14 Sanctify a fast.
Call a solemn assembly.
Gather the elders,
and all the inhabitants of the land, to the house of Yahweh, your God,
and cry to Yahweh. 15 Alas for the day!
For the day of Yahweh is at hand,
and it will come as destruction from the Almighty. 16 Isn’t the food cut off before our eyes;
joy and gladness from the house of our God? 17 The seeds rot under their clods.
The granaries are laid desolate.
The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered. 18 How the animals groan!
The herds of livestock are perplexed, because they have no pasture.
Yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate. 19 Yahweh, I cry to you,
For the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness,
and the flame has burned all the trees of the field. 20 Yes, the animals of the field pant to you,
for the water brooks have dried up,
And the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Joel 1:14-20
Commentary on Joel 1:14-20
(Read Joel 1:14-20)
The sorrow of the people is turned into repentance and humiliation before God. With all the marks of sorrow and shame, sin must be confessed and bewailed. A day is to be appointed for this purpose; a day in which people must be kept from their common employments, that they may more closely attend God's services; and there is to be abstaining from meat and drink. Every one had added to the national guilt, all shared in the national calamity, therefore every one must join in repentance. When joy and gladness are cut off from God's house, when serious godliness decays, and love waxes cold, then it is time to cry unto the Lord. The prophet describes how grievous the calamity. See even the inferior creatures suffering for our transgression. And what better are they than beasts, who never cry to God but for corn and wine, and complain of the want of the delights of sense? Yet their crying to God in those cases, shames the stupidity of those who cry not to God in any case. Whatever may become of the nations and churches that persist in ungodliness, believers will find the comfort of acceptance with God, when the wicked shall be burned up with his indignation.