2 Hear this, ye aged ones, And give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land, Hath this been in your days? Or in the days of your fathers? 3 Concerning it to your sons talk ye, And your sons to their sons, And their sons to another generation. 4 What is left of the palmer-worm, eaten hath the locust, And what is left of the locust, Eaten hath the cankerworm, And what is left of the cankerworm, Eaten hath the caterpillar. 5 Awake, ye drunkards, and weep, And howl all drinking wine, because of the juice, For it hath been cut off from your mouth. 6 For a nation hath come up on my land, Strong, and there is no number, Its teeth 'are' the teeth of a lion, And it hath the jaw-teeth of a lioness. 7 It hath made my vine become a desolation, And my fig-tree become a chip, It hath made it thoroughly bare, and hath cast down, Made white have been its branches.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Joel 1:2-7
Commentary on Joel 1:1-7
(Read Joel 1:1-7)
The most aged could not remember such calamities as were about to take place. Armies of insects were coming upon the land to eat the fruits of it. It is expressed so as to apply also to the destruction of the country by a foreign enemy, and seems to refer to the devastations of the Chaldeans. God is Lord of hosts, has every creature at his command, and, when he pleases, can humble and mortify a proud, rebellious people, by the weakest and most contemptible creatures. It is just with God to take away the comforts which are abused to luxury and excess; and the more men place their happiness in the gratifications of sense, the more severe temporal afflictions are upon them. The more earthly delights we make needful to satisfy us, the more we expose ourselves to trouble.