Joel and the Pandemic

[ZNP]

1 The word of Jehovah that came to Joel the son of Pethuel. 2 Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or in the days of your fathers?

There is no example, no precedent for what has happened. It is startling. For example, even though we have had plagues before that have killed millions, have we ever seen anything like this? The entire world shuts down?

3 Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. 4 That which [a]the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath [c]the canker-worm eaten; and that which the canker-worm hath left hath [d]the caterpillar eaten.

Every creature moves at God’s command. He is describing them like an assembly line in which the entire world’s economy is dismantled and consumed. The ability of this little virus to so completely destroy the economy is what makes this judgement so remarkable and unique.

5 Awake, ye drunkards, Awake from the drunken stupor. The people fail to see the hand of God in the terrible calamity. You can compare this virus to locusts. It was at the gates while these drunken revellers were still carrying on their feasts. and weep; and wail, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it is cut off from your mouth. 6 For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number; his teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the jaw-teeth of a lioness.

The term nation has the meaning not only of a people but of a foreign people. The bible often refers to creatures like ants and bees as “a people”. But this virus is not simpy a people but it is a “foreign people”. It devours everything. A lion doesn’t just eat the meat, it eats the bones, it will devour everything. And just like a lion, once it has the prey there is no hope of rescuing it from him.

7 He

Now it refers to this plague as “He”. It has been compared to insects, worms, a foreign nation, a lion, and now “He”. That is it represents every enemy that wastes the inheritance of God. “The prince of this world”. This plague will be used by those seeking a new world order to impose the mark of the beast.

 

[ZNP]

hath laid my vine waste, and [e]barked my fig-tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it [f]away; the branches thereof are made white.

The church is the vine tree, the Jewish nation is the fig tree. The gathering of believers in the church and in synagogues is the greatest threat to the prince of the power of the air, so they have attacked the church and God’s people during this age. As you have done it will be done to you, for 2,000 years “he” attacked and killed the church and the Jews, so in like ways God will do the same to them.

8 Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

The analogy is to a virgin lamenting because she has forfeited her marriage due to unworthy conduct. I go into detail on this point in the book of Habakkuk.

9 The meal-offering and the drink-offering are cut off from the house of Jehovah; the priests, Jehovah’s ministers, mourn.

All the outward and visible signs of communion with God are cut off.
Ellicot’s commentary

10 The field is laid waste, the land mourneth; for the grain is destroyed, the new wine is [g]dried up, the oil languisheth.

The field is where we work, where we labor. That has been laid waste. The land mourneth, you see this on the news, and on social media. The grain is our wealth, that is destroyed. The New wine is the delight of ife, that is dried up. The oil makes our face to shine, instead of shining we see languishing. People are weak, feeble, losing their vitality.

11 [h]Be confounded, O ye husbandmen, wail, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field is perished. Be struck with confusion.

Look at all the leaders, the “husbandmen” and the “vinedressers”. They don’t know what to do.

12 The vine is withered, and the fig-tree languisheth; the pomegranate-tree, the palm-tree also, and the apple-tree, even all the trees of the field are withered: for joy is [j]withered away from the sons of men.

The economic loss is universal. All the trees of the field are withered. This is not just the US, or Europe, or Ethiopia.

13 Gird yourselves with sackcloth, and lament, ye priests; wail, ye ministers of the altar; come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the meal-offering and the drink-offering are withholden from the house of your God. Prepare yourself for a national humiliation, there are no offerings, it will be a time of fasting. 14 Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the [k]old men and all the inhabitants of the land unto the house of Jehovah your God, and cry unto Jehovah.

This refers to a festival day, the Feast of Trumpets.

15 Alas

Alas.—The exclamation is repeated three times in the LXX. and Vulg., thus giving occasion to Jeremy Taylor’s comment: “When the prophet Joel was describing the formidable accidents in the day of the Lord’s judgment, and the fearful sentence of an angry judge, he was not able to express it, but stammered like a child, or an amazed imperfect person. Ellicot’s commentary

for the day! for the day of Jehovah is at hand, and as destruction from [l]the Almighty shall it come.

The Feast of Trumpets is “is the entranceway into the ‘Days of Awe.’ The blasts of the shofar are our wake-up call to repent before it is too late. Even those of us who have received salvation need to be shaken out of our complacency and pushed to higher levels in Messiah” h ttps://www.jewishvoice.org/learn/prophetic-nature-fall-feasts

The Feast of Trumpets foreshadows this event. It kicks off the “days of awe” and it is a wake up call before it is too late. This is a day of rest, it is a day to blow trumpets and offer sacrifices. The trumpet was sounded to indicate t he Lord’s coming as a conquering king. It is a day of trumpets, these trumpets announce the soon arrival of the coming king and conclude with the voice of an archangel and the blast of God’s shofar, and the dead in Christ rise first, and then those of us who remain. Jesus said that He would return and when He did we would need to settle accounts with Him. This settling of accounts begins after this day. The feast of trumpets announces His return. It is also the resumption of Daniel’s prophecy of the 70 weeks. So then we will see Israel sign the peace treaty during this day and sacrifice the red heifer to dedicate the building of the third temple.