Joel 1:20

The beasts of the field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness. THE BEASTS OF THE FIELD CRY ALSO UNTO THEE - i:e., look up to heaven with heads lifted up, as if their only expectation was from God in the general famine (; ; ; ; cf. ). They tacitly reprove the deadness of the Jews for not even now invoking God. Remarks: (1) The word that the prophets spake came not by the will of man, but was "the word of the Lord" sent unto them through the Holy Spirit. Like Joel, they merge th...

He afterwards adds _The beasts of the field will also cry _(for the verb is in the plural number;) the beasts then will cry. The Prophet expresses here more clearly what he had said before that though the brute animals were void of reasons they yet felt God’s judgment, so that they constrained men by their example to feel ashamed, for they cried to God: _the beasts _then _of the field cry. _He ascribes crying to them, as it is elsewhere ascribed to the young ravens. The young ravens, properly speaking, do not indeed call on God; and yet the Psalmist says so, and that, because they confess, by raising up their bills, that there is no supply for their want except God supports them. So also the Prophet mentions here the beasts as crying to God. It is indeed a figure of speech, called personification; for this could not be properly said of beasts. But when the beasts made a noise under the p...

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 Joel 1:20. _THE BEASTS OF THE FIELD CRY ALSO UNTO THEE_] Even the cattle, wild and tame, are represented as supplicating God to have mercy upon them, and send them provender! There is a similar affecting description of the effects of a drought in Jeremiah, Jeremiah 14:6. _THE RIVERS OF WATERS ARE DRIED UP_] There must have been a _drought_ as well as a _host of locusts_; as some of these expressions seem to apply to the effects of _intense heat_. For המדבר _hammidbar_, "the wilderness," one of my oldest MSS. reads מדבר _midbar_, "wilderness" simply, as in Joel 1:19. _Eight_ or _ten_ of Dr. _Kennicott's_ have the same reading....

THE BEASTS OF THE FIELD CRY ALSO UNTO THEE - o: “There is an order in these distresses. First he points out the insensate things wasted; then those afflicted, which have sense only; then those endowed with reason; so that to the order of calamity there may be consorted an order of pity, sparing first the creature, then the things sentient, then things rational. The Creator spares the creature; the Ordainer, things sentient; the Saviour, the rational.” Irrational creatures joined with the prophet in his cry. The beasts of the field cry to God, though they know it not; it is a cry to God, who compassionates all which suffers. God makes them, in act, a picture of dependence upon His Providence, “seeking to It for a removal of their sufferings, and supply of their needs.” So He saith, “the young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God” Ps

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 BEASTS OF THE FIELD CRY ALSO UNTO THEE,.... As well as the prophet, in their way; which may be mentioned, both as a rebuke to such who had no sense of the judgments upon them, and called not on the Lord; and to express the greatness of the calamity, of which the brute creatures were sensible, and made piteous moans, as for food, so for drink; panting thorough excessive heat and vehement thirst, as the hart, after the water brooks, of which this word is only used, Psalms 42:1; but in vain: FOR THE RIVERS OF WATERS ARE DRIED UP; not only springs, and rivulets and brooks of water, but rivers, places where were large deep waters, as Aben Ezra explains it; either by the Assyrian army, the like Sennacherib boasts Isaiah 37:25; and is said to be done by the army of Xerxes, whereve

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.

RIVERS. waters of the _Aphikim. See_ note on "channels", 2 Samuel 22:16....