In today's text Joel calls upon the people to mourn this calamity. If the calamity weren't related to the way they've been living their lives, waking up from their complacency and humbling themselves in the sight of God by mourning wouldn't be an effective strategy against the devouring jaws of the locusts. The prophet is clearly linking the people's current predicament with the current state of their hearts.
"What the locust swarm has left the great locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left the young locusts have eaten; what the young locusts have left, other locusts have eaten." (Joel 1:4) There are several stages of a locust's life and that may be what's in view here when Joel mentions several stages of the destruction of the crops.
This disaster must be taken to heart. While it's true that bad things such as natural disasters take place in this fallen world, it's also true that the Lord has a purpose for anything He allows to happen on the earth. Joel first calls upon those who are just drifting their way through life who are living in excess and who are numbing their guilty consciences with alcohol. "Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine; wail because of the new wine, for it has been snatched from your lips." (Joel 1:5) The substance with which they are medicating themselves is soon to be in short supply, for the vineyards have been affected too.
The use of the word "nation" in this next passage has led to the theory held by some scholars that the locusts are not literal locusts. However, because literal locusts swoop in like an enemy army and descend upon all the vegetation in sight, the use of the word "nation" might be used to compare the locusts' destruction to that of an army that swoops in and destroys crops and villages and cities. "A nation has invaded my land, a mighty army without number; it has the teeth of a lion, the fangs of a lioness. It has laid waste my vines and ruined my fig trees. It has stripped off their bark and has thrown it away, leaving their branches white." (Joel 1:6-7) In the book of Proverbs we find swarms of locusts spoken of as if they are an enemy army: "Locusts have no king, yet they advance together in ranks." (Proverbs 30:27) So we see that speaking of them as if they are an enemy nation or a great army is not without precedent.
Joel urges the people to mourn over this calamity. The word translated as "mourn" in this next verse is the same word as "lament", which means "to wail". The people are to lift up their voices together in a wail of grief. "Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth grieving for the betrothed of her youth." (Joel 1:8) The prophet says, "Lift up your voices in grief as a young woman would wail aloud if the young man she loves and is engaged to loses his life before the happy day of their wedding arrives. Cry out in grief like a woman who has lost the love of her life---who has lost the future she envisioned with him."
He calls upon the people to mourn for what could have been. They could have been living in peace and prosperity if they had not gone spiritually astray. Back in Deuteronomy 28, before the Lord brought the people of Israel into the land, He promised them blessings of every type if they would remain faithful to Him. He promised to bless them "in everything you put your hand to" if they would not turn to idolatry. All the blessings of Deuteronomy 28:1-14 could have been theirs if they had honored their covenant with Him. But the Lord also provided a list of calamities that would come upon the nation if they did not remain faithful to Him. One of the things on the list was the destruction of the crops by locusts. The Lord warned them that their hard work of planting would be for nothing if they turned their backs on Him.
Sorrow must accompany repentance. If we don't feel mournful about sinning against God and if we don't feel sad for sinning against our fellow man, we must question whether we are even in a repentant spirit at all, for the Bible says, "Godly sorrow brings repentance." (2 Corinthians 7:10a) Sorrow and repentance go hand in hand.
Because of the severity of the plague, it has affected everything in the nation, including putting a stop to some of the normal rituals of the temple. "Grain offerings and drink offerings are cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests are in mourning, those who minister before the Lord. The fields are ruined, the ground is dried up; the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the olive oil fails. Despair, you farmers, wail, you vine growers; grieve for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field is destroyed. The vine is dried up and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, the palm and the apple tree---all the trees of the field---are dried up. Surely the people's joy is withered away." (Joel 1:9-12)
The sacrifices and offerings cannot be made at the temple, and we might wonder why the Lord would allow the situation to come down to that, but later in the Bible we will learn that He takes no pleasure in sacrifices and offerings when the hearts of the people bringing these things aren't right with Him. We will find the Lord, through various prophets, referring to the offerings as "meaningless" and we will find Him saying that He wishes they would just close the doors to the temple and stop lighting useless fires on the altars and stop giving Him lip service while their hearts are far from Him. So the fact that the crops have failed to the point of no drink offerings or grain offerings being made at the temple is of little consequence to Him. What is of consequence to Him is that the people need to repent. This is what Joel is urging them to do. The prophet is calling upon the people to look around them and consider why disaster has taken place. What led to a curse of Deuteronomy 28 falling upon them instead of the blessings of that segment of Scripture? They must humbly and prayerfully examine their hearts, acknowledge the sin that the Holy Spirit reveals to them, be sorry for that sin and repent of it, and with the Lord's help turn away from that sin and get back on the godly path.
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