Joel 1:9 - Exposition

The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the Lord; the priests, the Lord's ministers, mourn . While all the inhabitants of the land are called to lament, and have abundant cause for lamentation, different classes of society are specified, and the grounds of their sorrow particularized.

1 . The meat offering and drink offering accompanied the morning and evening sacrifice, and that sacrifice, with its accompaniments, being an expression of gratitude to God by a daily presentation to him of the firstfruits of his own mercies, was a visible memorial of Jehovah's covenant with his people; while the fact of its being cut off implied the cessation or suspension of that covenant and the people's exclusion from the covenanted mercies of God.

2 . But the ministering priests in particular had cause of mourning, indeed a twofold cause: