Discovery BoxJoel 1:10 
Context1:10 The crops of the fields 1 have been destroyed. 2
The ground is in mourning because the grain has perished.
The fresh wine has dried up;
the olive oil languishes.
Joel 1:17
Context1:17 The grains of seed 3 have shriveled beneath their shovels. 4
Storehouses have been decimated
and granaries have been torn down, for the grain has dried up.
Joel 1:20
Context1:20 Even the wild animals 5 cry out to you; 6
for the river beds 7 have dried up;
1 tn Heb “the field has been utterly destroyed.” The term “field,” a collective singular for “fields,” is a metonymy for crops produced by the fields.
2 tn Joel uses intentionally alliterative language in the phrases שֻׁדַּד שָׂדֶה (shuddad sadeh, “the field is destroyed”) and אֲבְלָה אֲדָמָה (’avlah ’adamah, “the ground is in mourning”).
3 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.
4 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).
5 tn Heb “beasts of the field.”
6 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.
7 tn Heb “sources of water.”
8 tn Heb “consumed.”
9 tn Heb “the pastures of the wilderness.”
