Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Joel 1:14
Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders [and] all the inhabitants of the land [into] the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD,
14. Sanctify a fast ] Fasting is a common observance in the East, especially among Semitic peoples; and it is frequently mentioned in the Old Testament. The essence of a fast consists in the voluntary abstention, for a season, even from ordinary and innocent bodily enjoyment; it is thus an expression of sympathy with human affliction, for instance during mourning, 1Sa 31:13; 2Sa 1:12. More often, however, it is mentioned as a distinctly religious observance, expressive of self-abasement and sorrow for sin, and resorted to, especially at the time of some grave disaster, whether on the part of individuals or the nation, in conjunction with prayer or sacrifice, for the purpose, if possible, of propitiating God’s favour; see e.g. Jdg 20:26 ; 1Sa 7:6; 2Sa 12:16; 1Ki 21:27; Psa 69:10-11; Ezr 10:6; Neh 9:1; Jon 3:5-9; Dan 9:3; Jdt 4:9 ; Jdt 4:13 . Extraordinary general fasts are spoken of as “proclaimed” by royal authority, 1Ki 21:9; 1Ki 21:12; Jer 36:9 (cf. Ezr 8:21). During the exile, four annual fast-days were established in commemoration of events connected with the fall of Jerusalem (Zec 7:3; Zec 7:5; Zec 8:19). The annual Day of Atonement was also observed as a fast (Lev 16:29). See further on Joe 2:12-13.
a solemn assembly ] a public religious gathering, in which all may join. On the term used ( ‘atzrh), see on Amo 5:21.
elders ] lit. old men; but here probably (unlike Joe 1:2, Joe 2:16) the term is used in its official sense (as Isa 3:14, Eze 8:1, and frequently).
and cry unto Jehovah ] expressing, on the nation’s behalf, penitence, and entreating Him to stay the threatened destruction.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Sanctify ye a fast – He does not say only, proclaim, or appoint a fast, but sanctify it. Hallow the act of abstinence, seasoning it with devotion and with acts meet for repentance. For fasting is not accepted by God, unless done in charity and obedience to His commands. : Sanctify it, i. e., make it an offering to God, and as it were a sacrifice, a holy and blameless fast. : To sanctify a fast is to exhibit abstinence of the flesh, meet toward God, with other good. Let anger cease, strife be lulled. For in vain is the flesh worn, if the mind is not held in from evil passions, inasmuch as the Lord saith by the prophet, Lo! in the day of your fast you find your pleasures Isa 58:3. The fast which the Lord approveth, is that which lifteth up to Him hands full of almsdeeds, which is passed with brotherly love, which is seasoned by piety. What thou substractest from thyself, bestow on another, that thy needy neighbors flesh may be recruited by means of that which thou deniest to thine own.
Call a solemn assembly – Fasting without devotion is an image of famine. At other times the solemn assembly was for festival-joy. Such was the last day of the feast of the Passover Deu 16:8 and of tabernacles Lev 23:36; Num 29:35; 2Ch 7:9; Neh 8:18. No servile work was to be done thereon. It was then to be consecrated to thanksgving, but now to sorrow and supplication. : The prophet commands that all should be called and gathered into the Temple, that so the prayer might be the rather heard, the more they were who offered it. Wherefore the Apostle besought his disciples to pray for him, that so what was asked might be obtained the more readily through the intercession of many.
Gather the elders – Age was, by Gods appointment Lev 19:32, held in great reverence among the Hebrews. When first God sent Moses and Aaron to His people in Egypt, He bade them collect the elders of the people (Exo 3:16; Exo 4:29, compare Deu 31:28) to declare to them their own mission from God; through them He conveyed the ordinance of the Passover to the whole congregation Exo 12:3, Exo 12:21; in their presence was the first miracle of bringing water from the rock performed (Exo 17:5, add Exo 18:12); then He commanded Moses to choose seventy of them, to appear before Him before He gave the law Exo 24:1, Exo 24:9; then to bear Moses own burden in hearing the causes of the people, bestowing His spirit upon them (Num 11:16 ff). The elders of each city were clothed with judicial authority Deu 19:12; Deu 22:15; Deu 25:7. In the expiation of an uncertain murder, the elders of the city represented the whole city Deu 21:3-6; in the offerings for the congregation, the elders of the congregation represented the whole Lev 4:15; Lev 9:1.
So then, here also, they are summoned, chief of all, that the authority and example of their grey hairs might move the young to repentance. : Their age, near to death and ripened in grace, makes them more apt for the fear and worship of God. All however, priests, elders, and the inhabitants, or people of the land Jer 1:18, were to form one band, and were, with one heart and voice, to cry unto God; and that in the house of God. For so Solomon had prayed, that God would in heaven His dwelling place, hear whatever prayer and supplication might there be made by any man or by all His people Israel 1Ki 8:39; and God had promised in turn, I have hallowed this house which thou hast built, to put My name there for ever, and Mine eyes and Mine heart shall be there perpetually 1Ki 9:3. God has given to united prayer a power over Himself, and prayer overcometh God . The prophet calls God your God, showing how ready He was to hear; but he adds, cry unto the Lord; for it is not a listless prayer, but a loud earnest cry, which reacheth to the throne of God.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 14. Call a solemn assembly] atsarah signifies a time of restraint, as the margin has it. The clause should be translated-consecrate a fast, proclaim a time of restraint; that is, of total abstinence from food, and from all secular employment. All the elders of the land and the representatives of the people were to be collected at the temple to cry unto the Lord, to confess their sins, and pray for mercy. The temple was not yet destroyed. This prophecy was delivered before the captivity of Judah.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Sanctify ye; you priests, ministers of my God, set apart a day, or more days, appoint a time, forbid all servile work and sensual pleasures, do what you may to prepare for such a necessary work.
A fast; wherein to afflict yourselves, confess your sins, repent of them, sue out your pardon, and return to God, that tie may remove your present calamities, and prevent the future.
Call a solemn assembly; proclaim and publish it, that every one may know they are restrained from common, daily work, and that they are commanded to come together, most solemnly to seek the Lord. Gather the elders; both for age and for authority, magistrates and rulers, who possibly had been by their sins, more than others, cause of these grievous calamities, and should now be examples to others in repenting.
And all the inhabitants of the land; make this fast as public and universal as you can, command all the people of the land, all that dwell with you; perhaps the prophet intends proselytes of the law, and those of commerce, as well as the Jews.
Into the house of the Lord; courts of the temple, for priests only might go into the temple itself; the court of Israel, where the people were wont to pray. Your God; remember the covenant by which you are his people, and he is your God, that you may plead his promises as well as wait for his mercies. And cry unto the Lord, with tears of repentance, with prayer of faith, cry more with the broken heart than loud voice.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
14. Sanctify . . . a fastAppointa solemn fast.
solemn assemblyliterally,a “day of restraint” or cessation from work, so that allmight give themselves to supplication (Joe 2:15;Joe 2:16; 1Sa 7:5;1Sa 7:6; 2Ch 20:3-13).
eldersThe contrast to”children” (Joe 2:16)requires age to be intended, though probably elders in officeare included. Being the people’s leaders in guilt, they ought to betheir leaders also in repentance.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Sanctify yea a fast,…. This is spoken to the priests, whose business it was to appoint a fast, as the Targum renders it; or to set apart a time for such religious service, as the word signifies; and to keep it holy themselves, and see that it was so kept by others: Kimchi interprets it, prepare the people for a fast; give them notice of it, that they may be prepared for it:
call a solemn assembly; of all the people of the land later mentioned: or, “proclaim a restraint” w; a time of ceasing, as a fast day should be from all servile work, that attendance may be given to the duties of it, prayer and humiliation:
gather the elders: meaning not those in age, but in office:
[and] all the inhabitants of the land; not the magistrates only, though first and principally, as examples, who had been deeply concerned in guilt; but the common people also, even all of them:
[into] the house of the Lord your God; the temple, the court of the Israelites, where they were to go and supplicate the Lord, when such a calamity as this of locusts and caterpillars were upon them; and where they might hope the Lord would hear them, and remove his judgments from them, 1Ki 8:37;
and cry unto the Lord; in prayer, with vehemence and earnestness of soul.
w “vocate retentionem”, Montanus; “proclamate diem interdicti”, Junius Tremellius, Heb. “interdictum”, Piscator “edicite coetum cum cessatione”, Cocceius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| Threatenings of Judgment; A Proclamation for a Fast. | B. C. 720. |
14 Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD, 15 Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come. 16 Is not the meat cut off before our eyes, yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God? 17 The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered. 18 How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate. 19 O LORD, to thee will I cry: for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field. 20 The beasts of the field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
We have observed abundance of tears shed for the destruction of the fruits of the earth by the locusts; now here we have those tears turned into the right channel, that of repentance and humiliation before God. The judgment was very heavy, and here they are directed to own the hand of God in it, his mighty hand, and to humble themselves under it. Here is,
I. A proclamation issued out for a general fast. The priests are ordered to appoint one; they must not only mourn themselves, but they must call upon others to mourn too: “Sanctify a fast; let some time be set apart from all worldly business to be spent in the exercises of religion, in the expressions of repentance and other extraordinary instances of devotion.” Note, Under public judgments there ought to be public humiliations; for by them the Lord God calls to weeping and mourning. With all the marks of sorrow and shame sin must be confessed and bewailed, the righteous of God must be acknowledged, and his favour implored. Observe what is to be done by a nation at such a time. 1. A day is to be appointed for this purpose, a day of restraint (so the margin reads it), a day in which people must be restrained from their other ordinary business (that they may more closely attend God’s service), and from all bodily refreshments; for, 2. It must be a fast, a religious abstaining from meat and drink, further than is of absolute necessity. The king of Nineveh appointed a fast, in which they were to taste nothing, Jonah iii. 7. Hereby we own ourselves unworthy of our necessary food, and that we have forfeited it and deserve to be wholly deprived of it, we punish ourselves and mortify the body, which has been the occasion of sin, we keep it in a frame fit to serve the soul in serving God, and, by the appetite’s craving food, the desires of the soul towards that which is better than life, and all the supports of it, are excited. This was in a special manner seasonable now that God was depriving them of their meat and drink; for hereby they accommodated themselves to the affliction they were under. When God says, You shall fast, it is time to say, We will fast. 3. There must be a solemn assembly. The elders and the people, magistrates and subjects, must be gathered together, even all the inhabitants of the land, that God might be honoured by their public humiliations, that they might thereby take the more shame to themselves, and that they might excite and stir up one another to the religious duties of the day. All had contributed to the national guilt, all shared in the national calamity, and therefore they must all join in the professions of repentance. 4. They must come together in the temple, the house of the Lord their God, because that was the house of prayer, and there they might be hope to meet with God because it was the place which he had chosen to put his name there, there they might hope to speed because it was a type of Christ and his mediation. Thus they interested themselves in Solomon’s prayer for the acceptance of all the requests that should be put up in or towards this house, in which their present case was particularly mentioned. 1 Kings vii. 37, If there be locust, if there be caterpillar. 5. They must sanctify this fast, must observe it in a religious manner, with sincere devotion. What is a fast worth if it be not sanctified? 6. They must cry unto the Lord. To him they must make their complaint and offer up their supplication. When we cry in our affliction we must cry to the Lord; this is fasting to him, Zech. vii. 5.
II. Some considerations suggested to induce them to proclaim this fast and to observe it strictly.
1. God was beginning a controversy with them. It is time to cry unto the Lord, for the day of the Lord is at hand, v. 15. Either they mean the continuance and consequences of this present judgment which they now saw but breaking in upon them, or some greater judgments which this was but a preface to. However it be, this they are taught to make the matter of their lamentation: Alas, for the day! for the day of the Lord is at hand. Therefore cry to God. For, (1.) “The day of his judgment is very near, it is at hand; it will not slumber, and therefore you should not. It is time to fast and pray, for you have but a little time to turn yourselves in.” (2.) It will be very terrible; there is no escaping it, no resisting it: As a destruction from the Almighty shall it come. See Isa. xiii. 6. It is not a correction, but a destruction; and it comes from the hand, not of a weak creature, but of the Almighty; and who knows (nay, who does not know) the power of his anger? Whither should we go with our cries but to him from whom the judgment we dread comes? There is no fleeing from him but by fleeing to him, no escaping destruction from the Almighty but by making our submission and supplication to the Almighty; this is taking hold on his strength, that we may make peace, Isa. xxvii. 5.
2. They saw themselves already under the tokens of his displeasure. It is time to fast and pray, for their distress is very great, v. 16. (1.) Let them look into their own houses, and was no plenty there, as used to be. Those who kept a good table were now obliged to retrench: Is not the meat cut off before our eyes? If, when God’s hand is lifted up, men will not see, when his hand is laid on they shall see. Is not the meat many a time cut off before our eyes? Let us then labour for that spiritual meat which is not before our eyes, and which cannot be cut off. (2.) Let them look into God’s house, and see the effects of the judgment there; joy and gladness were cut off from the house of God. Note, The house of our God is the proper place of joy and gladness; when David goes to the altar of God, it is to God my exceeding joy; but when joy and gladness are cut off from God’s house, either by corruption of holy things or the persecution of holy persons, when serious godly decays and love waxes cold, then it time to cry to the Lord, time to cry, Alas!
3. The prophet returns to describe the grievousness of the calamity, in some particulars of it. Corn and cattle are the husbandman’s staple commodities; now here he is deprived of both. (1.) The caterpillars have devoured the corn, v. 17. The garners, which they used to fill with corn, are laid desolate, and the barns broken down, because the corn has withered, and the owners think it not worth while to be at the charge of repairing them when they have nothing to put in them, nor are likely to have any thing; for the seed it rotten under the clods, either through too much rain or (which was the more common case in Canaan) for want of rain, or perhaps some insects under ground ate it up. When one crop fails the husband man hopes the next may make it up; but here they despair of that, the seedness being as bad as the harvest. (2.) The cattle perish too for want of grass (v. 18): How do the beasts groan! This the prophet takes notice of, that the people might be affected with it and lay to heart the judgment. The groans of the cattle should soften their hard and impenitent hearts. The herds of cattle, the large cattle (black cattle we call them), are perplexed; nay, even the flocks of sheep, which will live upon a common and be content with very short grass, are made desolate. See here the inferior creatures suffering for our transgression, and groaning under the double burden of being serviceable to the sin of man and subject to the curse of God for it. Cursed is the ground for thy sake.
III. The prophet stirs them up to cry to God, with the consideration of the examples given them for it.
1. His own example (v. 19): O Lord! to thee will I cry. He would not put them upon doing that which he would not resolve to do himself; nay, whether they would do it or no, he would. Note, If God’s ministers cannot prevail to affect others with the discoveries of divine wrath, yet they ought to be themselves affected with them; if they cannot bring others to cry to God, yet they themselves be much in prayer. In time of trouble we must not only pray, but cry, must be fervent and importunate in prayer; and to God, from whom both the destruction is and the salvation must be, ought our cry to be always directed. That which engaged him to cry to God was, not so much any personal affliction, as the national calamity: The fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, which seems to be meant of some parching scorching heat of the sun, which was as fire to the fruits of the earth; it consumed them all. Note, When God calls to contend by fire it concerns those that have any interest in heaven to cry mightily to him for relief. See Num 11:2; Amo 7:4; Amo 7:5.
2. The example of the inferior creatures: “The beasts of the field do not only groan, but cry unto thee, v. 20. They appeal to thy pity, according to their capacity, and as if, though they are not capable of a rational and revealed religion, yet they had something of dependence upon God by natural instinct.” At least, when they groan by reason of their calamity, he is pleased to interpret it as if they cried to him; much more will he put a favourable construction upon the groanings of his own children, though sometimes so feeble that they cannot be uttered, Rom. viii. 26. The beasts are here said to cry unto God, as from him the lions seek their meat (Ps. civ. 21) and the young ravens, Job xxxviii. 41. The complaints of the brute-creatures here are for want of water (The rivers are dried up, through the excessive heat), and for want of grass, for the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness. And what better are those than beasts who never cry to God but for corn and wine, and complain of nothing but the want of delight of sense? Yet their crying to God in those cases shames the stupidity of those who cry not to God in any case.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
He afterwards adds, sanctify a fast, call an assembly, gather the old, all the inhabitants of the land. קדש kodash means to sanctify and to prepare; but I have retained its proper meaning, sanctify a fast; for the command had regard to the end, that is, sanctification. Then a fast proclaim — for what purpose? That the people might purge themselves from all their pollutions, and present themselves pure and clean before God. Call an assembly. It appears that there was a solemn convocation whenever a fast was proclaimed among the people: for it was not enough for each one privately at home to abstain from food, except all confessed openly, with one mouth and one consent, that they were guilty before God. Hence with a fast was connected a solemn profession of repentance. The uses and ends of a fast, we know, are various: but when the Prophet here speaks of a solemn fast, he doubtless bids the people to come to it suppliantly, as the guilty are wont to do, who would deprecate punishment before a judge, that they may obtain mercy from him. In the second chapter there will be much to say on fasting: I only wish now briefly to touch on the subject.
He afterwards bids the old to be gathered, and then adds, All the inhabitants of the land. But he begins with the old, and justly so, for the guilt of the old is always the heaviest. But this word relates not to age as in a former instance. When he said yesterday, ‘Hear ye, the aged,’ he addressed those who by long experience had learnt in the world many things unknown to the young or to men of middle age. But now the Prophet means by the old those to whom was intrusted the public government; and as through their slothfulness they had suffered the worship of God and all integrity to fall into decay, rightly does the Prophet wish them to be leaders and precursors to the people in their confession of repentance; and further, it behaved them, on account of their office, as we have said of the priests, to lead the way. Joel at the same time shows that the whole people were implicated in guilt, so that none could be excepted, for he bids them all to come with the elders.
Call them, he says, to the house of Jehovah your God, and cry ye to Jehovah. We hence learn why he had spoken of fasting and of sackcloth, even that they might humbly deprecate God’s wrath; for fasting of itself would have been useless, and to put on sackcloth, we know, is in itself but an empty sign: but prayer is what the Prophet sets here in the highest rank, and fasting is only an appendage, and so is sackcloth. Whosoever then puts on sackcloth and withholds prayer, is guilty of mockery; and no one can derive any good from mere fasting; but when fasting and sackcloth are added to prayer, and are as it were handmaids, then they are not uselessly practiced. We may then observe, that the end of fasting and sackcloth was no other, than that the priests together with the whole people, might present themselves suppliantly before God, and confess themselves worthy of destruction, and that they had no hope except from his gratuitous mercy. This is the meaning.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(14) A solemn assembly.The Hebrew word strictly means a festival day, on which the people gathered themselves together, being relieved from work. Here they are summoned for a fast. The word may also be translated, as in the margin, a day of restraint, its root signifying to shut, to hold back.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Joe 1:14 Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders [and] all the inhabitants of the land [into] the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD,
Ver. 14. Sanctify ye a fast ] Having humbled yourselves, preach repentance to others. That is the best sermon that is digged out of a man’s own breast. “Sanctify yourselves first, and then prepare your brethren,” saith Josiah to the priests of his time, 2Ch 35:6 . A religious fast (for that the prophet intends here by sanctify), rightly observed and referred to religious ends, is both a testimony of true repentance, and a furtherance thereunto; for it tames the rebel flesh, 1Co 9:27 , which else will wantonize and overtop the spirit, Deu 32:15 . And it giveth wings to our prayers, which before grovelled on the ground, as it were. Fasting inflameth prayer; and prayer sanctifieth fasting.
Sanctify therefore a fast, call a solemn assembly
Gather the elders
And all the inhabitants of the land
Into the house of the Lord your God
Of the Lord your God
And cry unto the Lord
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
a solemn assembly = a day of restraint. Hebrew. ‘azarah. Occurs only here, in Joe 2:15; 2Ki 10:20; and Isa 1:13. Reference to Pentateuch (Lev 23:36. Num 29:35. Deu 16:8) where the feminine form ‘azereth is used (App-92). It is found also in 2Ch 7:9, Neh 8:18.
gather the elders. There being no mention of a king in this book is held by some as pointing to the time of Athaliah’s usurpation. But see notes on p. 1224, and App-77.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Sanctify: Joe 2:15, Joe 2:16, 2Ch 20:3, 2Ch 20:4
solemn assembly: or, day of restraint, Lev 23:36, Neh 8:18
the elders: Deu 29:10, Deu 29:11, 2Ch 20:13, Neh 9:2, Neh 9:3
cry: Jon 3:8
Reciprocal: Lev 23:2 – proclaim Num 10:2 – the calling Deu 16:8 – solemn assembly Jdg 20:18 – house of Jdg 20:26 – wept 2Sa 12:22 – I fasted 2Ki 10:20 – Proclaim 2Ch 7:9 – solemn assembly Ezr 8:21 – I proclaimed Neh 9:1 – children Est 4:16 – fast Isa 1:13 – the new Amo 5:16 – Wailing Jon 3:5 – and proclaimed Zep 2:1 – gather together Mal 1:9 – beseech
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Joe 1:14. The law of Moses did not require fasting as a regular practice, hut on special occasions the Lord called for it, and the present is one of them. Most of the gatherings had been turned into mere formalities that left no beneficial results upon the minds of the people. Now the Lord calls for them to sanctify a fast, which means to put on a season of fasting that, is holy because it is sincere and observed from respect for God, The leaders were to assemble the people in the temple because that was the lawful place for public worship and prayers to God, They were to cry unto the Lord because of the great, tniqutty of the land, and the distress that it was going to bring upon it as a punishment.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Joe 1:14. Sanctify ye a fast, &c. In order to avert Gods wrath and deprecate his judgments. Gather the elders, &c., into the house of the Lord The house where God hath placed his name, and where he hath promised to hear the prayers which are addressed to him by his people, when they are afflicted with judgments of this kind: see 1Ki 8:37.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
C. A call to repent 1:14
Joel called on the priests not only to mourn (Joe 1:13) but also to assemble all the people at the temple for a solemn fast. Such fasts indicated national repentance in Israel’s history (cf. 1Sa 7:6; Neh 9:1-2; Jer 36:9; Jon 3:5). Here, as usual, fasting combined with praying to the Lord. The people would pray to Him for mercy and for renewed blessing and would demonstrate their sincerity and urgency by going without food while they prayed.