CRITICAL NOTES.]
Joel 1:8. A virgin] The impersonated nation to lament with the sorrow and despair of a young girl, whose hopes have been blighted, and her beloved taken away by a stroke (Ezekiel 16:8).
Joel 1:9.] The cessation of temple service would be the greatest sorrow, and would impress the nation with a sense of Divine displeasure. Cut off] by locusts, who have eaten up the vine, the olive, and the wheat, for sacrificial use. Priests] lost not merely subsistence, but appointed offerings to Jehovah.
Joel 1:10. The field] Nature sympathizing in the woes of men; the open uninclosed country and the land, Heb. rich red soil, fenced and cultivated, feel the loss.
NATIONAL LAMENTATION.—Joel 1:8-10
The second appeal is to the impersonated nation, clothed in sackcloth, and weeping for her lord, which death has taken away. The land is desolated, public worship is interrupted, and the temple forsaken by God and man. The nation’s hope is cut off, and she is left as “a virgin” to lament in passionate grief and utter despair.
I. The character of this lamentation. “Like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.” Between young persons that are married or about to be married there is great love, and therefore great grief when separated by death. Virgin love is purest and most sincere. “She must weep or she will die.” The affections in youth are strongest and most capable of resentment. “I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals” (Jeremiah 2:2; Isaiah 62:5). The Church unfaithful to her Lord and Master, the professor who gives his heart to the world, will lose the protection and blessings of Christ, our Divine Head and Redeemer. The more wedded to the creatures the more bitter their loss. It is not mere conventional grief that God commands, but that of one who has lost all joy and who clothes herself with penitence—
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o’er-fraught heart, and bids it break [Shakespere].
II. The reason of this lamentation.
1. The land is devastated. “The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted.” The cultivated and the open lands were unproductive. The luxuries and the necessities, the corn and the wine: bread that strengthens man’s heart, wine that maketh glad the heart, and oil to make his face to shine, were all taken away (Psalms 104:15). Nature shouts and sings for joy under the benediction of God (Psalms 65:13); the valleys are covered with corn and all is vocal with praise. But under man’s sin creation mourns in sorrow and casts off its beauty and fruitfulness; “groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Romans 8:22). “How long shall the land mourn and the herbs of every field wither, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein” (Jeremiah 12:4)?
2. The temple was forsaken. The locusts devoured the vine, the olive, and everything that constituted the meat and drink offerings in the house of God. (a) Forsaken by God; for God was supposed to have forsaken the temple when the altar was not duly furnished. He was offended at the nation, and could not dwell with a sinful people. (b) Forsaken by men. The priests could no longer present the accustomed offerings. Public worship was suspended. The temple is the residence of God. Divine worship must be kept up in due order and regular time. On the continuance of our morning and evening service depends the continuance of God’s presence with us. Suspend the one, we suspend the other. Terrible must be that scourge which robs us of the benefits of Divine ordinances, and drives God from his own temple; when “joy and gladness are cut off from the house of the Lord.”
III. The extent of this lamentation.
1. The priests mourned. “The priests, the Lord’s ministers, mourn.” Some would spiritually lament the suspension of God’s offerings. True ministers feel deeply the ungodliness of men; set the first example of penitence and confession; and mourn greatly interrupted fellowship with God. Others mourn naturally for the loss of their perquisites and the means of self-indulgence. When the house of God is forsaken and holy communions become rare, the ministers of the sanctuary should mourn.
2. The nation mourned. Priest and people, rich and poor, were to lament the judgments that had fallen upon them. Vegetation had languished, the land was ravaged, and the temple forsaken. Judea was to lament like a virgin, and all were to bow to the dust in sackcloth and ashes. “In that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Joel 1:9. Poverty and Religion.
1. Poverty the result of sin.
2. Poverty bringing Divine judgments.
3. Poverty prejudicial to public worship. “Want of means of livelihood must exert a very prejudicial influence on the public service of God. Under the old economy there would be of necessity a failure of tithes and offerings. So now, when people have a hard and constant struggle for the bare means of subsistence, they will be far behind others in knowledge of the truth, in the proper training of children, and in mutual love [Lange].
Joel 1:10. What reason we have to praise God for bountiful seasons, and for his goodness in filling our hearts with food and gladness! But cleave not too closely to temporal blessings, which may be cut off by judgment, and taken suddenly away. God takes from an ungodly people the means of gratifying their lusts, and will bring them to repentance by deep afflictions. The prosperity of the Church depends not on a grand ceremonial, or crowds of admiring devotees, or the countenance of the State, however desirable these things may be, but only on the favour of God, whose blessing and whose Spirit will be withdrawn, if we defile his sanctuary with superstitious rites [Robinson.]
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 1
Joel 1:8-10. When we bear in mind that in spite of the help given them from this country one fourth part of the people of Ireland died in one year (1847) through the failure of a single article of food, we may have some idea of the distress of successive years. Not all the vast wealth of England would restore the withered joy that would result from the failure of the harvest and the destruction of herbs for a single year. The blight of a fly might consume cereal crops and prove more terrible than destructive war.