19 To you, Lord, I call, for fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness and flames have burned up all the trees of the field.
19 To you, O Lord, I call. For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flame has burned all the trees of the field.
19 God! I pray, I cry out to you! The fields are burning up, The country is a dust bowl, forest and prairie fires rage unchecked.
19 O Lord, to You I cry out; For fire has devoured the open pastures, And a flame has burned all the trees of the field.
19 Lord, help us! The fire has consumed the wilderness pastures, and flames have burned up all the trees.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Joel 1:19
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.