an oracle · noun, common masculine singular construct
LORD
יְהוָ֔הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
turn
שֻׁ֥בוּShu.vu
H7725
to turn back (hence · verb, qal imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
heart
לְבַבְכֶ֑םle.vav.Khem
H3824
the heart (as the most interior organ) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
fasting
וּבְצ֥וֹםu.ve.Tzom
H6685
a fast · conjunction + preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
weeping
וּבְבְכִ֖יu.ve.ve.Khi
H1065
a weeping · conjunction + preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
mourning
וּבְמִסְפֵּֽדu.ve.mis.Ped
H4553
a lamentation · conjunction + preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
James 4:8-9 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
Isaiah 55:6-7 Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:
2 Chronicles 7:13-14 If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people;
Hosea 12:6 Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually.
Jeremiah 29:12-13 Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you.
Jeremiah 4:1 If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the LORD, return unto me: and if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight, then shalt thou…
Hosea 6:1 Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.
Deuteronomy 4:29-30 But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Joel 2:12-17
We have here an earnest exhortation to repentance, inferred from that desolating judgment described and threatened in the foregoing verses: Therefore now turn you to the Lord. 1. "Thus you must answer the end and intention of the judgment; for it was sent for this end, to convince you of your sins, to humble you for them, to reduce you to your right minds and to your allegiance." God brings us into straits, that he may bring us to repentance and so bring us to himself. 2. "Thus you may stay the progress of the judgment. Things are bad with you, but thus you may prevent their growing worse; nay, if you take this course, they will soon grow better." Here is a gracious invitation,
I. To a perso…
With such judgments impending over the Jews, Jehovah Himself urges them to repentance.
also now--Even now, what none could have hoped or believed possible, God still invites you to the hope of salvation.
fasting . . . weeping . . . mourning--Their sin being most heinous needs extraordinary humiliation. The outward marks of repentance are to signify the depth of their sorrow for sin.
John Gill on Joel 2:12
Therefore also now, saith the Lord,.... Before this terrible and intolerable day, which is near at hand, comes; before these judgments and calamities threatened take place, though just at hand; serious repentance is never too late, now is the accepted time; see Luke 19:42;
turn ye even to me with all your heart; against whom they had sinned, and who had prepared his army against them, and was at the head of it, just ready to give the orders, and play his artillery upon them; and yet suggests, that even now, that if they turned to the Lord by true repentance, not, feignedly and hypocritically, but cordially and sincerely, with true hearts, and with their whole hearts, he was ready to receive…
I, the messenger of repentance, say unto you, Fear not the devil; for I was sent to be with you who repent with all your heart, and to make you strong in faith. Trust God, then, ye who on account of your sins have despaired of life, and who add to your sins and weigh down your life; for if ye return to the Lord with all your heart, and practise righteousness the rest of your days, and serve Him according to His will, He will heal your former sins, and you will have power to hold sway over the works of the devil.
Our Lord and Savior exhorts us through the prophet and advises us how we ought to come to him after much negligence, saying, "Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord who made us"; and again, "Return to me with your whole heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning." If we notice carefully, dearest brethren, the holy days of Lent signify the life of the present world, just as Easter prefigures eternal bliss. Now just as we have a kind of sadness in Lent in order that we may rightly rejoice at Easter, so as long as we live in this world we ought to do penance in order that we may be able to receive pardon for our sins in the future and arrive at eternal joy. Each one ought to sigh over his or her own sins, shed tears and give alms in such a way that with God's help he may always try to avoid the same faults as long as he lives. Just as there never has been, is not now and never will be a soul without slight sins, so with the help and assistance of God we ought to be altogether without serious sins.
(Verse 12 and following) Now therefore says the Lord: Turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning; and tear your hearts, not your clothing, and turn to the Lord your God; for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and relents from punishing. Who knows if he will turn and forgive, and leave a blessing behind him, a sacrifice and offering to the Lord your God? LXX: And now says the Lord our God: Turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, with sackcloth, with weeping, and with mourning; and tear your hearts, not your clothing, and turn to the Lord your God; for he is merciful and compassionate, patient and full of mercy, and repents of evil. Who knows if he will turn and have mercy on him, and leave behind him a blessing, sacrifice, and offering to the Lord our God? The beginning chapter from the place where it is written: Blow the trumpet in Zion, shout in my holy mountain; let all the inhabitants of the earth be troubled, until that place where we read: Great is the day of the Lord and very terrible, who shall be able to endure it? By the translation of locusts, it announces the coming of the Chaldeans, and what evil things are to come to the people. Now it provokes them to repentance, and exhorts them to turn to the Lord, so that, being corrected in their whole mind, they do not suffer what the Lord threatens, and the sense is: All the things that are contained in the previous discourse, therefore I have spoken, so that I might terrify you with my threat. But convert to me with your whole heart, and show repentance of the mind with fasting and weeping and lamentation; so that now, fasting, you may afterwards be satisfied; now, weeping, you may afterwards laugh; now, lamenting, you may afterwards be comforted. And because it is customary, in times of sadness and adversity, to tear one's garments, as the high priest is mentioned to have done to increase the guilt of the Savior in the Gospel (Matthew 26), and as we read that Paul and Barnabas, upon hearing words of blasphemy, did (Acts 14); therefore, I command you, never tear your garments, but rather the hearts that are full of sins, which, like wineskins, will burst open if they are not torn willingly. And when you have done this, return to your Lord God, whom your previous sins have made a stranger to you: and do not despair of the forgiveness of sins…
Dictionary and topics
Access To God · Vouchsafed to repenting sinners — See Repentance — Vouchsafed to repenting sinners — See Repentance
Anger Of God, The · Is averted upon confession of sin and repentance — Is averted upon confession of sin and repentance
Fasting · 35:13;69:10; — 35:13;69:10;
Nation · National adversity, prayer in — National adversity, prayer in
Seekers · 5:8;8:5,6; — 5:8;8:5,6;
Sins, National · Should be: Mourned over — Should be: Mourned over
Weeping · Penitential — Penitential
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Joel 2:12-13
12. Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:
12. Atque etiam nunc dicet Jehova, convertimini ad me in toto corde vestro, et in jejunio, et in fletu, et in planctu.
13. And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.
13. Et scindite cor vestrum, et non vestimenta vestra, et convertimini ad Jehovam Deum vestrum, quia ipse propitius et misericors, longus ad iram, et multus clementia, et poenitebit eum super malo.
The Prophet, having proclaimed the dreadful ju…
But there is still time to avert the completion of the judgment by sincere repentance and mourning; for God is merciful, and ready to forgive the penitent. Joe 2:12. "Yet even now, is the saying of Jehovah, turn ye to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning. Joe 2:13. And rend your heart and not your garments, and turn back to Jehovah your God; for He is gracious and merciful, long-suffering, and great in kindness, and suffers Himself to repent of the evil. Joe 2:14. Who knoweth He turns and repents, and leaves behind Him blessing, meat-offering and drink-offering for Jehovah your God?" As the plague of locusts was intended to bring the people to reflect…
Joel calls on the people to repent and throw themselves on the mercy of their compassionate God.
2:12 This verse begins with the words the Lord says, a phrase that frequently accompanies divine speeches in the prophets. This is the only time that it occurs in Joel (“says the Lord” in 3:1 is supplied by the translators), and it indicates that this gracious invitation came directly from God. • Turn to me now, while there is time: The Lord implored his people to repent because the day of judgment was near. There was still opportunity to avoid the coming destruction if they returned to the Lord their God with true repentance. • Unlike other prophets, Joel never catalogs the sins committed by th…
