Albert Barnes Commentary Joel 1:20

"Yea, the beasts of the field pant unto thee; for the water brooks are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness." — Joel 1:20 (ASV)

The beasts of the field cry also to You: “There is an order in these distresses. First he points out the non-sentient things wasted; then those afflicted, which have sense only; then those endowed with reason; so that to the order of calamity there may be matched an order of pity, sparing first the creature, then the sentient things, then rational beings. The Creator spares the creature; the Ordainer, sentient things; the Saviour, rational beings.”

Irrational creatures joined with the prophet in his cry. The beasts of the field cry to God, though they do not know it; it is a cry to God, who has compassion on all that suffers.

God makes them, in their actions, a picture of dependence upon His Providence, “seeking to it for a removal of their sufferings, and supply of their needs.” So He says, the young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God (Psalms 104:21), and, He gives to the beast his food and to the young ravens that cry (Psalms 147:9), and, Who provides for the raven his food? when his young ones cry to God (Job 38:41). If the people would not take instruction from him, he “bids them learn from the beasts of the field how to behave amid these calamities, that they should cry aloud to God to remove them.”