Thy Strong Word — Joel 1:1-20: When the Locusts Come: Repentance in the Day of Devastation

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The book of Joel begins in a year everyone in Judah would remember. Locusts had come through in wave after wave and eaten the harvest down to nothing, and the priests had no grain and no wine left to bring to the altar. Joel summons the land group by group: drunkards to wake and weep, farmers to wail over the wheat, priests to spend the night in sackcloth. Then he calls all of them to the house of the LORD to cry out. He tells them to remember this year and to make sure their grandchildren hear about it, because he has seen what the swarm points toward.

The Rev. John Lukomski, pastor emeritus and co-host of Wrestling with the Basics on KFUO Radio, joins the Rev. Dr. Phil Booe to study Joel 1:1-20.

Edom stands at the crossroads and watches his brother Judah dragged off in chains, and Obadiah announces that the day of the LORD is coming for the bystander, too. Joel sees a locust swarm strip a nation bare in a single season, calls the people to rend their hearts and not their garments, and promises a Spirit poured out on all flesh. Nahum returns to Nineveh a century after Jonah’s revival, and this time the superpower does not repent. Zephaniah spends two chapters on the day of wrath and then ends with the Lord singing over the people He has rescued. This series on Thy Strong Word works through these selected books of the so-called “minor” prophets verse by verse, showing how the Lord judges the nations while also keeping his promises to gather His people home.

Thy Strong Word, hosted by Rev. Dr. Phil Booe, pastor of St. John Lutheran Church of Luverne, MN, reveals the light of our salvation in Christ through study of God’s Word, breaking our darkness with His redeeming light. Each weekday, two pastors fix our eyes on Jesus by considering Holy Scripture, verse by verse, in order to be strengthened in the Word and be equipped to faithfully serve in our daily vocations. Submit comments or questions to: thystrongword@kfuo.org.

Thy Strong Word is graciously underwritten by the Lutheran Heritage Foundation. Through the mission gifts of people like you, LHF translates, publishes, distributes and introduces books that are Bible-based, Christ-centered and Reformation-driven. Learn more at lhfmissions.org.

Joel 1:1-20

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

An Invasion of Locusts

[2] 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?

[3] Tell your children of it,

and let your children tell their children,

and their children to another generation.

[4] 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.

[5] 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.

[6] 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.

[7] 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.

[8] Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth

for the bridegroom of her youth.

[9] The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off

from the house of the LORD.

The priests mourn,

the ministers of the LORD.

[10] The fields are destroyed,

the ground mourns,

because the grain is destroyed,

the wine dries up,

the oil languishes.

[11] Be ashamed, O tillers of the soil;

wail, O vinedressers,

for the wheat and the barley,

because the harvest of the field has perished.

[12] 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.

A Call to Repentance

[13] Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests;

wail, O ministers of the altar.

Go in, pass the night in sackcloth,

O ministers of my God!

Because grain offering and drink offering

are withheld from the house of your God.

[14] Consecrate a fast;

call a solemn assembly.

Gather the elders

and all the inhabitants of the land

to the house of the LORD your God,

and cry out to the LORD.

[15] Alas for the day!

For the day of the LORD is near,

and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.

[16] Is not the food cut off

before our eyes,

joy and gladness

from the house of our God?

[17] The seed shrivels under the clods;

the storehouses are desolate;

the granaries are torn down

because the grain has dried up.

[18] How the beasts groan!

The herds of cattle are perplexed

because there is no pasture for them;

even the flocks of sheep suffer.

[19] To you, O LORD, I call.

For fire has devoured

the pastures of the wilderness,

and flame has burned

all the trees of the field.

[20] Even the beasts of the field pant for you

because the water brooks are dried up,

and fire has devoured

the pastures of the wilderness.

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. ESV Text Edition: 2025. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language. Used by permission. All rights reserved.