Section I The Plague of Locusts and the Day of Jehovah
Joel 1:1—2:11
Once again the Hebrew prophet begins with a reference to the divine source of his prophecy: It was the word of the Lord that came to Joel (1). Joel (Ydhu or Yahweh is God) was the son of Pethuel or Bethuel (LXX). The meaning of the father's name is “openheartedness” or “sincerity of God.” All else concerning Joel's life is conjecture based upon the internal evidences of the text itself.1
B. THE DEVASTATION BY THE LOCUSTS, 1:2-7
By direct address, Joel gains the attention of his hearers. Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land (2). The event is unheard of, an event unparalleled in preceding generations. Thus the prophet expects a negative answer to the question, Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? The commandment follows so that the story shall not die ! They were to tell their children (3), grand-children, and great-grandchildren of the catastrophe. The per-sons addressed were the inhabitants of the land (Jerusalem and Judah; cf. 14; 2:1).
The view is generally held that the plague was real and not symbolic. Those who have observed the habits and destructive work of the locusts see in Joel's description an accurate picture of the occasion which the prophet uses to proclaim his burden.
The fourth verse contains a description of the locusts:
“What the Gazam left, the Arbeh hath devoured,
And what the Arbeh left, the Jelek hath devoured,
And what the Jelek left, the Chasel devoured.”2
Of the nine Old Testament Hebrew words used for locust, four are found in this verse. Gazam means “cutting locusts,” arbeh “swarming locusts,” yeleq or jelek, “hopping locusts,” and ckasel or hasil, “destroying locusts.” These names do not represent four different species, but probably four different stages in the life of the locust. The Arabic has a name for each of the six forms of locust life.3
Most of the books and commentaries refer to the locust plague of 1915 in Jerusalem as a vivid description of what must have happened in the time of Joel.
A loud noise was heard before the locusts were seen, produced by the flapping of myriads of locust wings and resembling the distant rumbling of waves (cf. Rev. 9:9). The sun was suddenly darkened. Showers of their excrements fell thick and fast, resembling those of mice. Their elevation above the earth was at times hundreds of feet; at other times they flew quite low, detached numbers alighting. “In Jerusalem, at least,” Mr. Whiting said, “they inevitably came from the northeast going toward the southwest, establishing the accuracy of Joel's account in chap. 2:20.” Tons were captured and buried alive; many were thrown into cisterns or into the Mediterranean Sea, and when washed ashore, were collected and dried and used for fuel in Turkish baths….
Mr. Aaronsohn, another witness of the plague in 1915, testifies that in less than two months after their first appearance, not only was every green leaf devoured, but the very bark was peeled from the trees, which stood out white and lifeless, like skeletons. The fields, he says, were stripped to the ground. Even Arab babies left by their mothers in the shade of some tree, had their faces devoured before their screams were heard. The natives accepted the plague as just judgment because of their wickedness.4
Joel interprets the calamity as the judgment of God and calls Judah to repentance. The prophet calls drunkards and all ye drinkers of wine (5) to sobriety, that they may understand the significance of the visitation. The price of wine probably soared astronomically as it has in times of more recent plagues that stripped the vines. Hence it is no wonder that drinkers would howl for new wine which was either unavailable or not within their reach financially.
The locusts are represented as a nation which is strong (6), numberless, and with the teeth of a lion. The expression, The cheek teeth of a great lion is translated “the fangs of a lioness” (RSV). The destruction by the locusts included fig trees and grapevines, leaving only the bare trunks and vines. Even the bark was shredded, so that the injury was not confined to a single year.
C. THE INVASION AS A TYPE, 1:8-20
The call is now addressed to the whole nation, which is to mourn and lament as a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband (the betrothed) of her youth (8; cf. Isa. 54:6). As soon as a woman was betrothed, her fiancé was known as her husband (Deut. 22:23-24; Matt. 1:19). Sackcloth was the sign of mourning.
The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off (9) because the corn, the new wine, and the oil (10) are destroyed at their source. Thus, the priests … mourn in the house of the Lord. Since the sacrifice is impossible, there is a “practical suspension of the covenant-relation—a sign that God had rejected his people.”5 The description of the desolation is continued in w. 11-12. Husbandmen (11) are the tillers of the soil. Even the pomegranate, date palm, and apple tree … are withered. Thus, “all gladness fails from the sons of men” (12, RSV).
The ethical implications of the prophecy now come to the fore. There is a call to the priests, the ministers of the altar (13), to offer supplications day and night before the Lord. They, in turn, are to call the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to repentance in the house of the Lord your God (14). They are commanded, Sanctify ye a fast; that is, appoint a time of fasting as a service of prayer to the Lord in the absence of the morning and evening sacrifices.6
In verse 15, Joel introduces the pivotal idea of the book: the day of Jehovah. Alas for the day! for the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come. With Amos, Joel interprets it in its present context as a time of judgment upon Israel.7
“The ‘Day of the Lord’ is so imminent that there is no time for anything except to make the people feel that the hand of the Lord has been laid upon them, that this visitation was an act of God calling for repentance and a return to Him whom they had forgotten.”8
That day shall come like the devastation of the locusts—Yom Yehovah is the great day of Jehovah, the Almighty, who will destroy all who exalt themselves against Him.
Jehovah is the Lord of nature and expresses His righteousness through natural events. It was to be expected, therefore, that vv. 16-18 should describe these events as the expression of divine displeasure.9 Before our eyes (16) indicates that the people witnessed the calamity. They were, however, helpless in the face of the onslaught which suspended the sacrifices in the Temple and thus cut off their joy and gladness10
The seed is rotten under their clods (17), and “the storehouses are desolate, the granaries ruined” (RSV). The pastureland was destroyed, so that the cattle (18) were forced to wander seeking water and grass (I Kings 18:5). Even the sheep and goats suffered, though they needed little in comparison to the cattle.
The first chapter closes with a cry from the heart of the prophet for help from the Lord (19). Since both nature and beasts (20) are suffering, Joel cries to the Lord, who can aid both (Ps. 36:6). Fire and flame (19) are used to indicate the burning heat of the drought which followed the plague.11
Chapter 1 offers an opportunity to understand the conditions of national repentance: (1) The inevitable judgment of God upon the nation for its transgressions, 1:15 ff.; (2) The call to prayer, fasting, and repentance for the sins of the nation, 1:14; (3) The source of deliverance is in God alone, 1:19a.
Robinson believes that Joel must have coined the term the day of the Lord (l).12 An eschatological phrase, it is found in Old Testament prophecy in its earliest times (cf. Isa. 2:12; Amos 5:18). “For, the idea of a great Judgment Day comes forth from his hand so perfect, that his successors have adopted it and been able to add to it hardly a single touch. It was the visitation of the plague of locusts which, first, suggested it to Joel's mind.”13
The passage through v. 18 contains a renewed emphasis upon repentance in the face of Jehovah's great and terrible judgment day (1-11). To this is coupled an optimism regarding the Lord's mercy and compassion if the people will return with all their hearts (12).
The priests were instructed, Blow ye the trumpet (shophar) in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain (1).Zion is called the holy mountain (Ps. 2:6) because the Lord is there in His sanctuary, the holy of holies. The trumpet blast was to be relayed to other towns until all the inhabitants would tremble for the day of the Lord, which was nigh at hand.
The day of darkness and of gloominess (2) is an allusion to the locusts which darkened the land. They are likened to “a great and powerful people” (RSV) which the nation had not experienced previously nor would again in the years of many generations.
The description continues under the metaphor of fire (3) but the effects described could easily be attributed to the locusts as well. The contrast pictures a garden of Eden before the line of the plague and the desolate wilderness behind. Nothing is left.
Joel says the appearance of them is as the appearance of horses (4). The comparison is between the head of the locust and the head of a horse, which bears a strong resemblance to it.14 In v. 5, the sound of the locusts' wings is like the noise (rumblings) of chariots. The locusts are also compared to a raging fire before the wind devouring stubble, and a strong people set in battle array. It is no wonder that the people shall be pained, and all faces shall gather blackness (grow pale; 6).15
In vv. 7-10, the army of locusts is compared to a well-trained army, swarming upon the walls of Jerusalem, neither swerving nor breaking their ranks (7). Not jostling one another (8, RSV), each one takes his own way, not halted by the sword nor other weapons held against them. W. T. Thompson describes vain attempts to check locusts in Lebanon in 1845: “We dug trenches, and kindled fires, and beat and burned to death ‘heaps upon heaps,’ but the effort was utterly useless. Wave after wave rolled up the mountain-side, and poured over rocks, walls, ditches, and hedges, those behind covering up and bridging over the masses already killed.”16
The locusts ran as horses, upon the wall (9). They climbed up upon the houses and crawled in at the windows like a thief. Nothing could contain them or resist them. Joel's description, The earth shall quake before them (10), was supported in the 1915 invasion when the army of locusts at times was so dense that it seemed the earth moved. The sun was darkened by their flights and the stars were obliterated from the sight of man.
And the Lord shall utter his voice (11). Only such displays of power as depicted in vv. 4-10 would befit the day of the Lord. Verse 11 is graphically paraphrased in Living Prophecies: “The Lord leads them with a shout. This is His mighty army and they follow His orders. The day of the judgment of the Lord is an awesome, terrible thing. Who can endure it?”
Joel's proclamation of “the day of the Lord” suggests the following exposition as a description of coming judgment: (1) It will be a day of darkness, 2:2; (2) It will be a day of desolation, 2:3; (3) It will be a day of the execution of God's word, 2:11.