Catholic Commentary on Joel 1

“Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your ancestors?” (Joel 1:2)

The Book of Joel

Joel is a prophet whose precise historical context is debated; most scholars place him in Judah, possibly in the fifth or fourth century BC. His book is structured in two halves: a locust plague and drought that serve as the occasion for a call to national repentance (chapters 1-2), and the promise of the Spirit and the day of the LORD (chapters 2-3). The book is brief but immensely influential: Peter quotes it on Pentecost as the fulfilment of the Spirit's outpouring, and the day of the LORD theme dominates New Testament eschatology.

The opening summons every generation to witness: has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your ancestors? Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. The locust swarm has devastated the land. The grain offering and drink offering are cut off from the house of the LORD. Hear this, you elders; listen, all who live in the land. Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests; wail, you who minister before the altar.

The Catechism identifies the call to communal lamentation in Joel as the model of the Church's penitential practice: the community that suffers together is called to pray together (CCC 1430).

Living the Word

Brothers and sisters, tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children. The catastrophe is not to be suppressed but transmitted: the story of what God permitted and what the people experienced is the curriculum for the next generation's faith. The crisis becomes the catechesis. What are you transmitting from your crisis to your children?

Prayer

Lord God, let every catastrophe we survive become the story we tell our children about who you are. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Joel
1
The Invasion of Locusts
1 This is the word of the LORD that came to Joel son of Pethuel:
 
2 Hear this, O elders;
and give ear, all who dwell in the land.
Has anything like this ever happened in your days
or in the days of your fathers?
3 Tell it to your children;
let your children tell it to their children,
and their children to the next generation.
4 What the devouring locust has left,
the swarming locust has eaten;
what the swarming locust has left,
the young locust has eaten;
and what the young locust has left,
the destroying locust has eaten.* 1:4 The precise identification of the four kinds of locusts mentioned here is uncertain.
 
5 Wake up, you drunkards, and weep;
wail, all you drinkers of wine,
because of the sweet wine,
for it has been cut off from your mouth.
6 For a nation has invaded My land,
powerful and without number;
its teeth are the teeth of a lion,
and its fangs are the fangs of a lioness.
7 It has laid waste My grapevine
and splintered My fig tree.
It has stripped off the bark and thrown it away;
the branches have turned white.
A Call to Mourning
 
8 Wail like a virgin dressed in sackcloth,
grieving for the husband of her youth.
9 Grain and drink offerings have been cut off
from the house of the LORD;
the priests are in mourning,
those who minister before the LORD.
10 The field is ruined;
the land mourns.
For the grain is destroyed,
the new wine is dried up, and the oil fails.
11 Be dismayed, O farmers,
wail, O vinedressers,
over the wheat and barley,
because the harvest of the field has perished.
12 The grapevine is dried up,
and the fig tree is withered;
the pomegranate, palm, and apple-
all the trees of the orchard-are withered.
Surely the joy of mankind has dried up.
A Call to Repentance
(Amos 5:4-15; Zephaniah 2:1-3; Luke 13:1-5)
 
13 Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests;
wail, O ministers of the altar.
Come, spend the night in sackcloth,
O ministers of my God,
because the grain and drink offerings
are withheld from the house of your God.
14 Consecrate a fast;
proclaim a solemn assembly!
Gather the elders
and all the residents of the land
to the house of the LORD your God,
and cry out to the LORD.
 
15 Alas for the day!
For the Day of the LORD is near,
and it will come
as destruction from the Almighty.† 1:15 Hebrew Shaddai
16 Has not the food been cut off
before our very eyes-
joy and gladness
from the house of our God?
17 The seeds lie shriveled beneath the clods;
the storehouses are in ruins;
the granaries are broken down,
for the grain has withered away.
18 How the cattle groan!
The herds wander in confusion
because they have no pasture.
Even the flocks of sheep are suffering.
 
19 To You, O LORD, I call,
for fire has consumed the open pastures
and flames have scorched all the trees of the field.
20 Even the beasts of the field pant for You,
for the streams of water have dried up,
and fire has consumed the open pastures.

*1:4 1:4 The precise identification of the four kinds of locusts mentioned here is uncertain.

†1:15 1:15 Hebrew Shaddai

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