Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Joel 1:19
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.
19. Unto thee, O Jehovah, do I cry ] the prophet, speaking (as Joe 1:6-7 ; Joe 1:13) in the nation’s name, turns for help to Jehovah, who “saveth men and cattle” (Psa 36:6).
fire ] either fig. of the intense heat of the sun, or (comp. on Amo 7:4) of the conflagrations kindled among the parched herbage during a drought. The words might, however, be simply a poetical description of the ravages of the locusts themselves (cf. Joe 2:3 a).
the pastures of the wilderness ] Joe 1:20, Joe 2:22; Jer 9:10; Jer 23:10; Psa 65:12. “Wilderness” does not mean the desert: midbr (properly, a place for driving cattle) denotes land which is unenclosed, and uncultivated, especially a broad prairie or steppe, but not land which is destitute of pasturage.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
O Lord, to Thee will I cry – This is the only hope left, and contains all hopes. From the Lord was the infliction; in Him is the healing. The prophet appeals to God by His own Name, the faithful Fulfiller of His promises, Him who Is, and who had promised to hear all who call upon Him. Let others call to their idols, if they would, or remain stupid and forgetful, the prophet would cry unto God, and that earnestly.
For the fire hath devoured the pastures – The gnawing of locusts leaves things, as though scorched by fire (see the note at Joe 2:3); the sun and the east wind scorch up all green things, as though it had been the actual contact of fire. Spontaneous combustion frequently follows. The Chaldees wasted all before them with fire and sword. All these and the like calamities are included under the fire, whose desolating is without remedy. What has been scorched by fire never recovers . The famine, it is said of Mosul, was generally caused by fire spreading in dry weather over pastures, grass lands, and grain lands, many miles in extent. It burnt night and day often for a week and sometimes embraced the whole horizon.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Joe 1:19
O Lord, to Thee will I cry.
Adding prayers to complaints
Turn thy complaint into prayer, or else it is but a murmuring against God. It is by prayer we make our sorrowful hearts known to God. The reasons of this doctrine are–
1. Because God forgetteth not the complaints of the poor; i.e., of those that pray unto Him. Otherwise He remembereth no more the poor mans envy than the rich mans quarrel. Therefore let this stir us up to make our complaint in prayer.
2. When men do only complain of this or that want without prayer they tempt God; therefore if we will obtain anything at the Lords hand for our good, let us ask by prayer.
3. Let us learn to ask of God without murmuring or grudging at our own estate, or the Lords hand; for the Lord will complain as fast on us as we complained to Him.
4. Another use is this,–that if complainers without praying be odious in the Lords sight, although the cause be indifferent, then much more are those that never pray but for unlawful and filthy things, that they may bestow them on their lusts, as the apostle saith. (Edw. Topsell.)
Prayer to God against terrible judgments
The prophet now turns from the people of Judah, with whom he could prevail but little, and cries to God as he stands in the midst, of the universal plague. It is often a relief for Christian workers to leave the society of hardened men for communion with Jehovah. Prayer is sometimes their only refuge and strength.
I. That this prayer was wisely directed to the only Giver of the true remedy. O Lord, to Thee will I cry.
1. It was wisely directed. He sought unto God in this time of peril. He did not pray unto any idols, but unto the true God, the Maker of the heaven and the earth. Jehovah had sent the calamity, and He only could remove it. Sorrow should send us to God.
2. It was earnestly presented. The prophet cried unto the Lord with all the energy of his being. His was no languid petition. Sorrow should make men earnest in devotion.
3. It was widely representative. The prophet did not merely pray on his own behalf; he remembered the universal woe around him, and caught up the pain-cry of nature and of the brute, and expressed it in his own prayer. He prayed as the groaning herds could not. A good man is the priest of the universe, especially in the hour of calamity.
II. That this prayer was prompted by a sad appre hension of the calamity it sought to remove. For the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field. The prophet recognised the severity of the calamity which had come upon the nation. And it is essential to prayer that we should have a clear apprehension of the sorrow to be relieved, of the sin to be removed, and of the want to be supplied; prayer should always include a good knowledge of the conditions and circumstances under which it is presented and which it hopes to ameliorate.
III. That in this prayer was united the inarticulate pleadings of suffering brutes. The beasts of the field cry also unto Thee: for the rivers of waters are dried up, etc. We are not to suppose that the cry of the brutes was one with the cry of the prophet; one was the outcome of pious intelligence, the other was the outcome of blind instinct (Psa 147:9; Job 30:41). Lessons–
1. That a sorrowful soul should pray to God for aid.
2. That the soul must feel its need before it can expect relief.
3. That man should consider the pain of the inferior creatures, and never render himself liable to their rebuke. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The influence of national calamities on the minds of the good
It is a question whether the fire and flame are to be taken literally as burning the grass, or whether they are used figuratively. Probably the reference is to the burning heat in drought which consumes the meadows, scorches the trees, and dries up the water-brooks. The effect of national calamity on Joel was to excite him to prayer, to compel him to lay the case before the Lord. Having called the attention of all classes of the community to the terrible judgments, he turns his soul in a devout supplication to Almighty God.
I. This was right. Prayer is right.
1. God requires it.
2. Christ engaged in it. He is our example.
II. This was wise. Who else could remove the calamity and restore the ruin? None. When all earthly resources fail, where else can we go but to Him who originates all that is good, and controls all that is evil? True prayer is always wise, because–
1. It seeks the highest good.
2. By the best means.
III. This was natural. The beasts of the field also cry unto Thee. What better, says an old author, are they than beasts, who never cry to God but for corn and wine, and complain of nothing but the wants of sense? Conclusion. It is well when our trials lead us in prayer to God. The greatest calamities are termed the greatest blessings when they act thus. Hail the tempests, if they drive our bark into the quiet haven of prayer! (Homilist.)
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Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 19. O Lord, to thee will I cry] Let this calamity come as it may, we have sinned, and should humble ourselves before God; and it is such a calamity as God alone can remove, therefore unto him must we cry.
The fire hath devoured the pastures] This may either refer to a drought, or to the effects of the locusts; as the ground, after they have passed over it, everywhere appears as if a sheet of flame had not only scorched, but consumed every thing.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
O Lord, Maker and Preserver of these poor famished cattle,
to thee will I cry: either it is the prophets prayer he maketh, or a form prescribed for the priests.
The fire; the immoderate heats, or else the scorching and blasting flashes of fire in the air, which in those hot countries are more frequent and more precious than in colder climates.
Hath devoured the pastures; the fruitful and pleasant places where shepherds pitched their tents, and were used to feed their sheep, all are parched and dried as if burned with fire.
Of the wilderness; either because the shepherds chose to pitch their tents far from cities and towns; or else because in those vast wildernesses there were some fruitful pastures scattered up and down, some lower places of springs and water-courses.
The flame, the flashes of fire from the clouds, or in the air, without thunder, or else lightnings with thunder,
hath burnt all the trees, that they neither afford their fruit, their shade, or their green boughs for browse for the relief of man or beast. This extreme desolation should affect them all; it doth shame the sinfully Senseless among them; and it is a good argument to use with God, whose creatures they are as well as man.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
19. to thee will I cryJoelhere interposes, As this people is insensible to shame or fear andwill not hear, I will leave them and address myself directly to Thee(compare Isa 15:5; Jer 23:9).
firethat is, theparching heat.
pastures“grassyplaces”; from a Hebrew root “to be pleasant.”Such places would be selected for “habitations” (Margin).But the English Version rendering is better than Margin.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
O Lord, to thee will I cry,…. Or pray, as the Targum; with great vehemency and earnestness, commiserating the case of man and beast: these are the words of the prophet, resolving to use his interest at the through of grace in this time of distress, whatever others did:
for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness; or, “of the plain” c though in the wildernesses of Judea, there were pastures for cattle: Kimchi interprets them of the shepherds’ tents or cotes, as the word d is sometimes used; which were will not to be pitched where there were pastures for their flocks: and so the Targum renders it, “the habitations of the wilderness”; these, whether pastures or habitations, or both, were destroyed by fire, the pastures by the locusts, as Kimchi; which, as Pliny e says, by touching burn the trees, herbs, and fruits of the earth; see Joe 2:3; or by the Assyrians or Chaldeans, who by fire and sword consumed all in their way; or by a dry burning blasting wind, as Lyra; and so the Targum interprets it of a strong east wind like fire: it seems rather to design extreme heat and excessive drought, which burn up all the produce of the earth:
and the flame hath burnt all the trees of the field; which may be understood of flashes of lightning, which are common in times of great heat and drought; see Ps 83:14.
c “non tantum desertum significat sed et campum sativum”, Oecolampadius. “A place of pasture for cattle”, Ben Melech. d “caulas”, Piscator. So Ben Melech. e Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 29.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
When the Prophet saw that he succeeded less than he expected, leaving the people, he speaks of what he would do himself, I will cry to thee, Jehovah. He had before bidden others to cry, and why does he not now press the same thing? Because he saw that the Jews were so deaf and listless as to make no account of all his exhortations: he therefore says, “ I will cry to thee, Jehovah; for they are touched neither by shame nor by fear. Since they throw aside every regard for their own safety, since they account as nothing my exhortations I will leave them, and will cry to thee;” which means this, — “I see, Lord, that all these calamities proceed from thy hand; I will not howl as profane men do, but I will ascribe them to thee; for I perceive thee to be acting as a judge in all the evils which we suffer.” Having then before declared that the Jews were more tardy than brute animals and having reproached them for feeling less acutely than oxen and sheep, the Prophet now says, that though they all remained obstinate, he would yet do what a pious man and a worshipper of God ought to do, I will cry to thee — Why? Because the fire has consumed the pastures, or the dwellings, of the wilderness.
He here again gives an awful record of God’s judgments. Though the heat may burn up whole regions, yet we know that pasture-lands do not soon wither, especially on mountains; and of such cold pastures he speaks here. We know that however great may be the fertility of mountains, yet coolness prevails there, and that, in the greatest drought, the mountainous regions are ever green. But the Prophet tells us here of an unusual thing, that the dwellings of the wilderness were burnt up. Some render נאות naut pastures; others, dwellings: but as to the meaning, we may read either; for the Prophet refers here to cold and humid regions, which never want moisture in the greatest heats. Some render the word, the beautiful or fair spots of the wilderness, but improperly. He doubtless means pastures, or dwellings, or folds. The fire then has consumed the dwellings, or pastures of the wilderness. This was not usual; it did not happen according to the ordinary course of nature: it then follows that it was a miracle. This is the reason why the Prophet says, that it was now time to cry to God; for it did not appear to be fortuitous, that the heat had burnt up regions which were moist and well watered. The flame, he says hath burnt up all the trees of the field.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL NOTES.]
Joe. 1:19.] Beasts cry to God, but man hears not; the prophet is touched and cries for the impenitent. To thee] beasts even lift their heads in dumb appeal, and to thee I cry, for thou art the only hope (Isa. 15:5; Jer. 23:9), amid the insensibility of man, the distress of nations, and the judgments of providence.
HOMILETICS
STUPIDITY IN NATIONAL CALAMITIES REPROVED BY BRUTES AND GOOD MEN.Joe. 1:19-20
The fact that irrational creatures suffer with man should make him cautious in his conduct. If the people neglect the warnings of the prophet, they should heed the cries of the brute creation. Both the animal and vegetable world are included in mans destiny for good or for evil. Should we be silent when beasts implore help?
I. Some men are insensible to sin in great national calamities. The drought had consumed the pastures of the field, burned the trees of the forest, and dried up the waterbrooks, but Israel did not see the hand of God in this. Man is a creature of emotion, and is bound to acquaint himself with all the phenomena calculated to move him; to estimate them according to their design, and to carry out the emotions which they produce into final acts. Every object is adapted to produce a certain state of mind. The hand of God in history, the judgments of God in nations, should be read and observed by us. If we discern not the presence of God, if through selfishness and hardness of heart we despise the chastisements of God, we aggravate our sin and unbelief. God has placed us in certain relations to himself and his works as sentient and intelligent beings. We have capacities higher than brutes, can see and hear God in his dispensations, and live habitually under a sense of duty. But the complaint is often made, Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. For God speaketh once, yea, twice, yet man perceiveth it not.
II. This insensibility to sin in great national calamities is censurable. Men ought to feel in distress. If they do not they violate their own nature and disregard the voice of God.
1. Brutes reprove insensible men. The beasts of the field cry also unto thee. They depend upon God, and he gives them their meat in due season (Psa. 145:15). When young lions lack and suffer hunger, they seek their meat from God (Psa. 104:21). They enjoy the gifts of nature with sensitive pleasure and apparent gratitude. But men are heedless of their groans, stupid in their folly, and turn not to God in their trouble. The stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of God.
2. Gods people reprove insensible men. The prophet stirs them up by his own example. If no one else will call upon God, O Lord, to thee will I cry. When others are unmoved Gods people are touched with national calamities. They set others an example, and seek to provoke them to repentance and return to God.
1. An example of penitence. The heart of the prophet was deeply moved for innocent creatures and for ungodly men. We hear his sighs, see his tears, and dwell upon his words. He comes before us, an embodiment of the spiritual and personal duty he teaches. He is the prophet of repentance, and sees in the judgments of God motives to repentance. National sins brought national affliction, and should cause national humiliation.
2. An example of patriotism. Gods people are as keenly alive to the interests and dangers of the nations as others. The Hebrew prophets were patriots and statesmen, to whom nothing that affected the national welfare was alien or indifferent. May Heaven save my country, cried a British legislator. So good men see God in everything; point out the real causes of suffering; the operation of moral under physical law; and lament the state of the country and the condition of the people. For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle.
3. An example of prayer. The prophet turned to God, our only hope in distress. In public calamity men write pamphlets, make speeches, and enact laws to meet and overcome it. But the man of God goes to the root of evil, and points out its only cure. He holds the principles of Divine life in his soul, believes that individual circumstances and national events are controlled by Gods will, and sees in present visitations the future results to the wicked and the righteous. God was working out his mysterious purposes, and he prays that the visitations of anger may be turned into corrective discipline. As Abraham prayed for the cities of the plain and Moses for the tribes of Israel, so Joel betakes himself to Jehovah. O Lord, to thee I will cry: for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
Lord, what a change within us one short hour
Spent in thy presence will prevail to make,
What heavy burdens from our bosoms take;
What parched grounds refresht as with a shower?
We kneel, and all around us seems to lower;
We rise, and allthe distant and the near
Stands forth in sunny outline, brave and clear[Trench].
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
There is an order in these distresses. First he points out the insensate things wasted; then those afflicted, which have sense only; then those endowed with reason; so that to the order of calamity there may be consorted an order of pity, sparing first the creature, then the things sentient, then things rational [Pusey].
Beasts cry. I. The dependence of all creatures upon God. II. The compassion of God to all creatures
1. In removing their sufferings.
2. In supplying their wants. An argument against cruelty to animals and a motive to prayer. If God hears the cries of dumb animals will he not hear our prayers?
The double purpose of Divine judgments upon a nation
1. Restoration of land.
2. Improvement of men.
1. A suffering world in sympathy with suffering man. What a mystery mans sin, desolating the land, blighting the trees, and adding to the groans of the brute creation! The whole creation, animate and inanimate, touched by the fall of man! What evidences of sin! What motives to repentance!
2. A beneficent world in sympathy with restored man. A cheering thought that true penitence and restoration to God will give pasture to flocks, beauty to flowers, and freshness to the landscape. New heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 1
Joe. 1:19-20. Animal sensibility forms a perpetual appeal to human sensibility, and is an important means of its improvement. The progressiveness of creation is made subservient to the moral education and advancement of the human race. A single alteration throws the whole into disorder. What a picture, then, for man to be ungrateful, insensible, and rebellious in the sufferings of nature for his conduct!
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(19) The fire hath devoured.This may be explained as produced by the scorching heat bringing about spontaneous combustion, or by the efforts of the people to exterminate the locusts by burning the trees, or by the mark, as of fire, left upon all vegetation after the locusts had finished their work of devastation.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
The Young Locusts Appear As A Judgment From God Despite All Efforts To Prevent Them ( Joe 1:19 to Joe 2:3 ).
It may well be that after describing the initial locust invasions in chapter 1 Joel now goes on to deal with the next stage of the invasions when the locust eggs hatch out and become voracious grubs and then small grasshoppers.
Locusts tend to swarm when the weather is very hot, so that the opening words of this passage may refer to fires caused by a hot, dry summer. This would explain why the water brooks had dried up. But equally well it may apply to fires started by farmers desperate to save some of their crops and fruit trees from the advancing locusts. Or indeed both may be in mind. Fires were, in fact, the only way in which the desperate farmers could set up a barrier against the advancing young locust hordes, even if it often failed in its purpose. It was felt to be better than doing nothing, and as the farmers got more desperate the fires would become larger.
Joel appears speaking in Jerusalem where news has come in of the locust invasion and its effects, which he interprets as a Day of YHWH, a day when YHWH is exercising His judgment. And he calls on the priests to blow the ram’s horns to sound the alarm before the hopping locusts arrive in Jerusalem. He also calls all the people to tremble at the fearsome nature of what is happening, and then describes the sight of the approach of the yellow-winged swarming locusts out of the morning sun in terms of the dawn spreading on the mountains. And so great are the different swarms of locusts that he describes them as being unlike anything seen before, in terms similar to those used of the swarm of locusts in Exo 10:14, compare also Exo 10:6.
He then reiterates his description of the burning fields, possibly set on fire to battle against the locusts, and also with it describes the effects of the passing of the young locusts on the vegetation of the land, turning the land from fruitful land into a barren wilderness.
Analysis of Joe 1:19 to Joe 2:3 .
a
b Blow you the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain, let all the inhabitants of the land tremble (Joe 2:1 a)
c For the day of YHWH has come, because a day of darkness and gloominess is near, a day of clouds and thick darkness (Joe 2:2 a).
b As the dawn spreads on the mountains, a great people and a strong, there has not ever been the like, nor will be any more after them, even to the years of many generations (Joe 2:2 b).
a A fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns, the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness, yes, and none has escaped them (Joe 2:3).
Note that in ‘a’ the fire burn throughout the land, and in the parallel the same occurs. In ‘b’ the alarm is sounded and the people tremble, and in parallel is what they tremble at, the huge invasion of young locusts streaming over the land. Centrally in ‘c’ it is the day of YHWH, a day of gloom and darkness.
Joe 1:19-20
O YHWH, to you do I cry,
Because the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness,
And the flame has burned all the trees of the countryside,
Yes, the beasts of the field pant to you,
Because the water brooks are dried up,
And the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.’
The passage commences with a heartfelt cry to YHWH as he learns of the way that the fields are burning as a result of the farmers’ efforts to hold back the army of young locusts. What the locusts had not eaten the fires were destroying. And the consequence was that the wild animals could only call on YHWH because water had become short, and the fires had devoured their pastures in the wilderness.
The land may well also have been suffering under semi-drought conditions, the type of hot summers that often brought out swarms of locusts in large numbers, thus causing the water brooks to dry up, a process hastened by the fires now partly out of control.
Joe 2:1
‘Blow you the ram’s horn in Zion,
And sound an alarm in my holy mountain,
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
For the day of YHWH has come.
Observing what he did, and recognising that it came from the hand of YHWH, Joel called on the priests to blow the ram’s horn, sounding the alarm from the holy mountain (probably the Temple mount) to all who were round about. And he wanted it to shake up the inhabitants and make them tremble as they recognised that the day of YHWH had come, the time of His judgment of Judah.
This was not, of course the final day of YHWH as he recognised, for he describes that in chapter 3. Rather it was a localised ‘day of YHWH’ aimed at the present generation.
Joe 2:2
For a day of darkness and gloominess is near,
A day of clouds and thick darkness,
As the dawn spreads on the mountains,
A great people and a strong,
There has not ever been the like,
Nor will be any more after them,
Even to the years of many generations.’
He expands on what this day which has come near is like. It is a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness (compare Amo 5:18-20; Zep 1:15), both to their spirits psychologically and to their eyes literally, as the huge mass of flying locusts blotted out the sun. And as he does so he lifts his eyes and sees the sun glinting on the yellow wings of the locusts, seeing them as being like the dawn spreading on the mountains.
His description of them as ‘a great people and strong’ is reminiscent in its use of people of Pro 30:25, ‘the ants are a people not strong’ where locusts are also mentioned ‘having no king’ over them. The Jews therefore saw insects which came together in large numbers as ‘peoples’. Compare also Joe 1:6. The statement that ‘there has not ever been the like, nor will be any more after them, even to the years of many generations’ is reminiscent of Exo 10:14 where in describing the plague of locusts in Egypt Moses says, ‘before them there were no such locusts as they, nor after them will be such’. This demonstrates that both statements were hyperbole, and that neither has in mind a final plague larger than any other. Indeed ‘even to the years of many generations’ limits the statement to a time in the not too distant future eschatologically speaking. It is simply saying that it was not of the norm and was something that only happened once, say, in a hundred years.
It is interesting, however, that God is often spoken of as being in darkness (Psa 18:11), and in clouds (Exo 16:10 and often; Psa 18:11-12) and thick darkness (Exo 20:21; Psa 18:9), in order to shield His glory from His creation, which is a reminder to us that even in the darkest hour God is with us. In the midst of the Day of YHWH He would still be watching over His own.
Joe 2:3
‘ A fire devours before them,
And behind them a flame burns,
The land is as the garden of Eden before them,
And behind them a desolate wilderness,
Yes, and none has escaped them.
Joel then draws attention to two aspects of the locust invasions, referring again to the fires lit both to prevent them moving forward, and in order to prevent them turning back, and to the effect of the voracious hordes on the land as they turned what was virtually a Garden of Eden (land in full growth) into a desolate wilderness denuded of all vegetation. The land was being doubly destroyed.
For the use of fire in driving back the locusts consider Dr Thomson’s words cited in the introduction, and how he also described how he vainly attempted to save his own garden from their depredations. ‘By the next morning the head of the column had reached my garden, and hiring eight or ten people I resolved to rescue at least my vegetables and flowers. During this day we succeeded by fire, and by beating them off the walls with brushes and branches, in keeping our little garden tolerably clear of them, but it was perfectly appalling to watch this animated river as it flowed up the road and ascended the hill above my house. At length, worn out with incessant skirmishing, I gave up the battle — and surrendered the remainder to the conquerors.’ We can therefore imagine the position of farmers and vineyard owners who saw their whole livelihood being destroyed.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Joe 1:19. For the fire hath devoured, &c. By the fire, is meant the fiery heat and drought which burned up all the pastures or pleasant places, both in the wilderness and in the valleys.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Here comes in to our relief the blessedness of that gospel, which under the conviction of sin, and a total inability to help ourselves, leads to Christ. For I hope, I need not point out to the Reader, what the whole of this Chapter; namely, that the eye of sin and sorrow loudly proclaims the necessity of salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ. The Prophet opens with sorrow, which is the effect of sin and closes the Chapter with what only becomes the relief for it. When a soul is convinced of sin, and feels the awful consequence of it, there is nothing that can give consolation to the wounded spirit, but the blood of Christ. 0 Lord, to thee do I cry! is the language of every heart taught by God the Holy Ghost. And the cry that is thus awakened by grace, is sure to be answered in mercy.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Joe 1:19 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.
Ver. 19. O Lord, to thee will I cry ] I will, though others will not. I have called upon others to cry mightily unto thee, and to meet thee by repentance; but they, tanquam monstra marina, as so many sea monsters, pass by my words with a deaf ear, they refuse to return. “Thy hand is lifted up” in threatening, and will fall down in punishing, but “they will not see,” Isa 26:11 , they will not search, they will not have their eyes (like the windows in Solomon’s temple) broad inward, 1Ki 6:4 ; the eyes of their minds are as ill set (for this matter) as the eyes of their bodies, they see not what is within. But whatever they do, “my soul shall weep in secret for their pride, and mine eyes shall weep sore,” &c., Jer 13:17 , for their insensibleness of their misery.
For the fire hath devoured the pastures
And the flame hath burnt all the trees of the field
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
to Thee will I cry. Compare Psa 50:15.
the fire. Compare Joe 2:3.
wilderness = common land.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
to thee: Psa 50:15, Psa 91:15, Mic 7:7, Hab 3:17, Hab 3:18, Luk 18:1, Luk 18:7, Phi 4:6, Phi 4:7
the fire: Joe 2:3, Jer 9:10, Amo 7:4
pastures: or habitations
Reciprocal: Jer 14:4 – the ground Joe 2:22 – for the pastures
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Joe 1:19, Hath ordinarily would denote a condition already present, but whether it was ail history or part prophecy, the point is that God was angry because of the iniquity of His people and determined to punish them.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Joe 1:19-20. O Lord, to thee will I cry The prophet carries on the beautiful hypotyposis, (or description of the calamity, painted in such strong and bright colours as rendered it, as it were, present before the eyes of the people,) by representing himself as a sharer in the calamity. And by crying to God himself, he endeavours to stir up the people to cry to him. For the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness The fiery drought hath burned up all the pasture-grounds. The wilderness is sometimes opposed to the hills and mountains, and then it signifies the plains and places for pasture. Or, if the expression be here understood of deserts, it must be observed, that there were spots in them where flocks and herds might feed. The beasts of the field also cry unto thee Even the cattle and wild beasts utter their complaints, and express their want of food by the mournful noise which they make, as it were beseeching thee to have pity on them and relieve their wants. Even they have a voice to cry, as well as an eye to look to God. The rivers of water are dried up The drought drying up the springs, the rivers have failed, and have little or no water in them. Thus, throughout the chapter, the prophet foretels a drought, as well as a plague of locusts; and these two calamities often go together, a great increase of locusts, according to Pliny and Bochart, being occasioned by heat.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Joel cried out to Yahweh in prayer in the distress that he shared with his countrymen. Fire had burned the dried pastures and trees, or perhaps drought like a fire had done so. The brooks were dry, and even the wild animals panted for water. Joel could say they panted for Yahweh because the Lord was the provider of the water these animals sought (cf. Psa 42:1). By panting for Yahweh these animals set a good example for the people of Judah and Jerusalem.