John Calvin Commentary Joel 1:5

"Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and wail, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it is cut off from your mouth." — Joel 1:5 (ASV)

The Prophet adds this verse to amplify his point, for when God sees men either contemptuously laughing at or disregarding His judgments, He derides them. The Prophet now adopts this method. He says, Ye drunkards, awake, and weep and howl. In these words, he addresses, on the subject at hand, those who had willfully closed their eyes to such manifest judgments.

The Jews had become torpid and had covered themselves, as it were, with hardness. It was then necessary to draw them out, as if by force, into the light. But the Prophet accosts the drunkards by name, and it is probable that this vice was then very common among the people.

However that may be, the Prophet, by mentioning this instance, shows more convincingly that there was no excuse for ignoring these matters, and that the Jews could not justify their indifference if they failed to take notice. For even the drunkards, who had degenerated from a human state, themselves felt the calamity, because the wine had been cut off from their mouth.

This expression of the Prophet, Awake, should also be noticed. For the drunkards, even while awake, are asleep, and also spend a great portion of their time in sleep. The Prophet had this in mind: that men, though not endowed with great knowledge, but even lacking common sense, could no longer flatter themselves. For even the drunkards, who had completely suffocated their senses and had thus become estranged in their minds, still perceived God’s judgment. Though drowsiness held them bound, they were still constrained to awaken at such a manifest punishment.

What then does this ignorance mean, when you do not see that you are smitten by God’s hand?

To the same purpose are the words, Weep and howl. Drunkards, on the contrary, give themselves up to mirth and intemperately indulge themselves. There is nothing more difficult than to make them feel sorrow, for wine so infatuates their senses that they continue to laugh in the greatest calamities.

But the Prophet says, Weep and howl, ye drunkards! What then should sober men do?

He then adds, Cut off is the wine from your mouth. He does not say, “The use of wine is taken away from you;” but he says, from your mouth. Though no one should think of vineyards, wine cellars, or cups, they shall be forced, willing or unwilling, to feel God’s judgment in their mouth and in their lips.

This is what the Prophet means. We then see how much he intensifies what he had said before, and we must remember that his object was to strike shame into the people, who had become so torpid with regard to God’s judgments.

As for the word עסיס osis, some render it new wine. עסס osas means to press; and hence עסיס osis is properly the wine that is pressed in the wine vat. New wine is not what is drawn from the bottle, but what is pressed out, as it were, by force. But the Prophet, I have no doubt, includes here by this term every sort of wine. Let us go on.