Joel 1:18

18. Even the irrational animal world cries out in agony.

How do the beasts groan! Or, sob. Everyone knows that the cattle do not sob, but in a style like that of Joel such highly poetic personification is perfectly permissible. The fact that the verb is used nowhere else of animals is hardly sufficient reason for doubting its genuineness; it serves its purpose well; we can almost see the agony of the cattle and hear their sobs. The reading of the Septuagint, “What shall we lay up in them?” that is, the garners of Joel 1:17 (accepted as original by some scholars) is a weak close of Joel 1:17, and rests upon a misunderstanding of the Hebrew.

The herds of cattle are perplexed They look in vain for food, perplexed they huddle together, or go back and forth not knowing how to still their hunger, since the drought has withered the pastures. For “are perplexed” LXX. reads “weep,” which would make a good parallel to “sob.”

Yea, the flocks of sheep Intended for a climax; the sheep do not require as rich pasture as the cattle, yet even their limited wants cannot be supplied.

Are made desolate Literally, suffer punishment, or, are held guilty. In poetic style it may be permissible to speak of the animal world as suffering for sins committed by men, but the expression is peculiar. The translators have felt the difficulty, for they translate the Greek rather than the Hebrew, and most commentators follow LXX.

Overcome by the awful sight, the prophet in 19, 20 sends up to God an agonizing cry for deliverance. He seems to be prompted chiefly by the sufferings of the irrational, therefore guiltless, brute creation; the people deserve the blow.

To thee No one else can help, but Jehovah “preserveth man and beast” (Psalms 36:6).

Will I cry Better, do I cry.

Fire… flame Might be two figures for the excessive heat of the sun: like fire the rays consume the meadows and even scorch the trees; or simply a poetic description of the ravages of the locusts (Joel 2:3). Modern travelers do compare the ravages of the locusts to the destruction wrought by fire: “Whatever of herb or leaf they gnaw is, as it were, scorched by fire.” “I myself have observed that the places where they had browsed were as scorched as if the fire had passed there.” “They covered a square mile so completely that it appeared, at a little distance, to have been burned and strewed over with brown ashes.” (See also Pusey, on Joel 2:3.) It is not impossible, however, that the prophet has in mind an actual fire or conflagration, for these are not uncommon in Palestine during very dry summers. “Throughout the summer the prairie and forest fires are not uncommon; the grass and thistle of the desert will blaze for miles. (G.A. Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, 66).

Wilderness The English word suggests ideas that are entirely foreign to the Hebrew. The notion of a sandy waste must be banished. The Hebrew word designates a tract of land to which herds are driven, an uncultivated region, but one where pasturage, however scanty, may be found; usually without a settled population, although in certain districts there may be cities and towns occupied by nomads (Joshua 15:61-62; Isaiah 42:11). In Joel 1:18 the agony of the domestic animals is described, in Joel 1:20 that of the wild animals.

The beasts of the field They join the prophet in his petition, for they also are about to perish.

Cry Better, with R.V., “pant”; literally, ascend, with longing and desire, that God may turn away the affliction so that they may satisfy their hunger and their thirst. Even the wild beasts, though they can roam over a large territory, can find nothing to satisfy them. As a result of the continued drought the rivers (better, as R.V., “water brooks”) have run dry. The word really means channel, and refers to the water bed rather than to the water. During the rainy season in Palestine “every highland gorge, every lowland valley bed, is filled with a roaring torrent,” but during the dry season most of these river beds run dry; only a few of the streams are perennial. In the calamity described by Joel there are no exceptions, all are dried up. The address is rhetorically rounded off by the repetition of a clause from Joel 1:19.