The Land Laid Waste
And give ear, all you inhabitants of the land!
aHas anything like this happened in your days,
Or even in the days of your fathers?
Let your children tell their children,
And their children another generation.
What the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten;
And what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten.
And wail, all you drinkers of wine,
Because of the new wine,
bFor it has been cut off from your mouth.
Strong, and without number;
bHis teeth are the teeth of a lion,
And he has the fangs of a1 fierce lion.
And1 ruined My fig tree;
He has stripped it bare and thrown it away;
Its branches are made white.
Have been cut off from the house of the Lord;
The priests bmourn, who minister to the Lord.
aThe land mourns;
For the grain is ruined,
bThe new wine is dried up,
The oil fails.
Wail, you vinedressers,
For the wheat and the barley;
Because the harvest of the field has perished.
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;
Surely bjoy has withered away from the sons of men.
Mourning for the Land
Wail, you who minister before the altar;
Come, lie all night in sackcloth,
You who minister to my God;
For the grain offering and the drink offering
Are withheld from the house of your God.
Call ba sacred assembly;
Gather the elders
And call the inhabitants of the land
Into the house of the Lord your God,
And cry out to the Lord.
For bthe day of the Lord is at hand;
It shall come as destruction from the Almighty.
Storehouses are in shambles;
Barns are broken down,
For the grain has withered.
The herds of cattle are restless,
Because they have no pasture;
Even the flocks of sheep1 suffer punishment.
For bfire has devoured the open pastures,
And a flame has burned all the trees of the field.
For bthe water brooks are dried up,
And fire has devoured the1 open pastures.
| << Joel 1:3 | Joel 1:5 >> |
Joel 1:4
That which the palmerworm hath left - Here he begins to open his message, and the words he chooses show that he is going to announce a devastation of the land by locusts, and a famine consequent on their depredations. What the different insects may be which he specifies is not easy to determine. I shall give the words of the original, with their etymology.
The palmerworm, gazam , from the same root, to cut short; probably the caterpillar, or some such blight, from its cutting the leaves of the trees into pieces for its nourishment.
The locust, arbeh , from rabah , to multiply, from the immense increase and multitude of this insect.
Cankerworm, yelek , from lak , to lick or lap with the tongue; the reference is uncertain.
Caterpillar, chasil , from chasal , to consume, to eat up, the consumer. Bishop Newcome translates the first grasshopper; the second, locust; the third, devouring locust; and the fourth, consuming locust. After all that has been said by interpreters concerning these four animals, I am fully of opinion that the arbeh, or locust himself, is the gazam, the yelek, and the chasil and that these different names are used here by the prophet to point out the locust in its different states, or progress from embryo to full growth. See the note on Joel 2:2 (note).
| << Joel 1:3 | Joel 1:5 >> |
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