Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field: for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth her fruit, the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength.
Ver. 22. Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field] q.d. Ye shall have no cause to fear for the future: though hitherto ye have suffered hardship, Joel 1:18. Beasts and birds do in diem vivere to live for the day, (as Quintilian saith of them), and take no further thought than for present sustenance. But by a personification (as before the land, so here) the beasts that till it are forbidden to fear want; for God, the great housekeeper of the world, will provide them their meat in due season, Psalms 104:27,28, and several meats according to their various appetites. He will hear the heaven, the heaven shall hear the earth, the earth shall bear all kind of fruits, both natural, as herbs of the field and grass of the wilderness, and such as are sown and planted, as wine, oil, figs; so that neither man nor beast shall want anything ad esum, vel ad usum, to eat or to use but have plenty without penury, &c. It shall be said of Judea, as Solinus saith of Spain, In Hispania nihil infructuosum, nihil sterile, that there is no unfruitfulness in any part of it; or, as it is said of Campania, in Italy, that it is the most fruitful plat of earth that is in the universe.
The fig tree and the vine] That before had been barked and wasted, Joel 1:7; Joel 1:12 ,
do yield their strength] i.e. their utmost fruits; which they could not do without God, into whom therefore the prophet Hosea rightly resolveth the genealogy of grain, wine, oil, &c., Hosea 2:22. It is no otherwise with us in spiritual regards. For though we have grace, yet we cannot bring forth that grace to act without new grace; like as trees, though they be fitted to bear fruits, yet, without the influence of the heavens, they cannot put forth that fitness in fruit. Nolentem praevenit Deus ut velit: volentem subsequitur, ne frustra velit (Aug. Enchir. chap. 32).