Joel 1:16

the meat food, the reference being in particular to the products of the soil mentioned in Joel 1:10. Meatin the A.V., and sometimes (as here) in the R.V. as well, is not restricted, as in modern English, to the flesh of animals (comp. on Amos 5:22).

before our eyes The position of these words shews that they are the emphatic words in the sentence. The fact which they emphasize is the helplessness of those who witness the process going on, and their inability to stay it. This is the regular force of this, or similar expressions, in Hebrew: comp. Isaiah 1:7 ("your land, strangers are devouring it in your presence"); Deuteronomy 28:31 ("Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof"); Psalms 23:5 ("Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies," who experience the mortification of being unable to overthrow it).

joy and gladness from the house of our God There would be no first-fruits, for instance, to be presented in the Temple with gladness (Deuteronomy 26:1-2; Deuteronomy 26:10-11). The feasts of Weeks and of Ingathering, which marked respectively the completion of wheat-harvest, and of vintage, could no longer be observed with the rejoicings which naturally accompanied them (Deuteronomy 16:10 f., Deuteronomy 16:13); and the number of persons offering peace-offerings, with the sacred meals which formed their distinctive concomitant (cf. Deuteronomy 12:6-7), would naturally be much fewer than usual.