Joel 1:17

The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(17) The corn is withered.—The results of the terrible drought, coincident with the ravages of the locusts, are now described. The ancient versions present difficulty and variety in the exact rendering of this verse, owing to several words occurring in it being not found elsewhere in Holy Scripture. On the whole the English text seems correct and satisfactory.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:14-20 The sorrow of the people is turned into repentance and humiliation before God. With all the marks of sorrow and shame, sin must be confessed and bewailed. A day is to be appointed for this purpose; a day in which people must be kept from their common employments, that they may more closely attend God's services; and there is to be abstaining from meat and drink. Every one had added to the national guilt, all shared in the national calamity, therefore every one must join in repentance. When joy and gladness are cut off from God's house, when serious godliness decays, and love waxes cold, then it is time to cry unto the Lord. The prophet describes how grievous the calamity. See even the inferior creatures suffering for our transgression. And what better are they than beasts, who never cry to God but for corn and wine, and complain of the want of the delights of sense? Yet their crying to God in those cases, shames the stupidity of those who cry not to God in any case. Whatever may become of the nations and churches that persist in ungodliness, believers will find the comfort of acceptance with God, when the wicked shall be burned up with his indignation.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The seed is rotten under the clods - Not only was all to be cut off for the present, but, with it, all hope for the future. The scattered seed, as it lay, each under its clod known to God, was dried up, and so decayed. The garners lay desolate, nay, were allowed to go to ruin, in hopelessness of any future harvest.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

17. is rotten—"is dried up," "vanishes away," from an Arabic root [Maurer]. "Seed," literally, "grains." The drought causes the seeds to lose all their vitality and moisture.

garners—granaries; generally underground, and divided into separate receptacles for the different kinds of grain.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The seed; called so from the seedsman’s scattering it abroad when he soweth it, and in this place only so used, for aught I can observe, and yet this use of it here is justified by all the following words; the grain which is sown for the seed against next spring.

Is rotten; is putrefied, grown musty and fruitless; nor is this word any where else used in Scripture. Under their clods, and earth, from under which the seed covered should spring up, but now, as unsound, rotten, and fruitless seed, is lost under it.

The garners, or storehouses, treasuries of corn, in which it was kept for future use,

are laid desolate; either run to ruin, because the owners, discouraged with the barrenness of the seasons, would not repair them; this will intimate that this judgment lasted some years, and is better ground for it than the four sorts of vermin repeated one after another, in Joel 1:4: or else desolate, being pulled down, and the materials employed for other uses, till they may have corn to keep in them.

The barns, in which they lodged their unthrashed corn,

are broken down; neglected, and without repair;

for the corn is withered; there was no use of them, no corn to be laid up, all withered, and therefore the barns were not regarded.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The seed is rotten under their clods,.... Or "grains" (z) of wheat or barley, which had been sown, and, for want of rain, putrefied and wasted away under the clods of earth, through the great drought; so that what with locusts, which cropped that that did bud forth, and with the drought, by reason of which much of the seed sown came to nothing, an extreme famine ensued: the Targum is,

"casks of wine rotted under their coverings:''

the garners are desolate; the "treasuries" (a), or storehouses, having nothing in them, and there being nothing to put into them; Jarchi makes these to be peculiar for wine and oil, both which failed, Joel 1:10;

the barns are broken down; in which the wheat and barley had used to be laid up; but this judgment of the locusts and drought continuing year after year, the walls fell down, and, no care was taken to repair them, there being no, use for them; these were the granaries, and, as Jarchi, for wheat particularly:

for the corn is withered; that which sprung up withered and dried away, through the heat and drought: or was "ashamed" (b); not answering the expectation of the sower.

(z) "grana", Pagninus, Montanus, Mercerus, Tarnovius, Cocceius, Bochartus. So Ben Melech, who observes they are so called, because they are separated and scattered under the earth. (a) "thesauri", Pagninus, Montanus, Mercerus, Vatablus, Piscator. (b) "confusum est", V. L. "puduit", Drusius; "pudore afficit", Cocceius.

Geneva Study Bible

The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

17. The grains shrivel (R.V. marg.) under their shovels (or hoes)] unable to withstand the scorching heat. This is the only rendering which the existing text will permit[32]; but the last word especially is not satisfactory. Merx (p. 100 f.) examines the passage at some length; but his restoration is not convincing.

[32] Grains, lit. things parted (cf. Syr. perdâ). A.V. is rotten follows Ibn Ezra and Kimchi in explaining the Heb. ‘âbhçsh from the Aram, ‘aphash, to rot; but the meaning is unsuitable (for rotting is not an effect of drought), and the Arab. ‘abisa, to be dried up (esp. of dirt) both agrees better phonetically and yields a preferable sense. מנרפות is derived obviously from נרף to sweep away (Jdg 5:21, of a torrent; so also in Arab. and Syr.): in Arab. the corresponding word means a broom for sweeping away mud &c., also (now) a shovel, and in Palestine (PEFQSt., 1891, p. III), a hoe, and in Aram. a shovel for removing ashes (Numbers 4:14, &c.). The Arab. gurf does not mean gleba terrae (Keil), but (Lane, Arab. Lex. p. 411) the water-worn bank of a stream. Clod (Heb. רִגד, Job 21:33; Job 38:38) would not be a probable generalization even of a word signifying properly masses of earth swept away by a stream.

garners] lit. treasuries, store-houses,—a word, in itself, of wider meaning than “garner”: cf. 1 Chronicles 27:27-28 (for wine and oil); 2 Chronicles 32:27 (for money and other valuables); Nehemiah 13:12, &c.

are laid desolate … broken down] being empty, and falling into disrepair through disuse.

barns] not the usual word (Deuteronomy 28:8, &c.), but another, not found elsewhere, though nearly resembling the word found in Haggai 2:19.

is withered] sheweth shame, fig. for fails, as Joel 1:10; Joel 1:12.

Joel 1:17

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"Is not the food destroyed before our eyes, joy and exulting from the house of our God? Joel 1:17. The grains have mouldered under their clods, the storehouses are desolate, the barns have fallen down; because the corn is destroyed. Joel 1:18. How the cattle groan! the herds of oxen are bewildered, for no pasture was left for them; even the flocks of sheep suffer." As a proof that the day of the Lord is coming like a devastation from the Almighty, the prophet points in Joel 1:16 to the fact that the food is taken away before their eyes, and therewith all joy and exulting from the house of God. "The food of the sinners perishes before their eyes, since the crops they looked for are snatched away from their hands, and the locust anticipates the reaper" (Jerome). אכל, food as the means of sustenance; according to Joel 1:19, corn, new wine, and oil. The joy is thereby taken from the house of Jehovah, inasmuch as, when the crops are destroyed, neither first-fruits nor thank-offerings can be brought to the sanctuary to be eaten there at joyful meals (Deuteronomy 12:6-7; Deuteronomy 16:10-11). And the calamity became all the more lamentable, from the fact that, in consequence of a terrible drought, the seed perished in the earth, and consequently the prospect of a crop the following year entirely disappeared. The prophet refers to this in Joel 1:17, which has been rendered in extremely different ways by the lxx, Chald., and Vulg., on account of the ̔απ. λεγ. עבשׁוּ, פּרדות, and מגרפות (compare Pococke, ad h. l.). עבשׁ signifies to moulder away, or, as the injury was caused by dryness and heat, to dry up; it is used here of grains of corn which lose their germinating power, from the Arabic ‛bs, to become dry or withered, and the Chaldee עפשׁ, to get mouldy. Perudōth, in Syriac, grains of corn sowed broadcast, probably from pârad, to scatter about. Megrâphōth, according to Ab. Esr., clods of earth (compare Arab. jurf, gleba terrai), from gâraph, to wash away (Judges 5:21) a detached piece of earth. If the seed-corn loses its germinating power beneath the clod, no corn-harvest can be looked for. The storehouses ('ōtsârōth; cf. 2 Chronicles 32:27) moulder away, and the barns (mammegurâh with dag. dirim. equals megūrâh in Haggai 2:19) fall, tumble to pieces, because being useless they are not kept in proper condition. The drought also deprives the cattle of their pasture, so that the herds of oxen and flocks of sheep groan and suffer with the rest from the calamity. בּוּך, niphal, to be bewildered with fear. 'Ashēm, to expiate, to suffer the consequences of men's sin.

The fact, that even irrational creatures suffer along with men, impels the prophet to pray for help to the Lord, who helps both man and beast (Psalm 36:7). Joel 1:19. "To Thee, O Jehovah, do I:cry: for fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flame has consumed all the trees of the field. Joel 1:20. Even the beasts of the field cry unto Thee; for the water-brooks are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness." Fire and flame are the terms used by the prophet to denote the burning heat of the drought, which consumes the meadows, and even scorches up the trees. This is very obvious from the drying up of the water-brooks (in Joel 1:20). For Joel 1:20, compare Jeremiah 14:5-6. In Jeremiah 14:20 the address is rhetorically rounded off by the repetition of ואשׁ אכלה וגו from Jeremiah 14:19.