The Call To Hear What God Has To Say (Joel 1:2-5).
The prophecy opens with a call to all in Judah to hear what God has to say. The opening call has in mind Exodus 10:1-2 which, in the context of a plague of locusts, says, ‘Then YHWH said to Moses, --- “And that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am YHWH.” Here Joel similarly calls on the old men, and all the inhabitants of the land, to recognise the uniqueness of the occasion, and pass on what they learn to those who will follow them, for he wants them to see that it is a judgment from YHWH, a warning shot concerning what is to come in even greater measure in the final Day of YHWH.
The judgment that they have experienced is then portrayed in terms of huge plagues of locusts, both of flying locusts and of hopping locusts, possibly following one after another in vast numbers, which have eaten up all that is in the land and left it desolated.
Analysis of Joel 1:2-5.
a Hear this, you old men, and give ear, all you inhabitants of the land. Has this been in your days, or in the days of your fathers? Tell you your children of it, and your children their children, and their children another generation (Joel 1:2-3).
b What the adult locust (or ‘shearing locust') has left the maturing locust (or ‘swarming locust') has eaten, and what the maturing locust has left the young locust (or ‘hopping locust') has eaten, and what the young locust has left the infant locust (or ‘destroying locust') has eaten (Joel 1:4).
a 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 (Joel 1:5).
Note how the emphasis is on the huge plagues of locusts, with the call to consider it going out in ‘a' to the old men and all the people, and in the parallel to the drunkards and drinkers of wine.
‘Hear this, you old men,
And give ear, all you inhabitants of the land.
Has this been in your days,
Or in the days of your fathers?'
‘Tell you your children of it, and your children their children,
And their children another generation.
The fact that the message has to be passed on for a number of generations indicates that this is something that is seen as a part of history and not as something occurring at the end of it. What he is describing is not descriptive of the final day of YHWH, but is rather something that is to be remembered in the light of it being an example of what could happen in the Day of YHWH, that day when YHWH brings about His purposes through judgment. The call to hear his words are first spoken to the ‘old men', because they are the wisest and most knowledgeable in the land. Let them consider the significance of what has happened. YHWH has spoken. And the call is then extended to all the people, because what has happened has a message for everyone. And that message is with regard to something the like of which has never been seen in living memory. Indeed it is so important that its occurrence and its implications must be passed on to succeeding generations. As mentioned in the introduction we have here a parallel to Exodus 10:1-2, ‘Then YHWH said to Moses, --- “And that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am YHWH.” Similarly Joel wanted the people of his and succeeding days to recognise in what had just happened a sign from YHWH of what He has done and of what He will yet do.
And what is it that Joel sees as so climactic that he wants it to be noted and remembered? It is that Judah have been visited by plagues of locusts unlike any in living memory, plagues that have devastated the whole land, and which are a sign of YHWH's displeasure with Judah. Plagues of locusts were one of the recognised curses which could come on God's people when they broke the covenant (Deuteronomy 28:38), and Solomon recognised in his prophetic prayer that God would punish His people with locust swarms, and prayed that when this happened they might seek and find forgiveness ((1 Kings 8:37; 2 Chronicles 6:28). So Joel had every reason to see in what had happened a signal judgment of YHWH.
‘What the adult locust (or ‘gnawing locust') has left the maturing locust (or ‘swarming locust') has eaten,
And what the maturing locust has left the young locust (or ‘hopping locust') has eaten,
And what the young locust has left the infant locust (or ‘destroying locust') has eaten.'
The size and scale of the locust invasion is emphasised either by reference to all levels of locust from maturity to infancy, as in the text, or equally likely by reference to a number of swarms of locusts each of which is described in terms of one well known aspect of locusts, as in brackets. The words used are all descriptions of locusts, but as seeing them from differing viewpoints. Taking into account the roots behind the nouns the first word for locust has in mind its ability to ‘shear or gnaw' the grain and fruit from its source (the same noun is used in Amos 4:9), the second has in mind its tendency to swarm at particular times (this is the most common word for locust), the third has in mind its ability to hop around on everything and everywhere (the locust is a form of grasshopper, compare Psalms 105:34-35; Jeremiah 51:14; Jeremiah 51:27: Nahum 3:15-16), and the fourth has in mind its tendency to destroy all living vegetation (compare 1 Kings 8:37; 2 Chronicles 6:28; Psalms 78:46; Isaiah 33:4). In some of the cited verses the second type is used in parallel with either the third or fourth which may suggest that two types of locust were being distinguished, the second type possibly referring to the flying locusts, and the others to the young locusts on the march (see introduction above). We may thus see the gnawing locusts as having arrived by air in swarms, and denuded the land, followed by swarming locusts who also had their fill and laid billions of eggs, followed by the hatching out of the young hopping locusts who marched over the land devouring everything in their paths, followed by the destroying locusts who acted similarly. But however it was, the overall emphasis is firstly on the vast scale of the invasions, so that as one appeared to be ending another one appeared, and secondly on the fact that once they had all finished their work nothing was left.
The all-embracing nature of the description calls to mind the similar all-embracing descriptions in Exodus 10:5; Exodus 10:15, and no one who had experienced such an invasion would ever forget it.
The ability of a swarm of locusts to swoop down and destroy all vegetation and trees would have been well known, as would the ground based march of young locusts from the millions of eggs that would have been laid (described in the introduction). What was not expected was the intensity and widespread nature of what had happened this time. It was on a vast scale unknown before (compare Joel 2:2), denuding the whole land of grain, vegetation and trees.
‘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.'
Even the drunkards are called on to take notice of what has happened and weep, for they are to recognise that it is affecting what they love best, the very source of their supplies of their beloved drink. But the call also goes out to all drinkers of wine, they too are to wail, for all will be affected. There is an indication here of what Joel sees as the reason for the judgment that has come on them. It is because they are so taken up with pleasure rather than with obedience to the covenant and the worship of YHWH.