CRITICAL NOTES.]
Joel 1:11.] The third appeal to husbandmen and vinedressers. Wheat and barley destroyed before their eyes; vines languish and choice fruit-trees perish.
Joel 1:12. Joy] The joy of harvest withered away (Psalms 4:7; Isaiah 9:3).
HOMILETICS
DISAPPOINTED HUSBANDMEN.—Joel 1:11-12
The next picture is a group of husbandmen and vine-dressers, pale and sick in disappointed toils. Wheat and barley the most important field crops; the vine, fig, and pomegranate, the choice fruit-trees of the land, were destroyed. The datepalm, “which has neither a fresh green rind, nor tender juicy leaves, and therefore not easily injured by the locusts,” and all other trees wither away. Joy is turned into shame, labour is lost, and mourning results.
I. Wasted labour. “The harvest of the field is perished.” The husbandman ploughs, sows, and labours in hope. He waits “for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.” Between seed-time and harvest there is a time of trial, an opportunity for faith. In all true labour we must expect fruit, and receive it as the precious gift of God. But unsuccessful labour will shame our skill and faith, and confound our hopes. Sin will prevent results, and God will blight our harvests.
1. Husbandmen will be disappointed in anticipation.
2. Vine-dressers will be robbed of choice fruits. “The ground was chapt, for there was no rain in the earth, the plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads” (Jeremiah 14:3-4).
II. Withered joy. “Because joy is withered away.” The loss of harvest is the withering of joy and enjoyments.
1. The joy of men is withered. “Withered away from the sons of men.” The joy that depends upon the creature is uncertain and unsatisfactory. Those that place happiness in the delights of sense may be deprived of them. Wine and oil may delight, but not satisfy; they have their vacuity and indigence. All outward comforts sooner cloy than cheer, and weary than fill. Christ in the heart is better than harvests in the barn and wine in the vat. “It is better,” says one, “to feel God’s favour one hour in our repenting souls, than to sit whole ages under the warmest sunshine that this world affordeth.” “Nature’s common joys are common cheats.”
2. The joy of nature is withered. Joel again declares the sympathy of nature with man. “The trees of the field are withered, because (for) joy,” &c., as if it were impossible for the natural world to rejoice when the hearts of men were sad and sinful. Poets in all ages have taught “that one life beats throughout the universe, revealing itself in subtle and manifold interchanges of sympathy; that therefore Nature feels with her foster-child man, rejoicing when he rejoices, weeping when he weeps.” Scripture shows that sin may turn a paradise into a wilderness, and “a fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein” (Psalms 107:34). What a picture of demoralization, sensuality, and judgment in the language of Isaiah! “All the merry-hearted do sigh. There is a crying for wine in the streets, all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone.”