Joel 1:1-12--An Invasion of Locusts

Joel 1:1-12
English Standard Version

1 The word of the LORD that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel:

An Invasion of Locusts
2 Hear this, you elders;
    give ear, all inhabitants of the land!
Has such a thing happened in your days,
    or in the days of your fathers?
3 Tell your children of it,
    and let your children tell their children,
    and their children to another generation.

4 What the cutting locust left,
    the swarming locust has eaten.
What the swarming locust left,
    the hopping locust has eaten,
and what the hopping locust left,
    the destroying locust has eaten.

5 Awake, you drunkards, and weep,
    and wail, all you drinkers of wine,
because of the sweet wine,
    for it is cut off from your mouth.
6 For a nation has come up against my land,
    powerful and beyond number;
its teeth are lions' teeth,
    and it has the fangs of a lioness.
7 It has laid waste my vine
    and splintered my fig tree;
it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down;
    their branches are made white.

8 Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth
    for the bridegroom of her youth.
9 The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off
    from the house of the LORD.
The priests mourn,
    the ministers of the LORD.
10 The fields are destroyed,
    the ground mourns,
because the grain is destroyed,
    the wine dries up,
    the oil languishes.

11 Be ashamed, O tillers of the soil;
    wail, O vinedressers,
for the wheat and the barley,
    because the harvest of the field has perished.
12 The vine dries up;
    the fig tree languishes.
Pomegranate, palm, and apple,
    all the trees of the field are dried up,
and gladness dries up
    from the children of man.

---

The book of Joel focuses mostly on "The Day of the LORD," and mostly the coming judgment for the wicked, but this is also a day of salvation for those that the LORD has made righteous.  We see all kinds of plagues that line up with what we see described during the time of Great Tribulation in the book of Revelation or that point back to the kinds of plagues that the LORD brought upon Egypt when He saved and redeemed His people with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

The first such passage today will prophesy a plague of locusts.  Wave after wave after wave of locusts will destroy everything.  Joel says nothing like this will have ever been seen before.  There will be locusts that swarm and those that hop and those that cut and those that simply destroy what is left.  When they finish, there will be no vegetation left.  This plague will be over the whole earth.  No one will be safe from it.

The biggest concern of the people will be that their vines from which they get their wine have been destroyed and they will have nothing left to dull their senses and sensibilities.  That is how they have survived this time of tribulation so far, but, now, even that is taken away from them.  They must face the hard and harsh reality that they under the judgment of God.

This will put an end to all grain and drink offerings which are being offered at the rebuilt Temple.  There will be nothing left of these things to offer to the LORD.  Will this cause the people to fall on their faces and repent of their sin? That is the hope of the prophet Joel, and a call for repentance will be given in the next passage.  The farmers who lost their entire crop and the vineyard owners who turn grapes into wine will be hit extremely hard.  The fruit trees will all have been ravished and very little will be left that people can eat.  The vitality and gladness of mankind will similarly dry up and die because the wicked are perishing and about to face eternal death after the Great White Throne judgment.