A Call for a Fast and Solemn Intercession. The prophet bids the priests, clothed in the garb of mourners, come into the Temple and lament night and day. Let them institute with the appropriate ritual a fast, and summon a solemn gathering of the community. The awful plight of the land suggests the thought that the locusts are but harbingers of the dreaded Day of Yahweh (Amos 5:18-20). Nothing less can be portended when the joyous sacrifices are interrupted by the blight and drought which have destroyed vegetation, and brought hunger and thirst to the cattle so that even they appeal dumbly to Yahweh.
Joel 1:15. Shaddai ( mg.): this rare title for Yahweh is chosen for the sake of assonance with destruction (shodh); it is perhaps equivalent to the Babylonian Divine title, š adua = my Rock.
Joel 1:16. meat: render, food.
Joel 1:17-18 a. Heb. is very difficult, containing many strange forms. Possibly, using suggestions from LXX, emend to The mules stand abashed by their mangers; waste lie the store-houses, broken down the barns, because the corn has failed; what have we to put in them!
Joel 1:18. made desolate: cf. the English use of desolated in the sense appalled.
Joel 1:19. I: probably emend to they. wilderness: not a barren desert, but more like what we understand by steppe or veldt.
Joel 1:20. the water brooks are dried up: this seems to show that the blight and scorching heat are additional woes, and not simply a poetical description of the havoc wrought by the locusts.