Albert Barnes Commentary Joel 2:13

"and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto Jehovah your God; for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, and repenteth him of the evil." — Joel 2:13 (ASV)

And rend your hearts and not your garments - that is, “not your garments only” (see the note at Hosea 6:6). The rending of clothes was an expression of extraordinary, uncontrollable emotion—chiefly of grief, terror, or horror. In Holy Scripture, at least, it is not mentioned as a part of ordinary mourning, but only upon some sudden, overpowering grief, whether public or private.

It was not used in cases of death, unless there were something very grievous about its circumstances. At times it was used as an outward expression of deep grief, as when the leper was commanded to keep his clothes rent (Leviticus 13:45), or when David, to express his abhorrence at the murder of Abner, commanded all the people with him, rend your clothes. Ahab used it, with fasting and haircloth, on receiving God’s sentence through Elijah and obtained a mitigation of the temporal punishment of his sin. Jeremiah marvels that neither “the king,” Jehoiakim, “nor any of his servants, rent their garments” (Jeremiah 36:24), on reading the scroll containing the woes which God had pronounced against Judah through him.

The holy garments of the priests were on no occasion to be rent (Leviticus 10:6; Leviticus 21:10)—probably because their wholeness was a symbol of perfection, from which care was to be taken that the ephod should not accidentally be torn (Exodus 28:32; Exodus 39:23). Thus, the act of Caiaphas was the greater hypocrisy (Matthew 26:65; Mark 14:63).

Caiaphas probably used it to impress his own blasphemous accusation on the people. Similarly, for a good end, the Apostles Paul and Barnabas rent their clothes (Acts 14:14) when they heard that, after the cure of the impotent man, the priest of Jupiter with the people would have offered sacrifice to them. Since, then, apostles used this act, Joel plainly does not forbid the use of such outward behavior by which their repentance might be expressed, but only requires that it be done not in outward show only, but accompanied by inward affections.

“The Jews are instructed then to rend their hearts rather than their garments, and to set the truth of repentance in what is inward, rather than in what is outward.” But since the rending of garments was the outward sign of very vehement grief, it was no commonplace, superficial sorrow which the prophet commanded, but one which should pierce and rend the inmost soul, and empty it of its sins and its love for sin. Any very grieving thing is said to cut one’s heart, to “cut him to the heart.”

A truly penitent heart is called a broken and a contrite heart. Such a penitent rends and “rips up by a narrow search the recesses of the heart, to discover the abominations thereof,” and pours out before God “the diseased and perilous stuff” pent up and festering there, “expels the evil thoughts lodged in it, and opens it in all things to the reception of divine grace.

“This rending is no other than the spiritual circumcision to which Moses exhorts. Thus, of the Jews not so rent in heart, it is written in Jeremiah, All the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart (Jeremiah 9:26). This rending then is the casting out of the sins and passions.”

And turn to the Lord your God - God acknowledges Himself as still their God, although they had turned and gone from Him in sin and were alienated from Him. To Him, the true, Unchangeable God, if they returned, they would find Him still “their God.” God says through Jeremiah, Return, you backsliding children, I will heal your backsliding; and Israel answers, Behold, we come to You, for You are the Lord our God (Jeremiah 3:22).

For He is very gracious and very merciful - Both these words are intensive. All the words, very gracious, very merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, are the same and in the same order as in that revelation to Moses when, on the renewal of the two tablets of the law, the Lord descended in the cloud and proclaimed the name of the Lord (Exodus 34:5–6). The words are frequently repeated, showing how deeply that revelation sank into the pious minds of Israel.

These attributes are, in part, pleaded to God by Moses himself (Numbers 14:18). David, at one time, pleaded them all to God (Psalms 85:15); elsewhere he repeats them of God, as in this place (Psalms 103:8; Psalms 145:8).

Nehemiah, in praising God for His forgiving mercies, prefixes the title God of pardons (Nehemiah 9:17), and adds, and You forsook them not. Joel, for the special object here, adds, and repents of the evil.

A Psalmist, Hezekiah in his message to Isaiah, and Nehemiah in the course of that same prayer, repeat the two words of intense mercy, very gracious and very merciful (Psalms 111:4; 2 Chronicles 30:9; Nehemiah 9:31). These terms are used of God only, except once by that same Psalmist (Psalms 112:4), with the express object of showing how the good man conforms himself to God.

The word “very gracious” expresses God’s free love, by which He shows Himself good to us; “very merciful” expresses the tender yearning of His love over our miseries (see the note at Hosea 2:19); “great kindness” expresses God’s tender love, as love.

He first says that God is “slow to anger” or “long-suffering,” enduring long the wickedness and rebellion of man, and waiting patiently for the conversion and repentance of sinners. Then he adds that God is “abundant in kindness,” having manifold resources and expedients of His tender love, by which to win them to repentance. Lastly, He is “repentant of the evil.” The evil which He foretells, and at last inflicts, is (so to speak) against His will, Who is not willing that any should perish, and, therefore, on the first tokens of repentance, He repents of the evil, and does not do it.

The words rendered “of great kindness” are better rendered elsewhere as “abundant, plenteous in goodness, mercy” (Exodus 34:6; Psalms 86:15; Psalms 103:8). Although the mercy of God is in itself one and simple, yet it is called abundant on account of its diverse effects. For God knows how in a thousand ways to succor His own. Thus the Psalmist prays, According to the multitude of Your mercies, turn to me (Psalms 25:7, 16). Also, According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, do away my offenses (Psalms 51:1).