7 He has laid my vine waste, And stripped my fig tree. He has stripped its bark, and thrown it away. Its branches are made white.
I will lay it a wasteland. It won't be pruned nor hoed, But it will grow briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it."
The vine has dried up, and the fig tree withered; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, Even all of the trees of the field are withered; For joy has withered away from the sons of men.
For they covered the surface of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened, and they ate every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left. There remained nothing green, either tree or herb of the field, through all the land of Egypt.
He struck their vines and also their fig trees, And shattered the trees of their country.
The new wine mourns, the vine languishes, all the merry-hearted do sigh.
I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, About which she has said, 'These are my wages that my lovers have given me; And I will make them a forest,' And the animals of the field shall eat them.
I struck you with blight and mildew many times in your gardens and your vineyards; And your fig trees and your olive trees have the swarming locust devoured: Yet you haven't returned to me," says Yahweh.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Joel 1
Commentary on Joel 1 Matthew Henry Commentary
An Exposition, With Practical Observations, of
The Book of the Prophet Joel
Chapter 1
This chapter is the description of a lamentable devastation made of the country of Judah by locusts and caterpillars. Some think that the prophet speaks of it as a thing to come and gives warning of it beforehand, as usually the prophets did of judgments coming. Others think that it was now present, and that his business was to affect the people with it and awaken them by it to repentance.
Joe 1:1-7
It is a foolish fancy which some of the Jews have, that this Joel the prophet was the same with that Joel who was the son of Samuel (1 Sa. 8:2); yet one of their rabbin very gravely undertakes to show why Samuel is here called Pethuel. This Joel was long after that. He here speaks of a sad and sore judgment which was now brought, or to be brought, upon Judah, for their sins. Observe,
Joe 1:8-13
The judgment is here described as very lamentable, and such as all sorts of people should share in; it shall not only rob the drunkards of their pleasure (if that were the worst of it, it might be the better borne), but it shall deprive others of their necessary subsistence, who are therefore called to lament (v. 8), as a virgin laments the death of her lover to whom she was espoused, but not completely married, yet so that he was in effect her husband, or as a young woman lately married, from whom the husband of her youth, her young husband, or the husband to whom she was married when she was young, is suddenly taken away by death. Between a new-married couple that are young, that married for love, and that are every way amiable and agreeable to each other, there is great fondness, and consequently great grief if either be taken away. Such lamentation shall there be for the loss of their corn and wine. Note, The more we are wedded to our creature-comforts that harder it is to part with them. See that parallel place, Isa. 32:10-12. Two sorts of people are here brought in, as concerned to lament this devastation, countrymen and clergymen.
Joe 1:14-20
We have observed abundance of tears shed for the destruction of the fruits of the earth by the locusts; now here we have those tears turned into the right channel, that of repentance and humiliation before God. The judgment was very heavy, and here they are directed to own the hand of God in it, his mighty hand, and to humble themselves under it. Here is,