John Gill Commentary Joel 1:14

"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." — Joel 1:14 (ASV)

Sanctify a fast This is spoken to the priests, whose business it was to appoint a fast, as the Targum renders it; or to set apart a time for such religious service, as the word signifies; and to keep it holy themselves, and see that it was so kept by others: Kimchi interprets it, prepare the people for a fast; give them notice of it, that they may be prepared for it.

call a solemn assembly of all the people of the land later mentioned: or, "proclaim a restraint" ^F23 ; a time of ceasing, as a fast day should be from all servile work, that attendance may be given to the duties of it, prayer and humiliation: gather the elders meaning not those in age, but in office: [and] all the inhabitants of the land not the magistrates only, though first and principally, as examples, who had been deeply concerned in guilt; but the common people also, even all of them:

[into] the house of the Lord your God the temple, the court of the Israelites, where they were to go and supplicate the Lord, when such a calamity as this of locusts and caterpillars were upon them; and where they might hope the Lord would hear them, and remove his judgments from them, (1 Kings 8:37) ; and cry unto the Lord in prayer, with vehemence and earnestness of soul.

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FOOTNOTES:

• F23: (hrue warq) "vocate retentionem", Montanus; proclamate diem interdicti", Junius & Tremellius, Heb. "interdictum", Piscator; "edicite coetum cum cessatione", Cocceius.