14 Let a time be fixed for going without food, have a holy meeting, let the old men, even all the people of the land, come together to the house of the Lord your God, crying out to the Lord. 15 Sorrow for the day! for the day of the Lord is near, and as destruction from the Ruler of all it will come. 16 Is not food cut off before our eyes? joy and delight from the house of our God? 17 The grains have become small and dry under the spade; the store-houses are made waste, the grain-stores are broken down; for the grain is dry and dead. 18 What sounds of pain come from the beasts! the herds of cattle are at a loss because there is no grass for them; even the flocks of sheep are no longer to be seen. 19 O Lord, my cry goes up to you: for fire has put an end to the grass-lands of the waste, and all the trees of the field are burned with its flame. 20 The beasts of the field are turning to you with desire: for the water-streams are dry and fire has put an end to the grass-lands of the waste.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Joel 1:14-20
Commentary on Joel 1:14-20
(Read Joel 1:14-20)
The sorrow of the people is turned into repentance and humiliation before God. With all the marks of sorrow and shame, sin must be confessed and bewailed. A day is to be appointed for this purpose; a day in which people must be kept from their common employments, that they may more closely attend God's services; and there is to be abstaining from meat and drink. Every one had added to the national guilt, all shared in the national calamity, therefore every one must join in repentance. When joy and gladness are cut off from God's house, when serious godliness decays, and love waxes cold, then it is time to cry unto the Lord. The prophet describes how grievous the calamity. See even the inferior creatures suffering for our transgression. And what better are they than beasts, who never cry to God but for corn and wine, and complain of the want of the delights of sense? Yet their crying to God in those cases, shames the stupidity of those who cry not to God in any case. Whatever may become of the nations and churches that persist in ungodliness, believers will find the comfort of acceptance with God, when the wicked shall be burned up with his indignation.