Albert Barnes Commentary Joel 1:11

"Be confounded, O ye husbandmen, wail, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field is perished." — Joel 1:11 (ASV)

Be ashamed, O you farmers — The prophet dwells on and expands the description of the troubles that he had foretold, setting before their eyes the picture of one universal desolation. For the details of sorrow most deeply touch the heart, and he wished to move them to repentance. He pictures them to themselves: some standing aghast and ashamed of the fruitlessness of their toil, others giving way to bursts of sorrow, and all things around them were waste and dried. Nothing was exempt. Wheat and barley, widespread as they were (and the barley in those countries was “more fertile” than the wheat), perished utterly. The rich juice of the vine, the luscious sweetness of the fig, the succulence of the evergreen pomegranate, the majesty of the palm tree, and the fragrance of the eastern apple did not exempt them.

All, fruit-bearing or barren, were dried up, for joy itself and every source of joy was dried up from the sons of men.

All these things suggest a spiritual meaning. For we know of a spiritual harvest (souls born to God), a spiritual vineyard (the Church of God), and spiritual farmers and vinedressers (those whom God sends). The trees, with their various fruits, were emblems of the faithful, adorned with the various gifts and graces of the Spirit. Nearly all were dried up.

Wasted outwardly, in act and deed, the sap of the Spirit ceased within. The true laborers, those who were zealous for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts, were ashamed and grieved.

These terms are thus interpreted: “Husbandmen” and “vinedressers” are priests and preachers; “farmers” are as instructors in morals, and “vinedressers” for that joy in eternal things, which they infuse into the minds of their hearers. “Husbandmen” are for instructing the soul to deeds of righteousness, and vinedressers for exciting the minds of hearers to the love of wisdom. Or, “farmers” in that by their doctrine they uproot earthly deeds and desires, and “vinedressers” for holding forth spiritual gifts.

“The vine is the richness of divine knowledge; the fig, the sweetness of contemplation and the joyousness in eternal things.”

The pomegranate, with its many grains contained under its one rind, may designate the variety and harmony of graces, arranged in their beautiful order.

“The palm signifies rising above the world.” It is also said: “Well is the life of the righteous likened to a palm, in that the palm below is rough to the touch and, in a way, enveloped in dry bark; but above, it is adorned with fruit, fair even to the eye. Below, it is compressed by the enfoldings of its bark; above, it is spread out in an amplitude of beautiful greenness. For so is the life of the elect: despised below, beautiful above. Down below, it is, as it were, enfolded in many layers of bark, in that it is constrained by innumerable afflictions. But on high, it is expanded into a foliage, as it were, of beautiful greenness by the amplitude of the reward.”