Minor Prophets · Chapter 1 of 3

Joel 1

A devastating locust plague, wave upon wave, has stripped the land bare, and Joel summons everyone to mourn. Drunkards, farmers, and priests alike must lament: the grain, wine, and oil are gone, the harvest ruined, and offerings cut off from God's house. Even the beasts groan for lack of pasture. Joel reads the catastrophe as a sign of the coming day of the LORD and calls the people to fast and cry to God.

What happens in Joel 1

The word of the LORD comes to Joel. He calls the old men and all inhabitants to consider an unprecedented disaster and to tell their children and grandchildren. Successive swarms of locusts, the palmerworm, locust, cankerworm, and caterpillar, have devoured everything. He rouses drunkards to weep, for the new wine is cut off. A locust nation, strong and numberless with lion-like teeth, has laid the vine waste and stripped the fig tree bare. The grain and drink offerings are cut off from the LORD's house, and the priests mourn.

The fields are wasted, the ground dried, wine and oil failing. Farmers and vinedressers are ashamed as the harvest perishes; every tree withers, and joy dries up among people. Joel calls the priests to gird in sackcloth, sanctify a fast, and gather everyone to cry to the LORD, for the day of the LORD is at hand. The beasts groan and cry to God as pastures burn and rivers dry.

Joel 1 in context

Joel prophesied to Judah, though his precise date is uncertain. The occasion is a catastrophic locust plague, described in vivid, escalating terms, that devastated the agricultural economy and cut off the offerings central to temple worship.

Joel interprets this natural disaster as a harbinger of the day of the LORD, a recurring prophetic theme of divine judgment and reckoning. His response is not despair but a summons to communal repentance, fasting, and urgent prayer.

Main themes of Joel 1

Joel 1 (KJV)

1The word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Pethuel. 2Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? 3Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. 4That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten. 5Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth. 6For 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. 7He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white. 8Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. 9The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the LORD’s ministers, mourn. 10The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth. 11Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished. 12The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is withered away from the sons of men. 13Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the meat offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God. 14Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD. 15Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come. 16Is not the meat cut off before our eyes, yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God? 17The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered. 18How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate. 19O LORD, to thee will I cry: for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field. 20The beasts of the field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

Verses to carry from Joel 1

“That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.”Joel 1:4

“Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD.”Joel 1:14

“Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.”Joel 1:15

Reflection

Joel refused to waste a catastrophe. He read the stripped fields as a summons to return to God. When disaster comes, we can rage, despair, or, like Joel, let it drive us to prayer and repentance. Even the groaning of creation is a kind of cry to God. Let your losses turn you Godward, toward the mercy found in Christ.

A prayer from Joel 1