Joel 1:8 - Meaning and Application

The judgment here is described as very painful, and as something that should touch everyone. It will not only take away the drunkards’ pleasure, and if that were all, it would be easier to bear, but it will also take away the food people need to live. So all are called to mourn (Joel 1:8), like a virgin mourning the death of the man she was promised to marry, or like a young wife whose husband dies suddenly.

There is deep grief between two young people who have just married, especially when they married for love and were well suited to each other. So there will be deep sorrow over the loss of corn and wine. The more tightly we cling to earthly comforts, the harder it is to let them go. See the same kind of language in (Isaiah 32:10-12).

Two groups are especially told to lament this devastation, farmers and priests. First, let the husbandmen and vine-dressers mourn (Joel 1:11). They should be ashamed of all the care and labor they spent on their vineyards, because it will all be wasted. They will watch the fruit of their work eaten up before their eyes and be unable to save any of it. Those who labor only for food that perishes will, sooner or later, be ashamed of their labor.

The vine-dressers will show their great grief by howling, because their vineyards are stripped of leaves and fruit, and the vines have withered. Nothing remains from which they can get food, pay rent, or support their families. The destruction is described in strong terms: the field is ruined (Joel 1:10), everything that comes from the land is consumed, and the land itself seems to mourn. The ground looks sad, and all the people of the land are in tears over what they have lost and in fear of starving (Isaiah 24:4; Jeremiah 4:28).

The corn, the bread grain that supports life, is ruined. The new wine, which should have been stored in the cellars to replace the old wine when it was gone, has dried up. It is said to be ashamed, because it had promised so much and now cannot deliver. The oil is drying up, or is being reduced, because, as the Chaldee version says, the olives have fallen off.

The people had not thanked God as they should have for the bread that strengthens the heart, the wine that makes the heart glad, and the oil that makes the face shine (Psalm 104:14-15). So they are justly made to mourn their loss and need. This includes all the products of the earth that God gives for necessity or for joy, which is repeated again in (Joel 1:11, Joel 1:12). That means wheat and barley, the main grains used for bread, wheat for the rich and barley for the poor, so that rich and poor are alike in this trouble.

The trees are destroyed too, not only the vine and fig tree, which had already been mentioned (Joel 1:7), but also trees that gave delight, like the pomegranate, palm tree, and apple tree, and in fact all the trees of the field, both orchard trees and timber trees. In short, the whole harvest of the field has failed (Joel 1:11). As a result, joy has faded away from the children of men (Joel 1:11). The joy of harvest, a common picture of great and widespread gladness, has come to nothing and turned into shame and sorrow.

When the harvest fails, human joy withers. Those who build their happiness on physical pleasures lose all their joy when those pleasures are taken away or disturbed. But God’s children, who hold earthly pleasures lightly and know God himself as their delight, can still rejoice in the God of their salvation even when the fig tree does not blossom. Their spiritual joy does not die then, it often grows stronger (Habakkuk 3:17-18).

From this we should learn three things. First, all our earthly comforts are temporary and unreliable. Even when the heavens have given rain at the right time, and the earth has produced well, and harvest time is near, enemies may still come and ruin everything without fire or war. It is wise not to store up our treasure in things that can be lost so easily.

Second, we need to live in constant dependence on God and his providence, his caring rule over all things. Our own hands are not enough for us. Even when the grain is full in the ear, and even when it has been brought home, if God blows on it, or even if he simply does not bless it, we will gain nothing from it.

Third, sin does terrible damage. It turns a paradise into a wilderness, and a very fruitful land into barrenness because of the sin of those who live there.

Second, let the priests, the Lord’s ministers, mourn too, because they share deeply in the loss. They are told to dress in sackcloth (Joel 1:13), and in fact they are already mourning (Joel 1:9). They are called the ministers of the altar, because they served there, and the ministers of the Lord, or of my God, as the prophet says, because in serving at the altar they were serving him and honoring him. Those who are set apart for holy work are God’s ministers, and they attend on him.

The ministers of the altar used to rejoice before the Lord and spend much of their time singing. But now they must mourn and cry out, because the grain offering and drink offering have been cut off from the house of the Lord (Joel 1:9), and again from the house of your God (Joel 1:13). He is your God in a special way, because your bond to him is closer than that of the other Israelites, so it is expected that you will care more than others when anything hinders the service of his sanctuary.

This also shows that while the people were getting the fruits of the earth in their season, they were giving God his due from them. They brought offerings to the altar and tithes to those who served there. A people may be moving quickly toward greater sin and still keep up outward acts of religion.

But when the food and drink failed, the grain offering and drink offering failed too, and that was the most bitter part of the calamity. Any public trouble that blocks the worship of God should be deeply mourned, especially by the priests, the Lord’s ministers.

When poverty causes piety to weaken, and people neglect their duties to God, it is indeed a heavy judgment. When the famine spread, God could not receive his sacrifices, and the priests could not receive their support. For that reason, let the Lord’s ministers mourn.