Joel 1:11

1:11 Be distressed, farmers;

wail, vinedressers, over the wheat and the barley.

For the harvest of the field has perished.

Joel 1:17

1:17 The grains of seed have shriveled beneath their shovels.

Storehouses have been decimated

and granaries have been torn down, for the grain has dried up.


tn Heb “embarrassed”; or “be ashamed.”

tn Heb “seed.” The phrase “the grains of” does not appear in the Hebrew, but has been supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.

tc This line is textually uncertain. The MT reads “the seed shrivels in their shovels/clods.” One Qumran manuscript (4QXXIIc) reads “the heifers decay in [their] s[talls].” LXX reads “the heifers leap in their stalls.”

tn These two lines of v. 17 comprise only four words in the Hebrew; three of the four are found only here in the OT. The translation and meaning are rather uncertain. A number of English versions render the word translated “shovels” as “clods,” referring to lumps of soil (e.g., KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).