flocks also shall be desolate, and ready to perish." Scarce any thing can be more strongly or more movingly descriptive of the effects of a dearth and drought than this is. Ver. 19, 20. O Lord, to thee will I cry-The prophet carries on the beautiful hypotyposis, (or description of the calamity, painted in such strong and bright colours as rendered it, as it were, present before the eyes of the people,) by representing himself as a sharer in the calamity. And by crying to God Verses 15-17. Alas for the day!-Wo to us! himself, he endeavours to stir up the people to cry The time in which God will inflict on us the punish- to him. For the fire hath devoured the pastures of ments we have long deserved is now near; and if the wilderness-The fiery drought hath burned up they be not averted by our repentance, they will all the pasture-grounds. The wilderness is somefall upon us in an irresistible manner, and will end times opposed to the hills and mountains, and then in our utter destruction, as coming from a God who it signifies the plains and places for pasture. Or, if is infinite in power, and terrible in his judgments. the expression be here understood of deserts, it must Is not the meat cut off before our eyes-Hebrew, be observed, that there were spots in them where before your eyes, namely, devoured by locusts or flocks and herds might feed. The beasts of the field withered with drought. Yea, joy and gladness from also cry unto thee-Even the cattle and wild beasts the house of our God-The dearth hath obliged us utter their complaints, and express their want of to discontinue our daily offerings for want of corn food by the mournful noise which they make, as it and wine; and has deprived us of those rejoicings, were beseeching thee to have pity on them and rewherewith we used to keep our solemn feasts atlieve their wants. Even they have a voice to cry, A further description of CHAPTER II. the desolation of the land. as well as an eye to look to God. The rivers of || prophet foretels a drought, as well as a plague of water are dried up-The drought drying up the locusts; and these two calamities often go together, springs, the rivers have failed, and have little or no a great increase of locusts, according to Pliny and water in them. Thus, throughout the chapter, the Bochart, being occasioned by heat. CHAPTER II. This chapter contains, (1,) A further description of the desolation of the land, 1–11. (2,) An earnest call to repentance, 12–17. (3,) A promise of all good things to the penitent, 18-27. (4,) A prophecy of the Messiah's kingdom, 28-32. NOTES ON CHAPTER II. "Suddenly there came over our heads a thick cloud, Verse 1. Blow ye the trumpet in Zion-The pro- which darkened the air and deprived us of the rays phet, having in the preceding chapter described the of the sun. We soon found that it was owing to a locusts and caterpillars as a mighty army sent by cloud of locusts." And in Chandler, on verse 10, God, in pursuance of this metaphor now exhorts the Hermanus is quoted, as saying that "locusts obscure people to prepare to meet them, in the same terms the sun for the space of a mile;" and Aloysius, "for as if they were alarmed to oppose an enemy, which the space of twelve miles." For a further account was always done by the sound of the trumpet. of them, see note on Exod. x. 5, 13. As the mornDanger is proclaimed in this way, Ezek. xxxiii. 3, 5; || ing spread upon the mountains-This signifies, that Hos. v. 8; Amos iii. 6. Natural means were wont the darkness occasioned by the locusts should be to be used, to prevent the devastations of locusts; very diffusive or general; that they should spread pits and trenches were dug, bags were provided, themselves everywhere, as the rays of the morning and combustible matter was prepared and set on fire: do upon the mountains. A great people and strong see Shaw's Travels, 4to. p. 187. Let all the inha--The locusts, being represented as a great army bitants of the land tremble-Let them be seized with as terrible an apprehension of this approaching judgment, as if they saw an enemy invading their country. Verse 2. A day of darkness and of gloominessA day of great calamity and trouble, which is often expressed in the Scripture by darkness. Or, perhaps, the prophet's words are to be taken here in the literal sense; for it is certain that, in the eastern countries, locusts will sometimes, on a sudden, cover the sky like a cloud, intercept the light of the sun, and diffuse a darkness on the tract of country over which they are flying. "Solem obumbrant," They darken the sun, says Pliny, Nat. Hist. lib. xi. 28. Thuanus, (lib. xxxiv. 7, p. 364, vol. v.,) describing a calamity of this kind, says, Laborabat eo tempore, &c. "Syria was afflicted at that time with the want of every kind of forage and provisions, on account of such a multitude of locusts as was never seen before in the memory of man, which, like a thick cloud, darkening the light in mid-day, flying to and fro, devoured the fruits of the ground everywhere."|| And Adanson, in his Voyage to Senegal, p. 127, says, coming to destroy, are here termed a great and strong people: see note on chap. i. 6. There hath not been ever the like, &c.-The locusts which plagued Egypt are described after the same manner, Exod. x. 14. The expression in both places seems to be proverbial, and intended to set forth the extraordinary greatness of the judgment; but is not to be understood too strictly, according to the grammatical sense of the words. Thus we read of Hezekiah, that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, 2 Kings xviii. 5; and yet the same character is given of Josiah, chap. xxiii. 25. Verse 3. A fire devoureth before them, &c.—They consume like a general conflagration. They destroy the ground," says Sir Hans Sloane, (Natural History of Jamaica, i. 29,) "not only for the time, but burn trees for two years after." "Wheresoever they feed, says Ludolphus, (History of Ethiopia, lib. i. c. 13,) "their leavings seem, as it were, parched with fire." Pliny bears the same testimony, xi. 29, Multa contactu adurentes, "Burning things up by the touch." The land is as the garden of Eden before them, &c.-The land of Judea, so famous for Terrific description B. C. 742. i B. C. 742. A. M. 3262. garden of Eden before them, and || 6 Before their face the people shall A. M. 3262. behind them a desolate wilderness; be much pained: all faces shall yea, and nothing shall escape them. gather blackness. Revelation ix. 7. Revelation ix. 9. m Verse 2. its fertility and pleasantness, shall be turned into a desolate wilderness by the ravages they will make. The garden of Eden is a proverbial expression for a place of pleasure and fruitfulness, in which sense we commonly use the word paradise. And nothing shall escape them-Namely, which the ground produces. "After devouring the herbage," says Adanson, as above, "with the fruits and the leaves of the trees, they attacked even the buds and very bark. They did not so much as spare the reeds with which the huts were thatched." Thus also Ludolphus: Sometimes they enter the very bark of trees, and then the spring itself cannot repair the damage." "Omnia morsu erodentes, et fores quoque tectorum," says Pliny, xi. 20. "Consuming all things, even the doors of the houses." In the Philosophical Transactions, No. 112, A. D. 1686, we have an account of the locusts in Languedoc, being about an inch in length, of a gray colour. "The earth," it is observed, "in some places, was covered four inches thick with them, in the morning, before the heat of the sun was considerable; but as soon as it began to grow hot they took wing, and fell upon the corn, eating up both leaf and ear; and that with such expedition, by reason of their number, that in three hours they would devour a whole field, after which they again took wing, and their swarms were so thick, that they covered the sun like a cloud, and were whole hours in passing. After having eaten up the corn, they fell upon the vines, the pulse, the willows, and even the hemp, notwithstanding its great bitterness; after this these insects died, and stunk very much." Verses 4-6. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses-Bochart and many other writers mention the resemblance which the head of a locust bears to that of a horse; whence the Italians call them cavalette. Like the noise of chariots on the mountains shall they leap-Or, as the clause may be better rendered, They shall leap on the tops of mountains with the noise of chariots. The locusts being represented as an army attacking the country, and chariots being anciently a part of warlike preparations, the text says that these locusts shall resemble them in their swiftness, noise, and terror. Pliny mentions (Natural History, lib. xl. cap. 29) locusts "making a noise with their wings, as if they were winged fowls." Like the noise of a flame of || 3 7 They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks: 8 Neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk every one in his path: and when they fall upon the sword, they shall not be wounded. n Jeremiah viii. 21; Lam. iv. 8; Nahum ii. 10.—3 Heb. pot. 4 Or, dart. fire, &c.-Like the crackling of the fire burning up stubble. Cyril says of them, that while they are breaking their food with their teeth, the noise is like that of flame driven about by the wind. See Bochart on the place. The Baron de Tott, quoted by Harmer, speaking of the clouds of locusts coming from Tartary toward Constantinople, observes, "To the noise of their flight succeeds that of their devouring activity; it resembles the rattling of hailstones, but its consequences are infinitely more destructive. Fire itself eats not so fast, nor is there a vestige of vegetation to be found, when they again take their flight, and go elsewhere to produce like disasters." As a strong people set in battle arrayTheir noise is like that of the shouts of an army going to be engaged. These expressions are undoubtedly hyperbolical; but yet the noise which such a vast multitude of locusts would make must needs be very great. Before their face the people shall be much pained—At seeing their vast multititudes, and the havoc they make of the fruits of the earth, the inhabitants of the land shall be in great pain and anguish, and shall be seized with such a dread and fear as shall make their visage look black and ghastly, like that of persons who are dying. Verses 7, 8. They shall run like mighty men They shall proceed everywhere like stout and mighty men, who are afraid of nothing. The description here given agrees perfectly to locusts, as Bochart has shown. "First, They shall run. Now their manner of fighting is thus described: They strike, or wound, not as they stand, but as they run. Secondly, They run as mighty men. What are more innumerable or strong than locusts, says St. Jerome, which no human pains can resist? Thirdly, They shall march every one in his way, and not break their ranks: and in the next verse, Neither shall one thrust or press his comrade. St. Jerome, in his notes on this place, observes, 'This we lately saw in our part of the country; for when swarms of locusts came and filled the lower region of the air, they flew in such order, by the divine appointment, and kept their places as exactly, as when several tiles, or party-coloured stones, are skilfully placed in a pavement, so as not to be a hair's breadth out of their several ranks."" The same is observed by other writers cited by Bochart: and what is further remarkable, before the body of them come to any |