13 Let your hearts be broken, and not your clothing, and come back to the Lord your God: for he is full of grace and pity, slow to be angry and great in mercy, ready to be turned from his purpose of punishment.
The Lord is near the broken-hearted; he is the saviour of those whose spirits are crushed down.
And he made prayer to the Lord and said, O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still in my country? This is why I took care to go in flight to Tarshish: for I was certain that you were a loving God, full of pity, slow to be angry and great in mercy, and ready to be turned from your purpose of evil.
For this is the word of him who is high and lifted up, whose resting-place is eternal, whose name is Holy: my resting-place is in the high and holy place, and with him who is crushed and poor in spirit, to give life to the spirit of the poor, and to make strong the heart of the crushed.
But you, O Lord, are a God full of pity and forgiveness, slow to get angry, great in mercy and wisdom.
You are good, O Lord, and full of forgiveness; your mercy is great to all who make their cry to you.
Now when Reuben came back to the hole, Joseph was not there; and giving signs of grief,
Then Jacob, giving signs of grief, put on haircloth, and went on weeping for his son day after day.
And the Lord went past before his eyes, saying, The Lord, the Lord, a God full of pity and grace, slow to wrath and great in mercy and faith; Having mercy on thousands, overlooking evil and wrongdoing and sin; he will not let wrongdoers go free, but will send punishment on children for the sins of their fathers, and on their children's children to the third and fourth generation.
Then David gave way to bitter grief, and so did all the men who were with him:
Hearing these words, Ahab, in great grief, put haircloth on his flesh and went without food, sleeping in haircloth, and going about quietly.
Because your heart was soft, and you made yourself low before me, when you had word of what I said against this place and its people, that they would become a waste and a curse, and you gave signs of grief, weeping before me: truly, I have given ear to you, says the Lord.
The offerings of God are a broken spirit; a broken and sorrowing heart, O God, you will not put from you.
Whenever I say anything about uprooting a nation or a kingdom, and smashing it and sending destruction on it; If, in that very minute, that nation of which I was talking is turned away from its evil, my purpose of doing evil to them will be changed.
But God, being full of mercy, through the great love which he had for us,
You have knowledge of this, dear brothers. But let every man be quick in hearing, slow in words, slow to get angry; For the righteousness of God does not come about by the wrath of man.
For all these things my hand has made, and they are mine, says the Lord; but to this man only will I give attention, to him who is poor and broken in spirit, fearing my word.
The Lord is slow to wrath and great in mercy, overlooking wrongdoing and evil, and will not let wrongdoers go free; sending punishment on children for the sins of their fathers, to the third and fourth generation.
Then the king, hearing what the woman said, took his robes in his hands, violently parting them; and, while he was walking on the wall, the people, looking, saw that under his robe he had haircloth on his flesh.
And the king, hearing the words of the book of the law, took his robe in his hands, violently parting it as a sign of his grief;
And would not do them, and gave no thought to the wonders you had done among them; but made their necks stiff, and turning away from you, made a captain over themselves to take them back to their prison in Egypt: but you are a God of forgiveness, full of grace and pity, slow to wrath and great in mercy, and you did not give them up.
The Lord is kind and full of pity, not quickly made angry, but ever ready to have mercy.
And kept in mind his agreement with them, and in his great mercy gave them forgiveness.
The Lord said to him, Go through the town, through the middle of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the brows of the men who are sorrowing and crying for all the disgusting things which are done in it.
And it came about that after they had taken all the grass of the land, I said, O Lord God, have mercy: how will Jacob be able to keep his place? for he is small. The Lord, changing his purpose about this, said, It will not be. This is what the Lord let me see: and I saw that the Lord God sent for a great fire to be the instrument of his punishment; and, after burning up the great deep, it was about to put an end to the Lord's heritage. Then said I, O Lord God, let there be an end: how will Jacob be able to keep his place? for he is small. The Lord, changing his purpose about this, said, And this will not be.
The Lord is slow to get angry and great in power, and will not let the sinner go without punishment: the way of the Lord is in the wind and the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
Happy are the poor in spirit: for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. Happy are those who are sad: for they will be comforted.
And when you go without food, be not sad-faced as the false-hearted are. For they go about with changed looks, so that men may see that they are going without food. Truly I say to you, They have their reward. But when you go without food, put oil on your head and make your face clean; So that no one may see that you are going without food, but your Father in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret, will give you your reward.
Or is it nothing to you that God had pity on you, waiting and putting up with you for so long, not seeing that in his pity God's desire is to give you a change of heart?
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Joel 2
Commentary on Joel 2 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 2
In this chapter we have,
Thus the beginning of this chapter is made terrible with the tokens of God's wrath, but the latter end of it made comfortable with the assurances of his favour, and it is in the way of repentance that this blessed change is made; so that, though it is only the last paragraph of the chapter that points directly at gospel-times, yet the whole may be improved as a type and figure, representing the curses of the law invading men for their sins, and the comforts of the gospel flowing in to them upon their repentance.
Joe 2:1-11
Here we have God contending with his own professing people for their sins and executing upon them the judgment written in the law (Deu. 28:42), The fruit of thy land shall the locust consume, which was one of those diseases of Egypt that God would bring upon them, v. 60.
Joe 2:12-17
We have here an earnest exhortation to repentance, inferred from that desolating judgment described and threatened in the foregoing verses: Therefore now turn you to the Lord.
Joe 2:18-27
See how ready God is to succour and relieve his people, how he waits to be gracious; as soon as ever they humble themselves under this hand, and pray, and seek his face, he immediately meets them with his favours. They prayed that God would spare them, and see here with what good words and comfortable words he answered them; for God's promises are real answers to the prayers of faith, because with him saying and doing are not two things. Now observe,
Joe 2:28-32
The promises of corn, and wine, and oil, in the foregoing verses, would be very acceptable to a wasted country; but here we are taught that we must not rest in those things. God has reserved some better things for us, and these verses have reference to those better things, both the kingdom of grace and the kingdom of glory, with the happiness of true believers in both. We are here told,