---
title: "Clarke"
description: "Verse Joel 1:1. The word of the Lord that came to Joel — See the introduction for some account of this prophet, whose history is very obscure. Bishop Newc"
image: "/images/missing.jpg"
url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/commentaries/clarkes-commentary/joel/1"
---

Verse [Joel 1:1](../../../kjv/joel/1/1). ***The word of the Lord that came to Joel*** — See the *introduction* for some account of this prophet, whose history is very obscure. Bishop *Newcome* thinks that he prophesied while the kingdom of Judah subsisted, and refers to [Joel 2:1](../../../kjv/joel/2/1); [Joel 2:15](../../../kjv/joel/2/15), (see also [Joel 1:14](../../../kjv/joel/1/14), and the note there,) but not long before its subversion as his words, [Joel 3:1](../../../kjv/joel/3/1), seem to imply that its captivity was approaching. See [2 Kings 21:10-15](../../../kjv/2-kings/21/10-15). He therefore favours the conjecture of *Drusius*, that this prophet lived under *Manasseh*, and before his conversion, [2 Chronicles 33:13](../../../kjv/2-chronicles/33/13); that is, some time from before Christ 697 to (suppose) 660.

Verse [Joel 1:2](../../../kjv/joel/1/2). ***Ye old men*** — Instead of הזקנים *hazzekenim, old men*, a few MSS. have הכהנים *haccohanim, ye priests*, but improperly.
***Hath this been in your days*** — He begins very abruptly; and before he proposes his *subject*, excites attention and alarm by intimating that he is about to announce disastrous events, such as the *oldest* *man* among them has never seen, nor any of them learnt from the histories of ancient times.

Verse [Joel 1:3](../../../kjv/joel/1/3). ***Tell ye your children of it*** — To heighten the effect, he still conceals the subject, and informs them that it is such as should be handed down from father to son through all generations.

Verse 4. ***That which the palmerworm hath left*** — Here he begins to open his message, and the words he chooses show that he is going to announce a devastation of the land by *locusts*, and a *famine* consequent on their depredations. What the different *insects* may be which he specifies is not easy to determine. I shall give the words of the original, with their etymology.
The *palmerworm*, גזם gazam, from the same root, *to cut short*; probably the *caterpillar*, or some such *blight*, from its *cutting* *the leaves of the trees into pieces* for its nourishment.
The *locust*, ארבה arbeh, from רבה *rabah*, to *multiply*, from the immense increase and multitude of this insect.
*Cankerworm*, ילק yelek, from לק *lak*, to *lick* or *lap* with the tongue; the *reference* is uncertain.
*Caterpillar*, חסיל chasil, from חסל *chasal*, to *consume,* to *eat up*; the *consumer*. Bishop *Newcome* translates the *first,* *grasshopper*; the *second, locust*; the *third, devouring locust*; and the *fourth, consuming locust*. After all that has been said by interpreters concerning these *four* animals, I am fully of opinion that the *arbeh*, or *locust* himself, is the *gazam*, the *yelek*, and the *chasil*; and that these different names are used here by the prophet to point out the locust in its different states, or progress from *embryo* to *full growth*. [Joel 2:2](../../../kjv/joel/2/2).

Verse 5. ***Awake, ye drunkards*** — The general destruction of vegetation by these devouring creatures has totally prevented both *harvest* and *vintage*; so that there shall not be *wine* even for *necessary* uses, much less for the purposes of *debauchery*. It is well known that the ruin among the vines by locusts prevents the vintage for several years after.

Verse 6. ***A nation is come up upon my land*** — That real *locusts* are intended there can be little doubt; but it is thought that this may be a *double prophecy*, and that the destruction by the *Chaldeans* may also be intended, and that the *four* kinds of *locusts* mentioned above may mean the *four* several attacks made on Judea by them. The *first* in the last year of Nabonassar, (father of Nebuchadnezzar,) which was the *third* of Jehoiakim; the *second* when Jehoiakim was taken prisoner in the *eleventh* year of his reign; the *third* in the *ninth* year of Zedekiah; and the *fourth, three* years after, when Jerusalem was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. Others say that they mean *four powers* which have been enemies of the Jews:
1. The *palmerworm*, the Assyrians and Chaldeans.
2. The *locust*, the Persians and Medes.
3. The *cankerworm*, the Greeks, and particularly Antiochus Epiphanes.
4. The *caterpillar*, the Romans.
Others make them *four* kings; Tiglath-pileser, Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, and Nebuchadnezzar. But of such similitudes there is no end; and the best of them is arbitrary and precarious.

Verse 7. ***He hath laid my vine waste*** — The locusts have eaten off both *leaves* and *bark*. חשף חשפה chasoph chasaphah, he hath *made it clean bare*; שדד שדה suddad sadeh, the field is laid *waste*, [Joel 1:10](../../../kjv/joel/1/10); and כשד משדי *kesod mishshaddai*, a *destruction from the Almighty*, [Joel 1:15](../../../kjv/joel/1/15); are all *paronomasias* in which this prophet seems to delight.

Verse 8. ***Lament like a virgin - for the husband of her youth.*** — *Virgin* is a very improper *version* here. The original is בתולה *bethulah*, which signifies a *young woman* or *bride* not a *virgin,* the proper Hebrew for which is עלמה *almah*. [Isaiah 7:14](../../../kjv/isaiah/7/14), and *"*[Matthew 1:23](../../../kjv/matthew/1/23)*"*.

Verse 9. ***The meat-offering and the drink-offering is cut off*** — The crops and the vines being destroyed by the locusts, the total devastation in plants, trees, corn, &c., is referred to and described with a striking variety of expression in this and the following verses.

Verse 12. ***The vine is dried up*** — Dr. *Shaw* observes that in Barbary, in the month of June, the locusts collect themselves into compact bodies a furlong or more square, and march on, eating up every thing that is green or juicy, and letting nothing escape them, whether vegetables or *trees*.
They destroy the *pomegranate*, the *palm*, the *apple*, (תפוח tappuach, the *citron tree*,) the *vine*, the *fig*, and every *tree of the field*. [Joel 2:2](../../../kjv/joel/2/2).

Verse 14. ***Call a solemn assembly*** — עצרה *atsarah* signifies a time of *restraint*, as the *margin* has it. The clause should be translated-*consecrate a fast, proclaim a time of restraint*; that is, of total abstinence from *food*, and from all *secular* *employment*. All the elders of the land and the representatives of the people were to be collected at the *temple* to cry unto the Lord, to confess their sins, and pray for mercy. The *temple* was not yet destroyed. This prophecy was delivered before the captivity of Judah.

Verse 15. ***Alas for the day!*** — The *Syriac repeats* this, the *Vulgate, Septuagint*, and *Arabic*, thrice: "Alas, alas, alas, for the day!"
***As a destruction from the Almighty*** — The destruction that is now coming is no ordinary calamity; it is as a signal judgment immediately inflicted by the Almighty.

Verse 17. ***The seed is rotten under their clods*** — When the sprout was cut off as low as possible by the locusts, there was no farther germination. The seed rotted away.

Verse [Joel 1:18](../../../kjv/joel/1/18). ***How do the beasts groan!*** — I really think that the *neighing* of horses, or *braying* of asses, is wonderfully expressed by the sound of the original: מה נאנחה בהמה *mah NEENCHAH* *behemah*, how do the horses *neigh*! how do the asses *bray*! בהמה behemah is a collective name for all *domestic cattle*, and those used in *husbandry*.
***Cattle are perplexed*** — They are looking everywhere, and wandering about to find some grass, and know not which way to run.

Verse [Joel 1:19](../../../kjv/joel/1/19). ***O Lord, to thee will I cry*** — Let this calamity come as it may, *we have sinned*, and should humble ourselves before God; and it is such a calamity as God alone can remove, therefore unto him must we cry.
***The fire hath devoured the pastures*** — This may either refer to a *drought*, or to the effects of the locusts; as the ground, after they have passed over it, everywhere appears as if a *sheet of* *flame* had not only *scorched*, but *consumed* every thing.

Verse [Joel 1:20](../../../kjv/joel/1/20). ***The beasts of the field cry also unto thee*** — Even the cattle, wild and tame, are represented as supplicating God to have mercy upon them, and send them provender! There is a similar affecting description of the effects of a drought in Jeremiah, [Jeremiah 14:6](../../../kjv/jeremiah/14/6).
***The rivers of waters are dried up*** — There must have been a *drought* as well as a *host of locusts*; as some of these expressions seem to apply to the effects of *intense heat*.
For המדבר *hammidbar*, "the wilderness," one of my oldest MSS. reads מדבר *midbar*, "wilderness" simply, as in [Joel 1:19](../../../kjv/joel/1/19). *Eight* or *ten* of Dr. *Kennicott's* have the same reading.

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