John Calvin Commentary Joel 1:13-15

"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. Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the old men [and] all the inhabitants of the land unto the house of Jehovah your God, and cry unto Jehovah. Alas for the day! for the day of Jehovah is at hand, and as destruction from the Almighty shall it come." — Joel 1:13-15 (ASV)

Now the Prophet begins to exhort the people to repentance. Having represented them as grievously afflicted by the hand of God, he now adds that a remedy was at hand, provided they solicited the favor of God. At the same time, he denounces a more grievous punishment in the future, for it would not have been enough for them to have been reminded of their calamities and evils, unless they also feared what was to come.

Hence the Prophet, so that he might move them more, says that the hand of God was still stretched out, and that there was something worse near at hand, unless they themselves anticipated it. This is the purport of the whole. I now come to the words.

Be girded, lament and howl, he says, you priests, the ministers of the altar. The verb חגרו chegeru may be explained in two ways. Some understand it thus: “Gird yourselves with sackcloth;” for shortly after he says with sackcloth, or in sackcloth. But we may take it as simply meaning, gird yourselves, that is, Hasten; for this metaphorical expression often occurs.

As to the drift of the passage, there is but little difference, whether we read, “Gird yourselves with sackcloth,” or, “Hasten.” And he addresses the priests, though a common and general exhortation to the whole people afterwards follows. But as God made them the leaders of His people, it was their duty to afford others an example.

It is the common duty of all the godly to pray for and to further the salvation of their fellow believers; but it is a duty especially enjoined on the ministers of the word and on pastors. So also, when God calls those to repentance who preside over others, they ought to lead the way, and for two reasons:

1. because they have not been chosen by the Lord in vain for this purpose, that they might outshine others and be as luminaries;
2. because those who bear any public office ought to feel doubly guilty when the Lord visits public sins with judgment.

Private individuals indeed sin; but in pastors, there is the blame of negligence, and still more, when they deviate even in the slightest from the right way, a greater offense is given. The Prophet then rightly begins with the priests when he calls the whole people to repent.

And he not only calls them to put on sackcloth but commands them also, as we shall see, to proclaim a fast and then to call an assembly: you priests, he says, be girded, and put on sackcloth, wail, howl, and pass the night in sackcloth. He then calls them the ministers of the altar and the ministers of God, but in a different sense. For the Prophet does not substitute the altar for God, as this would have been to form an idol; rather, they are called the ministers of the altar because they offered sacrifices to God there.

They are indeed very properly the ministers of God; but as the priests, when they sacrificed, stood in the presence of God, and as the altar was to them, as it were, the way of access to Him, they are called the ministers of the altar. He calls them, at the same time, the ministers of God, and, as has been stated, they are properly so called.

But he says here אלהי alei (my God). The iod, my, is by some omitted, as if it were a servile letter, but redundant. I, however, do not doubt that the Prophet here mentions Him as his God, for he thus intended to claim more authority for his doctrine. His concern or his contest was with the whole people; and they, no doubt, in their usual way, proudly used the name of God as a shield against him.

“What! Are we not the very people of God?” Therefore, the Prophet, to prove this presumption false, presents God as being on his side. He therefore says, ‘The ministers of my God.’ Had anyone objected and said that He was in common the God of the whole people, the Prophet had a ready answer: “I am specially sent by Him, and represent Him, and plead the cause which He has committed to me: He is then my God and not yours.” So, we now see the Prophet’s meaning in this expression.

He now adds, for cut off is offering and libation from the house of our God. At the same time, he acknowledges Him as their God with reference to the priesthood; for nothing, we know, was presumptuously invented by the Jews, as the temple was built by God’s command, and sacrifices were offered according to the rule of the law.

He then attributes this honor to the priesthood: that God ruled in the temple; for God, as we have already said, approved of that worship as having proceeded from His word. And to this purpose is that saying of Christ, ‘We know what we worship.’ But yet the priests did not rightly worship God; for though their external rites were according to the command of God, yet as their hearts were polluted, it is certain that whatever they did was repudiated by God, until—touched with the fear of His judgment—they fled to His mercy, as the Prophet now exhorts them to do.

He afterwards adds, sanctify a fast, call an assembly, gather the old, all the inhabitants of the land. קדש kodash means to sanctify and to prepare; but I have retained its proper meaning, sanctify a fast; for the command concerned the purpose, that is, sanctification. Then proclaim a fast — for what purpose?

So that the people might purge themselves from all their pollutions and present themselves pure and clean before God. Call an assembly. It appears that there was a solemn convocation whenever a fast was proclaimed among the people, for it was not enough for each one privately at home to abstain from food, unless all confessed openly, with one mouth and one consent, that they were guilty before God.

Hence, a solemn profession of repentance was connected with a fast. The uses and purposes of a fast, we know, are various. But when the Prophet here speaks of a solemn fast, he doubtless calls the people to come to it suppliantly, as the guilty are accustomed to do, who would plead against punishment before a judge so that they may obtain mercy from him. In the second chapter, there will be much to say on fasting; I only wish now briefly to touch on the subject.

He afterwards calls for the old to be gathered, and then adds, All the inhabitants of the land. But he begins with the old, and justly so, for the guilt of the old is always the heaviest. However, this word does not relate to age as in a former instance.

When he said previously, ‘Hear you, the aged,’ he addressed those who by long experience had learned many things in the world unknown to the young or to people of middle age. But now the Prophet means by ‘the old’ those to whom public government was entrusted.

And as through their slothfulness they had allowed the worship of God and all integrity to fall into decay, the Prophet rightly wishes them to be leaders and precursors to the people in their confession of repentance. Furthermore, it was their duty, on account of their office, as we have said of the priests, to lead the way.

Joel at the same time shows that the whole people were implicated in guilt, so that none could be excluded, for he calls them all to come with the elders.

Call them, he says, to the house of Jehovah your God, and cry you to Jehovah. From this we learn why he had spoken of fasting and of sackcloth: namely, that they might humbly plead against God’s wrath. For fasting by itself would have been useless, and putting on sackcloth, we know, is in itself only an empty sign.

But prayer is what the Prophet places here in the highest rank; fasting is only an appendage, and so is sackcloth. Whoever then puts on sackcloth and withholds prayer is guilty of mockery, and no one can derive any good from mere fasting.

But when fasting and sackcloth are added to prayer, and are, as it were, handmaids, then they are not practiced uselessly. We may then observe that the purpose of fasting and sackcloth was nothing other than that the priests, together with the whole people, might present themselves suppliantly before God, confess themselves worthy of destruction, and acknowledge that they had no hope except from His gratuitous mercy. This is the meaning.

It now follows, Alas the day! For near is the day of Jehovah. Here the Prophet, as was stated at first, threatens something worse in the future than what they had experienced. He has until now been showing their torpidity; now he declares that they had not yet suffered all their punishments, but that there was something worse to be feared, unless they turned to God in time.

And he now exclaims, as though the day of Jehovah was before his eyes, and he calls it the day of Jehovah, because in that day God would stretch out His hand to execute judgment; for while He tolerates people or bears with their sins, He seems not to rule in the world.

And though this mode of speaking is common enough in Scripture, yet it ought to be carefully noticed; for not all seem to understand that God calls that His own day, when He will openly shine forth and appear as the judge of the world. But as long as He spares us, His face seems to be hidden from us; indeed, He seems not to govern the world.

The Prophet therefore declares here that the day of the Lord was at hand; for it is inevitable that the Lord must at length rise up and ascend His throne to punish people, though for a time He may overlook them. But the interjection, expressive of grief, intimates that the judgment of which the Prophet speaks was not to be despised, for it would be dreadful; and he wished to strike terror into the Jews, for they were too secure.

And he says, The day is near, that they might not procrastinate, as they were accustomed to do, from day to day. For though people are touched by God’s judgments, they still desire time to be prolonged for them, and they come very tardily to God. Hence the Prophet, that he might correct this their great slothfulness, says that the day was near.

He adds, כשד משדי יבוא kashed meshadi ibu, as a desolation from the Almighty will it come. The word שדי shadi signifies a conqueror; but it proceeds from the verb שדד shadad; and this in Hebrew means “to desolate,” or “to destroy.” The powerful and the conqueror is called שדי shadi; and hence they call God שדי shadi, on account of His power.

Some derive it from udder: then they call God שדי shadi as though Scripture gave Him this name, because from Him flows all abundance of good things as from a fountain. But I rather refer this name to His strength and power, for the Jews, we know, gloried in the name of God as one armed to defend their safety.

So, whenever the Prophets said that God was שדי shadi, the people laid hold of this as a ground for false confidence: “God is almighty, we are then secure from all evils.” Yet this confidence was not founded on the promises; and it was, we know, an absurd and profane presumption to have abused the name of God in this way.

Since the Jews, then, foolishly prided themselves on this, that God had adopted them for His people, the prophet says here, There will come a desolation from the Almighty; that is, “God is Almighty, but you are greatly deceived in thinking that your safety is secured by His power; for He will, on the contrary, be opposed to you, because you have provoked His wrath.”