1:5 Wake up, you drunkards, 1 and weep!
Wail, all you wine drinkers, 2
because the sweet wine 3 has been taken away 4 from you. 5
1:16 Our food has been cut off right before our eyes! 6
There is no longer any joy or gladness in the temple of our God! 7
1:17 The grains of seed 8 have shriveled beneath their shovels. 9
Storehouses have been decimated
and granaries have been torn down, for the grain has dried up.
1:19 To you, O Lord, I call out for help, 10
for fire 11 has burned up 12 the grassy pastures, 13
flames have razed 14 all the trees in the fields.
1:20 Even the wild animals 15 cry out to you; 16
for the river beds 17 have dried up;
fire has destroyed 18 the grassy pastures. 19
3:8 I will sell your sons and daughters to 20 the people of Judah. 21
They will sell them to the Sabeans, 22 a nation far away.
Indeed, the Lord has spoken!
1 sn The word drunkards has a double edge here. Those accustomed to drinking too much must now lament the unavailability of wine. It also may hint that the people in general have become religiously inebriated and are unresponsive to the Lord. They are, as it were, drunkards from a spiritual standpoint.
2 sn Joel addresses the first of three groups particularly affected by the locust plague. In v. 5 he describes the effects on the drunkards, who no longer have a ready supply of intoxicating wine; in vv. 11-12 he describes the effects on the farmers, who have watched their labors come to naught because of the insect infestation; and in vv. 13-14 he describes the effects on the priests, who are no longer able to offer grain sacrifices and libations in the temple.
3 tn Heb “over the sweet wine, because it.” Cf. KJV, NIV, TEV, NLT “new wine.”
4 tn Heb “cut off” (so KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV); NAB “will be withheld.”
5 tn Heb “your mouth.” This is a synecdoche of part (the mouth) for whole (the person).
6 tn Heb “Has not the food been cut off right before our eyes?” This rhetorical question expects an affirmative answer; the question has been translated as an affirmation for the sake of clarity and emphasis.
7 tn Heb “joy and gladness from the house of our God?” Verse 16b is a continuation of the rhetorical question begun in v. 16a, but has been translated as an affirmative statement to make the meaning clear. The words “There is no longer any” are not in the Hebrew text, but have been supplied in the translation for clarity.
8 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.
9 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).
10 tn The phrase “for help” does not appear in the Hebrew, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity.
11 sn Fire here and in v. 20 is probably not to be understood in a literal sense. The locust plague, accompanied by conditions of extreme drought, has left the countryside looking as though everything has been burned up (so also in Joel 2:3).
12 tn Heb “consumed.” This entire line is restated at the end of v. 20.
13 tn Heb “the pastures of the wilderness.”
14 tn Heb “a flame has set ablaze.” This fire was one of the effects of the drought.
15 tn Heb “beasts of the field.”
16 tn Heb “long for you.” Animals of course do not have religious sensibilities as such; they do not in any literal sense long for Yahweh. Rather, the language here is figurative (metonymy of cause for effect). The animals long for food and water (so BDB 788 s.v. עָרַג), the ultimate source of which is Yahweh.
17 tn Heb “sources of water.”
18 tn Heb “consumed.”
19 tn Heb “the pastures of the wilderness.”
20 tn Heb “into the hand of.”
21 tn Heb “the sons of Judah.”
22 sn The Sabeans were Arabian merchants who were influential along the ancient caravan routes that traveled through Arabia. See also Job 1:15; Isa 43:3; 45:14; Ps 72:10.