Daily Thoughts from Joel: Disaster Relief (1:1-12)

The word of the LORD that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel:

Hear this, you elders; give ear, all inhabitants of the land!  Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?  Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation.

What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten.  What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.

Awake, you drunkards, and weep, and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth.  For a nation has come up against my land, powerful and beyond number; its teeth are lions’ teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness.  It has laid waste my vine and splintered my fig tree; it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down; their branches are made white.

Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth for the bridegroom of her youth.  The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the LORD.  The priests mourn, the ministers of the LORD.  The fields are destroyed, the ground  mourns, because the grain is destroyed, the wine dries up, the oil languishes.  Be ashamed, O tillers of the soil; wail, O vinedressers, for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished.  The vine dries up; the fig tree languishes.  Pomegranate, palm, and apple, all the trees of the field are dried up, and gladness dries up from the children of man.  (Joel 1:1-12 ESV)

Joel is a prophet who has been given a word from Yahweh to speak to the nation of Israel.  It is addressed to everybody but the elders are mentioned as the informal leaders of each community, recognized for their age and maturity and ability to lead.  An event has happened that is overwhelming and devastating and God wants Israel to understand why it has occurred and wants them to explain it to coming generations.

A locust infestation unlike any they have experienced has destroyed all agricultural growth.  Drunkards should weep because they are drunkards, but they will weep because their precious wine is gone.  It is as if an invading nation came through and took all the bounty.  The priests should mourn because the offerings of grain and wine can no longer be brought to the house of God.  All the grains and fruit have been stripped from the land and with it the gladness of people’s hearts.

National disasters need an explanation, and we are not always told by God what that is.  Unless we have a word from God we shouldn’t speculate about it coming from Him.  But Joel is about to tell Israel Yahweh’s interpretation of this event.

If a national or even local disaster occurs, what is the role of believers?  Are we to be the prophets who declare God’s judgment on our community?  We had better be very sure that we know this is a judgment from God.  More likely our role is to be in the forefront of providing disaster relief, if we are able, and helping people acknowledge the love of God and His willingness to help them.  Christians have always found their compassion that springs from Jesus Himself to be their greatest witness and enticement to others to embrace the faith.