Joel 1:8

Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(8) For the husband of her youth.—The land is addressed as a virgin betrothed, but not yet married, and forfeiting her marriage by unworthy conduct. Such was the relation of Israel to the Lord: He was faithful, but Israel unfaithful. Now let her mourn the penalty.

Benson Commentary

Joel 1:8. Lament, &c. — The prophet here calls upon the inhabitants of Judea to deprecate this grievous judgment, by humiliation and unfeigned sorrow for their sins; like a virgin for the husband of her youth — That is, bitterly, and from the very heart; for the grief of a woman is generally very poignant and sincere for the loss of her first husband, to whom she was married in her youth. The expression is still stronger, if we suppose it spoken of a virgin betrothed to a man she loves, and whom she loses before they come together as man and wife.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:8-13 All who labour only for the meat that perishes, will, sooner or later, be ashamed of their labour. Those that place their happiness in the delights of sense, when deprived of them, or disturbed in the enjoyment, lose their joy; whereas spiritual joy then flourishes more than ever. See what perishing, uncertain things our creature-comforts are. See how we need to live in continual dependence upon God and his providence. See what ruinous work sin makes. As far as poverty occasions the decay of piety, and starves the cause of religion among a people, it is a very sore judgment. But how blessed are the awakening judgments of God, in rousing his people and calling home the heart to Christ, and his salvation!

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Lament like a virgin - The prophet addresses the congregation of Israel, as one espoused to God ; "'Lament thou,' daughter of Zion," or the like. He bids her lament, with the bitterest of sorrows, as one who, in her virgin years, was just knit into one with the husband of her youth, and then at once was, by God's judgment, on the very day of her espousal, ere yet she ceased to be a virgin, parted by death. The mourning which God commands is not one of conventional or becoming mourning, but that of one who has put away all joy from her, and takes the rough garment of penitence, girding the haircloth upon her, enveloping and embracing, and therewith, wearing the whole frame. The haircloth was a coarse, rough, formless, garment, girt close round the waist, afflictive to the flesh, while it expressed the sorrow of the soul. God regarded as a virgin, the people which He had made holy to Himself Jeremiah 2:2.

He so regards the soul which He has regenerated and sanctified. The people, by their idolatry, lost Him who was a Husband to them; the soul, by inordinate affections, is parted from its God. : "God Almighty was the Husband of the synagogue, having espoused it to Himself in the patriarchs and at the giving of the law. So long as she did not, through idolatry and other heavy sins, depart from God, she was a spouse in the integrity of mind, in knowledge, in love and worship of the true God." : "The Church is a Virgin; Christ her Husband. By prevailing sins, the order, condition, splendor, worship of the Church, are, through negligence, concupiscence, avarice, irreverence, worsened, deformed, obscured." "The soul is a virgin by its creation in nature; a virgin by privilege of grace; a virgin also by hope of glory. Inordinate desire maketh the soul a harlot; manly penitence restoreth to her chastity; wise innocence, virginity. For the soul recovereth a sort of chastity, when through thirst for righteousness, she undertakes the pain and fear of penitence; still she is not as yet raised to the eminence of innocence. - In the first state she is exposed to concupiscence; in the second, she doth works of repentance; in the third, bewailing her Husband, she is filled with the longing for righteousness; in the fourth, she is gladdened by virgin embraces and the kiss of Wisdom. For Christ is the Husband of her youth, the Betrother of her virginity. But since she parted from Him to evil concupiscence, she is monished to return to Him by sorrow and the works and garb of repentance." : "So should every Christian weep who has lost Baptismal grace, or has fallen back after repentance, and, deprived of the pure embrace of the heavenly Bridegroom, embraced instead these earthly things which are as dunghills Lamentations 4:5, having been brought up in scarlet, and being in honor, had no understanding Psalm 49:12, Psalm 49:20. Whence it is written, "let tears run down like a river day and night; give thyself no rest" Lamentations 2:18. Such was he who said; rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not Thy law" Psalm 119:136.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8. Lament—O "my land" (Joe 1:6; Isa 24:4).

virgin … for the husband—A virgin betrothed was regarded as married (De 22:23; Mt 1:19). The Hebrew for "husband" is "lord" or "possessor," the husband being considered the master of the wife in the East.

of her youth—when the affections are strongest and when sorrow at bereavement is consequently keenest. Suggesting the thought of what Zion's grief ought to be for her separation from Jehovah, the betrothed husband of her early days (Jer 2:2; Eze 16:8; Ho 2:7; compare Pr 2:17; Jer 3:4).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The vicious and wicked among the Jews were alarmed and threatened in the former part of the chapter; now the prophet bespeaks the good and godly among them to prepare for mournful times.

Lament: this is minatory, and threatens calamitous times shall come, as well as directive, what to do when they are come; when God calls for weeping we must not rejoice.

Like a virgin: this tells us to whom the prophet directs this part of his sermon, it is to those who amidst the Jews were like chaste and modest virgins, whose heart was fixed on one, her own, her chosen beloved husband.

Girded with sackcloth: in deep mournings the people of those countries did use sackcloth in their mourning habit, and wore it girded close to their skin.

For the husband of her youth; either married to her in youth, or espoused to her, but snatched away from her by an untimely death, which she doth most bitterly lament.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Lament like a virgin,.... This is not the continuation of the prophet's speech to the drunkards; but, as Aben Ezra observes, he either speaks to himself, or to the land the Targum supplies it, O congregation of Israel; the more religious and godly part of the people are here addressed; who were concerned for the pure worship of God, and were as a chaste virgin espoused to Christ, though not yet come, and for whom they were waiting; these are called upon to lament the calamities of the times in doleful strains, like a virgin:

girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth; either as one that had been betrothed to a young man, but not married, he dying after the espousals, and before marriage; which must be greatly distressing to one that passionately loved him; and therefore, instead of her nuptial robes, prepared to meet him and be married in, girds herself with sackcloth; a coarse hairy sort of cloth, as was usual, in the eastern countries, to put on in token of mourning: or as one lately married to a young man she dearly loved, and was excessively fond of, and lived extremely happy with; but, being suddenly snatched away from her by death, puts on her widow's garments, and mourns not in show only, but in reality; having lost in her youth her young husband, she had the strongest affection for: this is used to express the great lamentation the people are called unto in this time of their distress.

Geneva Study Bible

Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the {e} husband of her youth.

(e) Mourn grievously as a woman who has lost her husband, to whom she has been married in her youth.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

8. Lament] The verb is fem in the Hebrew, the community, personified as a woman, the “daughter of Judah,” or “daughter of my people,” being addressed. So often in the prophets: comp. on Amos 5:2. The word rendered lament (’âlâh) occurs only here in the O.T., though it is common in Aramaic.

like a virgin, &c.] “The interruption of the fellowship between the land and Jehovah through the failure of the sacrifices the prophet throws into the figure of a young wife bereaved and in mourning. The land is the virgin; the dreary bleak aspect of it is the mourning which she wears. The bereavement lies in this: that through the cutting off of the meal-offering and the drink-offering, the tokens of Jehovah’s presence and favour, manifested in His acceptance of the offerings, have been removed; communications between the land and its God have been removed, and the land is bereaved” (A. B. Davidson).

sackcloth] The regular sign of mourning in the East (Amos 8:10).

husband] lit. possessor, owner (Deuteronomy 24:4; 2 Samuel 11:26 al.).

8–10. Interruption of the public services of the Temple.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 8-13. - The consequence of such ruin and havoc is great and general lamentation. The drunkards were first called on in the preceding verses to mourn, for the distress came first and nearest to them. But now the priests, the Lord's ministers, mourn; things inanimate, by a touching personification, join in the lamentation - the land mourneth; the husbandmen that till the ground mourn. Verse 8. - Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

1. The verb here, which is an ἅπαξ λεγόμενον, is

(1) imperative feminine; the subject must, of course, correspond. That subject has been variously supplied:

(a) the ground, according to Aben Ezra;

(b) naphshi, my soul, i.e. the prophet's address to himself;

(c) the daughter of Zion, or virgin daughter of Zion; but

(d) the congregation or people of Judah, as suggested in the Chaldee, is the real subject.

(2) The LXX. has θωρήνησον πρός με, evidently combining two readings, or rather two punctuations, of the same word, viz. אֵלַיִ, to me, and ךאלִי, lament.

2. The mourning is of the deepest, bitterest kind, like that of a virgin for the husband of her youth. It is either the case of a maiden betrothed to a youthful bridegroom, whom she sincerely loves, but he dies before they are married, and thus, instead of the wedding dress, she puts on the garment of mourning, the sackcloth of rough hair; or she has been married, and her husband, still in youth, is snatched away from her by death, and she is clothed in widow's weeds - in her case real weeds of woe, and outward tokens of sincere, not simulated, sorrow. The expression reminds us of Isaiah's "wife of youth," and of the Homeric expression frequently translated "virgin or youthful spouse," though more correctly "wedded wife." Such is the lamentation to which the people of Judah are called. Joel 1:8

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The whole nation is to mourn over this devastation. Joel 1:8. "Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. Joel 1:9. The meat-offering and the drink-offering are destroyed from the house of Jehovah. The priests, the servant of Jehovah. mourn. Joel 1:10. The field is laid waste, the ground mourns: for the corn is laid waste: the new wine is spoiled, the oil decays. Joel 1:11. Turn pale, ye husbandmen; howl, ye vinedressers, over wheat and barley: for the harvest of the field is perished. Joel 1:12. The vine is spoiled, and the fig-tree faded; the pomegranate, also the palm and the apple tree: all the trees of the field are withered away; yea, joy has expired from the children of men." In Joel 1:8 Judah is addressed as the congregation of Jehovah. אלי is the imperative of the verb אלה, equivalent to the Syriac 'elā', to lament. The verb only occurs here. The lamentation of the virgin for the בּעל נעוּריה, i.e., the beloved of your youth, her bridegroom, whom she has lost by death (Isaiah 54:6), is the deepest and bitterest lamentation. With reference to חגרת־שׂק, see Delitzsch on Isaiah 3:24. The occasion of this deep lamentation, according to Joel 1:9, is the destruction of the meat-offering and drink-offering from the house of the Lord, over which the servants of Jehovah mourn. The meat and drink offerings must of necessity cease, because the corn, the new wine, and the oil are destroyed through the devastation of the field and soil. Hokhrath minchâh does not affirm that the offering of the daily morning and evening sacrifice (Exodus 29:38-42) - for it is to this that מנחה ונסך chiefly, if not exclusively, refers - has already ceased; but simply that any further offering is rendered impossible by the failure of meal, wine, and oil. Now Israel could not suffer any greater calamity than the suspension of the daily sacrifice; for this was a practical suspension of the covenant relation - a sign that God had rejected His people. Therefore, even in the last siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, the sacrificial worship was not suspended till it had been brought to the last extremity; and even then it was for the want of sacrificers, and not of the material of sacrifice (Josephus, de bell. Jud. vi. 2, 1). The reason for this anxiety was the devastation of the field and land (Joel 1:10); and this is still further explained by a reference to the devastation and destruction of the fruits of the ground, viz., the corn, i.e., the corn growing in the field, so that the next harvest would be lost, and the new wine and oil, i.e., the vines and olive-trees, so that they could bear no grapes for new wine, and no olives for oil. The verbs in Joel 1:11 are not perfects, but imperatives, as in the fifth verse. הבישׁ has the same meaning as bōsh, as in Jeremiah 2:26; Jeremiah 6:15, etc., to stand ashamed, to turn pale with shame at the disappointment of their hope, and is probably written defectively, without ו, to distinguish it from הובישׁ, the hiphil of יבשׁ, to be parched or dried up (Joel 1:10 and Joel 1:12). The hope of the husbandmen was disappointed through the destruction of the wheat and barley, the most important field crops. The vine-growers had to mourn over the destruction of the vine and the choice fruit-trees (Joel 1:12), such as the fig and pomegranate, and even the date-palm (gam-tâmâr), which has neither a fresh green rind nor tender juicy leaves, and therefore is not easily injured by the locusts so as to cause it to dry up; and tappūăch, the apple-tree, and all the trees of the field, i.e., all the rest of the trees, wither. "All trees, whether fruit-bearing or not, are consumed by the devastating locusts" (Jerome). In the concluding clause of Joel 1:12, the last and principal ground assigned for the lamentation is, that joy is taken away and withered from the children of men (hōbbı̄sh min, constr. praegn.). כּי introduces a reason here as elsewhere, though not for the clause immediately preceding, but for the הבישׁוּ and הילילוּ in Joel 1:11, the leading thought in both verses; and we may therefore express it by an emphatic yea.