Joel 1:17

The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered. THE SEED IS ROTTEN - "is dried up," 'vanishes away,' from an Arabic root (Maurer). "Seed" - literally, grains. The drought causes the seeds to lose all their vitality and moisture. THE GARNERS - granaries; generally underground, and divided into separate receptacles for the different kinds of grain....

He shows the cause of the evil, _Rotted have the grains in the very furrows. _For they call seeds פרדות _peredut _from the act of scattering. He then calls grains by this name, because they are scattered; and he says that they rotted in the fields when they ought to have germinated. He then adds, _The granaries halve become desolated and the barns have been pulled down; _for there was no use for them. Hence we conclude, that sterility had become most grievousand perpetual; for if the people had been only afflicted by famine for a few harvests or for one year, the Prophet would not have spoken thus. The famine must then have been, as it has been already stated for a long time. Let us now proceed —...

14-20 The sorrow of the people is turned into repentance and humiliation before God. With all the marks of sorrow and shame, sin must be confessed and bewailed. A day is to be appointed for this purpose; a day in which people must be kept from their common employments, that they may more closely attend God's services; and there is to be abstaining from meat and drink. Every one had added to the national guilt, all shared in the national calamity, therefore every one must join in repentance. When joy and gladness are cut off from God's house, when serious godliness decays, and love waxes cold, then it is time to cry unto the Lord. The prophet describes how grievous the calamity. See even the inferior creatures suffering for our transgression. And what better are they than beasts, who never cry to God but for corn and wine, and complain of the want of the delights of sense? Yet their cryi...

Verse 17. _THE SEED IS ROTTEN UNDER THEIR CLODS_] When the sprout was cut off as low as possible by the locusts, there was no farther germination. The seed rotted away....

THE SEED IS ROTTEN UNDER THE CLODS - Not only was all to be cut off for the present, but, with it, all hope for the future. The scattered seed, as it lay, each under its clod known to God, was dried up, and so decayed. The garners lay desolate, nay, were allowed to go to ruin, in hopelessness of any future harvest....

EXPOSITION JOEL 1:1 THE WORD OF THE LORD THAT CAME TO JOEL THE SON OF PETHUEL. The name Joel signifies "Jehovah is God," or "whose God is Jehovah." We read in Scripture of several of the same name, but the prophet is distinguished as "the son of Pethuel," a name signifying "the sincerity of God," or "godly simplicity." We are not certain of the exact period at which Joel prophesied, but he is generally believed to have been the earliest prophetic writer of the southern kingdom, and one of the earliest of the twelve minor prophets, while Jonah is generally thought to have been the earliest prophetic writer whose book has found a place in the sacred canon. It is at least certain that Joel preceded Amos, who begins his prophecy with a passage from Joel (comp. Joel 3:16 wi

THE SEED IS ROTTEN UNDER THEIR CLODS,.... Or "grains" z of wheat or barley, which had been sown, and, for want of rain, putrefied and wasted away under the clods of earth, through the great drought; so that what with locusts, which cropped that that did bud forth, and with the drought, by reason of which much of the seed sown came to nothing, an extreme famine ensued: the Targum is, "casks of wine rotted under their coverings:'' THE GARNERS ARE DESOLATE; the "treasuries" a, or storehouses, having nothing in them, and there being nothing to put into them; Jarchi makes these to be peculiar for wine and oil, both which failed, Joel 1:10; THE BARNS ARE BROKEN DOWN; in which the wheat and barley had used to be laid up; but this judgment of the locusts and drought continuing year after year, the walls fell down, and, no care was taken to repair them, t

ANALYSIS AND ANNOTATIONS I. THE PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS II. THE COMING DAY OF THE LORD: THE RUIN, THE REPENTANCE AND THE RESTORATION III. THE EVENTS OF THE DAY OF THE LORD: ISRAEL'S ENEMIES JUDGED AND THE KINGDOM ESTABLISHED I. THE PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS CHAPTER 1 _ 1. The prophet's appeal (Joel 1:1) _ 2. The call to the drunkards (Joel 1:5) 3. The call to the people and the priests (Joel 1:8) 4. The day of the Lord and the suffering land (Joel 1:15) 5. The prayer of the prophet (Joel 1:19)...

A CALL FOR A FAST AND SOLEMN INTERCESSION. The prophet bids the priests, clothed in the garb of mourners, come into the Temple and lament night and day. Let them institute with the appropriate ritual a fast, and summon a solemn gathering of the community. The awful plight of the land suggests the thought that the locusts are but harbingers of the dreaded Day of Yahweh (Amos 5:18). Nothing less can be portended when the joyous sacrifices are interrupted by the blight and drought which have destroyed vegetation, and brought hunger and thirst to the cattle so that even they appeal dumbly to Yahweh. JOEL 1:15. SHADDAI (_ mg._): this rare title for Yahweh is chosen for the sake of assonance with DESTRUCTION (_shodh_); it is perhaps equivalent to the Babylonian Divine title, š adua = my Rock.

THE SEED, &c. Note the Figure of speech Anabasis (App-6) in this verse....