Albert Barnes Commentary Joel 1:7

"He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig-tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white." — Joel 1:7 (ASV)

He has laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree – This describes an extremity of desolation.

The locusts at first attack all that is green and succulent; when this has been consumed, they then attack the bark of trees. One source notes: “When they have devoured all other vegetables, they attack the trees, consuming first the leaves, then the bark.” Another describes: “A day or two after one of these bodies was in motion, others were already hatched to glean after them, gnawing off the young branches and the very bark of such trees as had escaped previously with the loss of only their fruit and foliage.”

It is also said: “They carried desolation wherever they passed. After having consumed herbage, fruit, and leaves of trees, they attacked even their young shoots and their bark. Even the reeds with which the huts were thatched, though quite dry, were not spared.” Furthermore: “Everything in the country was devoured; the bark of figs, pomegranates, and oranges, bitter hard and corrosive, did not escape their voracity.” The effects of this wasting last for many years.

He has made it clean bare – One account states: “It is sufficient, if these terrible columns stop half an hour on a spot, for everything growing on it—vines, olive trees, and grain—to be entirely destroyed. After they have passed, nothing remains but the large branches, and the roots which, being underground, have escaped their voracity.” Another says: “After eating up the corn, they fell upon the vines, the pulse, the willows, and even the hemp, notwithstanding its great bitterness.”

They are also described as “particularly injurious to the palm trees; these they strip of every leaf and green particle, the trees remaining like skeletons with bare branches.” And further: “The bushes were eaten quite bare, though the animals could not have been long on the spot. They sat by hundreds on a bush gnawing the rind and the woody fibers.”

The branches thereof are made white – As one observer noted: “The country did not seem to be burned, but to be much covered with snow, because of the whiteness of the trees and the dryness of the herbs. It pleased God that the fresh crops were already gathered in.”

The “vine” is the well-known symbol of God’s people (Psalms 80:8, Psalms 80:14; Song of Solomon 2:13, Song of Solomon 2:15; Hosea 10:1; Isaiah 5:1–7; Isaiah 27:2); the fig too, because of its sweetness, is an emblem of His Church and of each soul in her, bringing forth the fruit of grace (Hosea 9:10; Matthew 21:19; Luke 13:6–7). When, then, God says, “He has laid My vine waste,” He suggests to us that He is not speaking primarily of the visible tree, but of what it represents.

The locusts, accordingly, are not primarily the insects that bark the actual trees, but every enemy that wastes the heritage of God, which He calls by those names. His vineyard, the Jewish people, was outwardly and repeatedly desolated by the Chaldeans, Antiochus Epiphanes, and afterward by the Romans.

The vineyard that the Jews had was (as Jesus foretold) let out to other farmers when they had killed Him; and, henceforth, is the Christian Church, and, subordinately, each soul in her. A writer observes: “Pagan and heretical Emperors and heresiarchs often wasted the Church of Christ. Antichrist shall waste it. Those who have wasted her are countless. For the Psalmist says, ‘They who hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head’ (Psalms 69:4).”

Another commentator writes: “The nation that comes up against the soul comprises the princes of this world and of darkness and spiritual wickedness in high places, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, of whom the Apostle Peter says, ‘Our adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour’ (1 Peter 5:8). If we give way to this nation, so that they rise up in us, they will immediately make our vineyard a desert—where we were accustomed to make ‘wine to gladden the heart of man’ (Psalms 104:15)—and bark or break our fig tree, so that we no longer have in us those most sweet gifts of the Holy Spirit. Nor is it enough for that nation to destroy the vineyard and break the fig tree, unless it also destroys whatever life is in it, so that, its whole freshness being consumed, the switches remain white and dead, and that what is written be fulfilled in us: ‘If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?’ (Luke 23:31).”

Another writer reflects: “The Church, or at least a part of it, is turned into a desert, deprived of spiritual goods, when the faithful are led, by consent to sin, to forsake God. ‘The fig tree is barked’ when the soul that once abounded with the sweetest goods and fruits of the Holy Spirit has those goods lessened or cut off. Such are those who, having ‘begun in the Spirit’ (Galatians 3:3), are perfected by the flesh.”

A further reflection states: “By spirits lying in wait, the vineyard of God is made a desert when the soul, replenished with fruits, is wasted with longing for the praise of people. That ‘people barks’ the ‘fig tree’ of God, in that, carrying away the misguided soul to a thirst for applause, in proportion as it draws her on to ostentation, it strips her of the covering of humility.

“‘Making it clean bare,’ it despoils it, in that, as long as it lies hidden in its goodness, it is, as it were, clothed with a covering of its own, which protects it. But when the mind longs for what it has done to be seen by others, it is as though ‘the fig tree despoiled’ had lost the bark that covered it.

“And so, as it follows, ‘The branches thereof are made white;’ in that his works, displayed to the eyes of people, have a bright show; a reputation for sanctity is gained when good actions are published. But just as, upon the bark being removed, the branches of the fig tree wither, so observe that the deeds of the arrogant, paraded before human eyes, wither through the very act of seeking to please.

“Therefore, the mind that is betrayed through boastfulness is rightly called a fig tree barked, in that it is at once fair to the eye, as being seen, and close to withering, as being bared of the covering of the bark. Within, then, must our deeds be laid up, if we look for a reward for our deeds from Him who sees within.”