Matthew Henry on Joel 1:8-13
The judgment is here described as very lamentable, and such as all sorts of people should share in; it shall not only rob the drunkards of their pleasure (if that were the worst of it, it might be the better borne), but it shall deprive others of their necessary subsistence, who are therefore called to lament (Joe 1:8), as a virgin laments the death of her lover to whom she was espoused, but not completely married, yet so that he was in effect her husband, or as a young woman lately married, from whom the husband of her youth, her young husband, or the husband to whom she was married when she was young, is suddenly taken away by death. Between a new-married couple that are young, that marrie…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Joel 1:10
field . . . land--differing in that "field" means the open, unenclosed country; "land," the rich red soil (from a root "to be red") fit for cultivation. Thus, "a man of the field," in Hebrew, is a "hunter"; a "man of the ground" or "land," an "agriculturist" (Gen 25:27). "Field" and "land" are here personified.
new wine--from a Hebrew root implying that it takes possession of the brain, so that a man is not master of himself. So the Arabic term is from a root "to hold captive." It is already fermented, and so intoxicating, unlike the sweet fresh wine, in Joe 1:5, called also "new wine," though a different Hebrew word. It and "the oil" stand for the vine and the olive tree, from which the "…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Gill on Joel 1:10
The field is wasted,.... By the locust, that eat up all green things, the grass and herbs, the fruit and leaves of trees; and also by the Chaldeans trampling on it with their horses, and the increase of which became fodder for them:
the land mourneth; being destitute, nothing growing upon it, and so looked dismally, and of a horrid aspect; or the inhabitants of it, for want of provision:
for the corn is wasted; by the locusts, and so by the Assyrian or Chaldean army, before it came to perfection:
the new wine is dried up: in the grape, through the drought after mentioned: or, "is ashamed" (r); not answering the expectations of men, who saw it in the cluster, promising much, but failed:
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