Discovery BoxJoel 1:13-14 
Context1:13 Get dressed 1 and lament, you priests!
Wail, you who minister at the altar!
Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you servants of my God,
because no one brings grain offerings or drink offerings
to the temple of your God anymore. 2
proclaim a sacred assembly.
Gather the elders and 4 all the inhabitants of the land
to the temple of the Lord your God,
and cry out to the Lord.
Joel 2:14
Context2:14 Who knows?
Perhaps he will be compassionate and grant a reprieve, 5
and leave blessing in his wake 6 –
a meal offering and a drink offering for you to offer to the Lord your God! 7
Joel 2:19
Context2:19 The Lord responded 8 to his people,
“Look! I am about to restore your grain 9
as well as fresh wine and olive oil.
You will be fully satisfied. 10
I will never again make you an object of mockery among the nations.
Joel 2:25
Context2:25 I will make up for the years 11
that the ‘arbeh-locust 12 consumed your crops 13 –
the yeleq-locust, the hasil-locust, and the gazam-locust –
my great army 14 that I sent against you.
Joel 2:27
Context2:27 You will be convinced that I am in the midst of Israel.
I am the Lord your God; there is no other.
My people will never again be put to shame.
Joel 3:17
Context3:17 You will be convinced 15 that I the Lord am your God,
dwelling on Zion, my holy mountain.
Jerusalem 16 will be holy –
conquering armies 17 will no longer pass through it.
1 tn Heb “put on.” There is no object present in the Hebrew text, but many translations assume “sackcloth” to be the understood object of the verb “put on.” Its absence in the Hebrew text of v. 13 is probably due to metrical considerations. The meter here is 3 + 3, and that has probably influenced the prophet’s choice of words.
2 tn Heb “for grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.”
3 tn Heb “consecrate a fast” (so NASB).
4 tc The conjunction “and” does not appear in MT or LXX, but does appear in some Qumran texts (4QXIIc and 4QXIIg).
5 tn Heb “turn” or “turn back.”
6 tn Heb “leave a blessing behind him.”
7 tn The phrase “for you to offer” does not appear in the Hebrew, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity.
8 tn Heb “answered and said.”
9 tn Heb “Look! I am sending grain to you.” The participle used in the Hebrew text seems to suggest imminent action.
10 tc One of the Qumran manuscripts (4QXXIIc) inserts “and you will eat” before “and you will be fully satisfied” (the reading of the MT, LXX).
11 tn Heb “I will restore to you the years.”
sn The plural years suggests that the plague to which Joel refers was not limited to a single season. Apparently the locusts were a major problem over several successive years. One season of drought and locust invasion would have been bad enough. Several such years would have been devastating.
12 sn The same four terms for locust are used here as in 1:4, but in a different order. This fact creates some difficulty for the notion that the four words refer to four distinct stages of locust development.
13 tn The term “your crops” does not appear in the Hebrew, but has been supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.
14 sn Here Joel employs military language to describe the locusts. In the prophet’s thinking this invasion was far from being a freak accident. Rather, the Lord is pictured here as a divine warrior who leads his army into the land as a punishment for past sin and as a means of bringing about spiritual renewal on the part of the people.
15 tn Heb “know.”
16 map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.
17 tn Heb “strangers” or “foreigners.” In context, this refers to invasions by conquering armies.
