Joel 1:6

For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion. FOR A NATION - applied to the locusts, rather than "people" (Proverbs 30:25-20), to mark not only their numbers, but also their savage hostility; and also to prepare the mind of the hearer for the transition to the figurative locusts in Joel 2:1 - namely, the "nation" or Gentile foe [ gowy (H1471)] coming against Judea (cf. Joel 2:2, "a great people and a strong"). IS COME UP UPON MY LAND - i:e., Yahweh's; which never would have been s...

Of what some think, that punishment, not yet inflicted, is denounced here on the people, I again repeat, I do not approve; but, on the contrary, the Prophet, according to my view, records another judgment of God, in order to show that God had not only in one way warned the Jews of their sins, that he might restore them to a right mind; but that he had tried all means to bring them to the right way, though they proved to have been irreclaimable. After having then spoke of the sterility of the fields and of other calamities, he now adds that the Jews had been visited with war. (3) Surely famine ought to have touched them, especially when they saw that evils, succeeding evils, had happened for several years contrary to the usual course of things, so that they could not be imputed to chance. But when God brought war upon them, when they were already worn out with famine, must they not have b...

1-7 The most aged could not remember such calamities as were about to take place. Armies of insects were coming upon the land to eat the fruits of it. It is expressed so as to apply also to the destruction of the country by a foreign enemy, and seems to refer to the devastations of the Chaldeans. God is Lord of hosts, has every creature at his command, and, when he pleases, can humble and mortify a proud, rebellious people, by the weakest and most contemptible creatures. It is just with God to take away the comforts which are abused to luxury and excess; and the more men place their happiness in the gratifications of sense, the more severe temporal afflictions are upon them. The more earthly delights we make needful to satisfy us, the more we expose ourselves to trouble....

Verse 6. _A NATION IS COME UP UPON MY LAND_] That real _locusts_ are intended there can be little doubt; but it is thought that this may be a _double prophecy_, and that the destruction by the _Chaldeans_ may also be intended, and that the _four_ kinds of _locusts_ mentioned above may mean the _four_ several attacks made on Judea by them. The _first_ in the last year of Nabonassar, (father of Nebuchadnezzar,) which was the _third_ of Jehoiakim; the _second_ when Jehoiakim was taken prisoner in the _eleventh_ year of his reign; the _third_ in the _ninth_ year of Zedekiah; and the _fourth, three_ years after, when Jerusalem was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. Others say that they mean _four powers_ which have been enemies of the Jews: 1. The _palmerworm_, the Assyrians and Chaldeans. 2. The _locust_, the Persians and Medes. 3. The _cankerworm_, the Greeks, and particu

FOR A NATION IS COME UP UPON MY LAND - He calls this scourge of God a “nation,” giving them the title most used in Holy Scripture, of pagan nations. The like term, “people, folk,” is used of the “ants” and the “conies” Proverbs 30:25, for the wisdom with which God teaches them to act. Here it is used, in order to include at once, the irrational invader, guided by a Reason above its own, and the pagan conqueror. This enemy, he says, is “come up” (for the land as being God’s land, was exalted in dignity, above other lands,) “upon My land,” i. e. “the Lord’s land” Hosea 9:3, hitherto owned protected as God’s land, a land which, Moses said to them, “the Lord thy God careth for; the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the y

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

FOR A NATION IS COME UP UPON MY LAND,.... A nation of locusts, so called from their great numbers, and coming from foreign parts; just as the ants are called a "people", and the conies a "folk", Proverbs 30:25; and which were an emblem of the nation of the Chaldeans, which came up from Babylon, and invaded the land of Judea; called by the Lord "my land", because he had chosen it for the habitation of his people; here he himself had long dwelt, and had been served and worshipped in it: though Kimchi thinks these are the words of the inhabitants of the land, or of the prophet; but if it can be thought they are any other than the words of God, they rather seem to be expressed by the drunkards in particular, howling for want of wine, and observing the reason of it: STRONG, AND WITHOUT NUMBER; this description seems better to agree with the Assyrians or Chalde

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)...

THE DISTRESS CAUSED BY THE PLAGUE. Joel 1:5. The wine-bibbers no censure is implied; they are mentioned first because of the contrast between their accustomed merriment and the tears they are bidden to shed are summoned to arouse from their drunken sleep and bemoan the devastation of the vineyards. The many-mouthed host of invaders (for nation _cf._ Proverbs 30:25 f.) has wrought such destruction that it is likened to a ravening lion. Vine and fig-tree are stripped bare, so that the twigs splinter and the branches gleam white. [ JOEL 1:6 B. The comparison with lions-' teeth (Revelation 9:8) is very apt, for in proportion to i

A NATION. See Joel 2:20. and compare Daniel 11. Put for the great destroying powers which are symbolized in Joel 1:4 BY THE LOCUSTS. Compare Joel 2:2; Joel 2:11; Joel 2:25.Revelation 9. MY LAND. So called because Jehovah is about to put in His claim. The end-time is here referred to, when He will do this: "THE DAY OF THE LORD". See...