Joel's Locust Plague

Joel 1: 1-20

Joel wrote his book right after a devastating plague of wave after wave of locusts had devoured every stalk of plant life in the whole land. 

(1) The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel;
(2) Hear this, O elders, 
And listen, all inhabitants of the land. 
Has anything like this happened in your days
Or in your fathers' days?
(3) Tell your sons about it, 
And let your sons tell their sons, 
And their sons the next generation. 

He says that nothing like this has ever happened this bad before, it is noteworthy, and it needs to be told to every generation of children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and on to each next, to not forget this. 

This is what happened:

(4) What the gnawing locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; 
And what the swarming locust has left, the creeping locust has eaten; 
And what the creeping locust has left, the stripping locust has eaten. 

Nothing is left, whatever was left or grew back was eaten by the next wave of locusts. They were everywhere, in all the nooks and crannies, in all the houses and barns and stables, all over the whole land.

(5) Awake, drunkards, and weep; 
And wail, all you wine drinkers, 
On account of the sweet wine
That is cut off from your mouth. 

All who drink wine or strong drink, there is nothing left to distill or bottle. There is no more grain or grapes to make anything with.

(6) For a nation has invaded my land,
Mighty and without number; 
Its teeth are the teeth of a lion, 
And it has the fangs of a lioness. 

God has sent His army of locusts, four kinds of locusts, coming one after another. Nothing could be done to stop them, no one could get rid of them, they were everywhere.

(7) It has made my vine a waste 
And my fig tree splinters. 
It has stripped them bare and cast them away; 
Their branches have become white. 

All the vines and trees have nothing left on them, their branches have been stripped white with nothing green left.

(8) Wail like a virgin girded with sackcloth
For the bridegroom of her youth. 

Go ahead and mourn loudly like a bride whose espoused husband has died.

(9) The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off
From the house of the Lord. 
The priests mourn, 
The ministers of the Lord. 

There is nothing left to give to the priests, the ministers to offer to the Lord in sacrifice; no grain for bread and no grapes for wine to pour out.

(10) The field is ruined,
The new wine dries up, 
Fresh oil fails. 

Nothing is left in the open fields, they're all bare; and all the grapes are gone, there is no more grape juice or wine left at all, and all the palm and olive trees are stripped of all their provision for oil.

(11) Be ashamed, O farmers, 
Wail, O vinedressers, 
For the wheat and the barley; 
Because the harvest of the field is destroyed. 
(12) The vine dries up 
And the fig tree fails; 
The pomegranate, the palm also, and the apple tree, 
All the trees of the field dry up. 

Mourn and hang your head, all those who farm the fields and tend the grape vines; and all those who husband the trees for figs, pomegranates, palm trees and apples--nothing is left on any of them at all. Completely gone.

Indeed, rejoicing dries up
From the sons of men. 

With nothing to eat, starvation follows, which leaves nothing to celebrate.   

(13) Gird yourselves with sackcloth
And lament, O priests; 
Wail, O ministers of my God, 
For the grain offering and the drink offering 
Are withheld from the house of your God.

There is nothing available to offer, so the priests, the ministers have nothing to do, and mourn for not being able to worship the Lord. 

(14) Consecrate a fast, 
Proclaim a solemn assembly; 
Gather the elders
And all the inhabitants of the land
To the house of the Lord your God, 
And cry out to the Lord. 

This is the time for fasting and prayer, not sacrifices. Everyone is to gather with the priests at the temple to pray out loud to the Lord, begging for His mercy!

(15) Alas for the day! 
For the Day of the Lord is near, 
And it will come as destruction from the Almighty. 

This locust plague is a reminder that the Day of the Lord is coming soon. Every plague and pandemic God sends is to wake us up! It's like He's whacking us up the side of the head to get our attention!

(16) Has not food been cut off before our eyes, 
Gladness and joy from the house of our God? 
(17) The seeds shrivel under their clods; 
The storehouses are desolate, 
The barns are torn down, 
For the grain is dried up. 

There's no food left in any form, as the locusts have scarfed up every crumb, every morsel of edible everything, even what had been stored and put up for later. Nothing is left. Nothing is there for anyone to eat or to offer in sacrifice.

(18) How the beasts groan! 
The herds of cattle wander aimlessly 
Because there is no pasture for them; 
Even the flocks of sheep suffer. 

Their herds and flocks have nothing to eat, either.

(19) To You, O Lord, I cry;
For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness
And the flame as burned up all the trees of the field. 

The locusts devoured as though a fire swept through the pastures and fields and orchards, and burned up everything.

(20) Even the beasts of the field pant for you;
For the water brooks are dried up
And fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness. 

Not even the wild animals can find anything to eat or drink, everything is gone, there's nothing green or moist left anywhere, it's all dried up, the locusts ate it all up totally. 

This is the scene Joel is painting for the people. He's reminding them of the locust plague that God has just brought on the whole land, for an extended time. 

And it is just a taste of what God has planned at the end of the age of Man, when the Day of the Lord comes. 

O my Father, thank you for Joel, for the short book You had him write for us to read now, knowing that the Day of the Lord is coming so soon now. Please let us understand what he wrote, so we will be prepared and ready for our Lord and His judgments on the Earth and the world we have built on it. 

My Father, You have loved us more than we can ever imagine, pouring out Your wrath that we deserve on Your own Son on the Cross! So when Your great wrath will fall upon all the wicked and rebellious people around us, it will not be on us; even though thousands fall at our side, and ten thousand at our right hand, it will not touch us. 

Father, grow us up, to maturity, so that the body of Christ will reach the full stature of the Son of God, in both quality and quantity. Send us out, send Your words out from our mouths and fingertips, to show everyone in the world how much You love each of them, too, regardless of what they have done against you. Jesus paid it all. 

O Father, help everyone to hear, help everyone to understand, let everyone have a completely informed decision whether to accept or reject Your gracious and generous gift of salvation and redemption. 

And every eye shall see, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus is our Christ, our Savior and Redeemer, the Lord God Almighty, sovereign King over all Creation; to the everlasting glory of Almighty God the Father, forever and ever. Amen. 

Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus!