How do lost provisions lead into fasting and prayer?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Successive consumption, halted offerings and suffering animals accompany Joel’s assembly call.

Chapter breakdown

The Lord's word comes to Joel, Phatuel's son. Elders and inhabitants are asked whether this happened in their or their fathers' days, and told to pass the report through generations. Palmerworm, locust, bruchus and mildew successively consume what remains. The edition offers literal insect devastation or different invasions by Chaldeans or other enemies; it does not name four successive world empires.

Drinkers are called to awake and mourn the loss of sweet wine. A strong, innumerable nation with lion-like teeth comes upon the land, wasting vines, stripping fig bark and whitening branches. Lament is likened to a sackcloth-clad virgin for her youthful husband. Sacrifice and libation cease in God's house, and priests mourn. Country and ground are destroyed; corn, wine and oil fail. Farmers and vinedressers mourn wheat and barley's lost harvest; fig, pomegranate, palm, apple and all field trees wither as human joy departs.

Priests must gird themselves, lament and lie in sackcloth, sanctify a fast, call an assembly, gather elders and inhabitants into God's house and cry to him. The Lord's day is near, like destruction from the mighty. Food and sanctuary gladness are cut off. Beasts rot in dung, barns are destroyed and storehouses broken as corn fails. Cattle groan without pasture, and sheep perish. Joel cries to God because fire consumes the wilderness's beautiful places and trees. Field beasts look to him like a garden bed thirsting for rain as springs dry. Seeds, wandering cattle and an exclusive causal remedy through fasting are not supplied.

The story inside

The edition preserves literal and invasion readings. The admitted text says beasts rot in dung. Priests gather elders and inhabitants to cry to God.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The edition preserves literal and invasion readings.
2
The admitted text says beasts rot in dung.
3
Priests gather elders and inhabitants to cry to God.

Test your recall

Which enemies does the note actually name?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 100120–100136
1:1. The word of the Lord, that came to Joel, the son of Phatuel. 1:2. Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land: did this ever happen in your days, or in the days of your fathers? 1:3. Tell ye of this to your children, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation. 1:4. That which the palmerworm hath left, the locust hath eaten: and that which the locust hath left, the bruchus hath eaten: and that which the bruchus hath left, the mildew hath destroyed. That which the palmerworm hath left, etc.... Some understand this literally of the desolation of the land by these insects: others understand it of the different invasions of the Chaldeans, or other enemies.
Lines 100138–100147
1:5. Awake, ye that are drunk, and weep, and mourn all ye that take delight; in drinking sweet wine: for it is cut off from your mouth. 1:6. For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number: his teeth are like the teeth of a lion: and his cheek teeth as of a lion’s whelp. 1:7. He hath laid my vineyard waste, and hath pilled off the bark of my fig tree: he hath stripped it bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white.
Lines 100152–100165
1:9. Sacrifice and libation is cut off from the house of the Lord: the priests, the Lord’s ministers, have mourned: 1:10. The country is destroyed, the ground hath mourned: for the corn is wasted, the wine is confounded, the oil hath languished. 1:11. The husbandmen are ashamed, the vinedressers have howled for the wheat, and for the barley, because the harvest of the field is perished. 1:12. The vineyard is confounded, and the fig tree hath languished: the pomegranate tree, and the palm tree, and the apple tree, and all the trees of the field are withered: because joy is withdrawn from the children of men.
Lines 100167–100176
1:13. Gird yourselves, and lament, O ye priests, howl, ye ministers of the altars: go in, lie in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: because sacrifice and libation is cut off from the house of your God. 1:14. Sanctify ye a fast, call an assembly, gather together the ancients, all the inhabitants of the land into the house of your God: and cry ye to the Lord: 1:15. Ah, ah, ah, for the day: because the day of the Lord is at hand, and it shall come like destruction from the mighty.
Lines 100178–100186
1:16. Is not your food cut off before your eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God? 1:17. The beasts have rotted in their dung, the barns are destroyed, the storehouses are broken down: because the corn is confounded. 1:18. Why did the beasts groan, why did the herds of cattle low? because there is no pasture for them: yea, and the flocks of sheep are perished.
Lines 100188–100195
1:19. To thee, O Lord, will I cry: because fire hath devoured the beautiful places of the wilderness: and the flame hath burnt all the trees of the country. 1:20. Yea, and the beasts of the field have looked up to thee, as a garden bed that thirsteth after rain, for the springs of waters are dried up, and fire hath devoured the beautiful places of the wilderness.