Joel 1 · The Lantern

The Invasion of Locusts

The word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.

Hear this, you old men, and give ear, all you inhabitants of the land. Has this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?

Tell you your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.

That which the palmerworm has left has the locust eaten; and that which the locust has left has the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm has left has the caterpiller eaten.

(Verse 4) The residue of a caterpillar is eaten by a locust, and the residue of a locust is eaten by a beetle, and the residue of the beetle is eaten by rust. In the same way seventy times.

For although the Lord has granted strong cattle, bodily health, a successful outcome to every activity and prosperous deeds, prayer must still be offered lest, as it is written, there be "a heaven of brass and an earth of iron" and lest "the swarming locust eat what the cutting locust has left, and the caterpillar devour what the swarming locust has left, and the blight consume…

The mashota ("cutting locust") is similar to a larva. It is black and longer than a larva; when it falls to the ground, it does not destroy completely the plant but devours just the leaves and does not touch the rest. Through it the prophet signifies Tiglath-pileser, because the troubles that he caused to the people of Israel were mild.

Awake, you drunkards, and weep; and howl, all you drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.

For a nation has come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the cheek teeth of a great lion.

He has laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he has made it clean bore, and cast it away; its branches are made white.

A Call to Mourning

Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

The grain offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the LORD’s ministers, mourn.

The field is wasted, the land mourns; for the grain is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languishes.

Be ashamed, O you husbandmen; howl, O you vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished.

The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languishes; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is withered away from the sons of men.

A Call to Repentance

Gird yourselves, and lament, you priests: howl, you ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God: for the grain offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God.

Sanctify you a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD your God, and cry to the LORD,

Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.

Is not the food cut off before our eyes, yes, joy and gladness from the house of our God?

The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the grain is withered.

How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.

O LORD, to you will I cry: for the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame has burned all the trees of the field.

The beasts of the field cry also to you: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

Joel1

The Invasion of Locusts

A Call to Mourning

A Call to Repentance