Joe 1:2-4 | KingComments | STEP | With the calls “hear this” and “and listen” Joel draws attention to his message. The “elders” are the most responsible ones. They are the leaders of the people, men who have become wise through a long life experience. Their memory also goes furthest back. They must understand that the disaster that has struck them is not an accidental coincidence. Nor may they give any scientific explanations for it, as if a combination of physical factors has caused the large number of locusts to settle in Judah at precisely this moment in time. It is precisely these old, wise men who must realize that this disaster is a warning from God. But also the ‘ordinary’ people are told that in what has happened they have to acknowledge the actions of God. If they go back in memory and even further in history, they will have to admit that never before has anything like this happened in their country. The plague that now afflicts them is greater than any previous plague that has afflicted them. Why? Because they are even greater sinners than their fathers. Every natural disaster or other kind of disaster, for example sickness or war, is a happening through which God wants to speak to people’s conscience. If men do not obey His Word, He will speak by more powerful means. The well-known writer C.S. Lewis remarked somewhere: ‘God whispers through His Word, He roars through disaster.’ After an address entitled ‘God is there and He speaks’, a woman came to me and said: ‘I am thankful that God has roared against me because I did not listen to His Word.’ Even today God still speaks to a people and to the individual through events. The goal is to listen to Him. The same was true for the man who told his little son who believed in God that God should just tap him on his shoulder if He existed. Some time later he toppled over with his car. He was miraculously preserved. Only his shoulder was damaged. His son then said: ‘Daddy, wasn’t that the tapping of God on your shoulder?’ The man saw that God had spoken to him. He converted to God and came to faith in the Lord Jesus.

‏ Joel 1:2-4

Back in the Past

With the calls “hear this” and “and listen” Joel draws attention to his message. The “elders” are the most responsible ones. They are the leaders of the people, men who have become wise through a long life experience. Their memory also goes furthest back. They must understand that the disaster that has struck them is not an accidental coincidence. Nor may they give any scientific explanations for it, as if a combination of physical factors has caused the large number of locusts to settle in Judah at precisely this moment in time. It is precisely these old, wise men who must realize that this disaster is a warning from God.

But also the ‘ordinary’ people are told that in what has happened they have to acknowledge the actions of God. If they go back in memory and even further in history, they will have to admit that never before has anything like this happened in their country. The plague that now afflicts them is greater than any previous plague that has afflicted them. Why? Because they are even greater sinners than their fathers.

Every natural disaster or other kind of disaster, for example sickness or war, is a happening through which God wants to speak to people’s conscience. If men do not obey His Word, He will speak by more powerful means. The well-known writer C.S. Lewis remarked somewhere: ‘God whispers through His Word, He roars through disaster.’ After an address entitled ‘God is there and He speaks’, a woman came to me and said: ‘I am thankful that God has roared against me because I did not listen to His Word.’

Even today God still speaks to a people and to the individual through events. The goal is to listen to Him. The same was true for the man who told his little son who believed in God that God should just tap him on his shoulder if He existed. Some time later he toppled over with his car. He was miraculously preserved. Only his shoulder was damaged. His son then said: ‘Daddy, wasn’t that the tapping of God on your shoulder?’ The man saw that God had spoken to him. He converted to God and came to faith in the Lord Jesus.

The Lesson for the Future

Not only do we have to dig in the past, we also have to think about the future. Future generations must not forget what God has done to them. The fathers must tell their children what judgment struck them, how God had to punish them. They must not conceal this, they must be honest with it. Their children have to pass it on again. In the same way, the wonders that God did in liberating His people from Egypt were passed on to the next generations (Jdg 6:13a).

This transmission of God’s chastisement should serve as a warning and not as a fun story to entertain the audience. We are capable of telling stories from the past without going into what we should learn from them. God does not want 'teaching', His dealings with a deviant people, to be handled in that way. He wants His performance to be passed on, so that the children will not fall into the same evil and they will learn to fear the LORD.

Telling ‘about’ it is more than just telling ‘it’. Tell ‘it’ can mean that only the mere fact, the event itself, is passed on. But God wants more to be passed on. He also wants the cause of the plague and its consequences to be mentioned and the next generation to learn the right lessons from it. It is not just a question of telling what happened, but of pointing out how God acted.

The passing on of the historical lessons continues until the fourth generation. With this Joel emphasizes that what happened must be passed on to all generations (cf. Pro 4:1-4). In this context, it is worth looking at Psalm 78. That psalm is a teaching poem by Asaph, in which he, like Joel, teaches the lesson of history to the people. Asaph also starts with the call to hear and then he urges to pass on the heard to the next generation:

“A Maskil of Asaph.

Listen, O my people, to my instruction;

Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

2 I will open my mouth in a parable;

I will utter dark sayings of old,

3 Which we have heard and known,

And our fathers have told us.

4 We will not conceal them from their children,

But tell to the generation to come the praises of the LORD,

And His strength and His wondrous works that He has done” (Psa 78:1-4).

In his teaching, Asaph also recalls the locusts in Egypt, which they used there: “He gave also their crops to the grasshopper And the product of their labor to the locust” (Psa 78:46). It is of great significance to tell our children and grandchildren happenings of a shorter or longer past, which shows the actions of God in our lives or those of others. With this we give our children a good tool in their hands so that they get to know the will of God better.

It is to be feared that quite a few parents can hardly tell their children anything about what the Lord has done in their lives because they hardly ever live with Him. Busy, busy, busy with all kinds of things, but no time to talk to the children about God’s guidance in their lives.

There is also little knowledge of what God has done in the lives of other committed Christians. It is difficult for us to encourage our children to read a good book about experiences men and women have had with the Lord if we are not interested in it ourselves. Moses calls upon Israel, just before the people enter the promised land, to speak with their children about the deeds and words of the LORD (Deu 4:9 ; Deu 6:6-7 ; 20-25).

The Locusts

The starting point for Joel’s prophecy is a plague of locusts that has recently plagued the country. That this plague is a punishment from God will be clear to those who have an ear to hear. This was also the case when the LORD sent this plague in Egypt over the oppressors of his people (Exo 10:12-15; Psa 78:46 ; Psa 105:34). Just like the plague in Egypt, the plague in the days of Joel is unprecedented.

If both Egypt and Israel are hit by an unparalleled plague of locusts, it can only mean that Israel has become spiritually equal to Egypt (cf. Rev 11:8). God also warns His people several times that they will be punished with the plagues and diseases of Egypt when they are disobedient (Deu 28:38 ; 42 ; 60). For both Egypt and Israel, this plague is a chastisement from God to incite penance and prayer (cf. Amos 4:9; 1Kgs 8:37-40).

A single locust is insignificant, does not mean anything, makes no impression at all, can be stepped on just like that. The Israelites in their unbelief feel so opposed to the giants in Canaan (Num 13:33). But in large numbers they are overwhelming and devastating (Jdg 6:5 ; Jdg 7:12). The weaker the instrument is, the clearer it becomes by using such an instrument and what it does, that God stands behind it and that He uses it.

The four names with which Joel mentions the locusts seem to indicate that they are different types of locusts, each with its own name that have successively plagued the country.

1. The name of the first, “gnawing locust” (or ‘gnawer’) is in Hebrew gazam, this is a young, wingless locust;

2. the second, “swarming locust” (or ‘multiplier’) is called arbèh, this is the fully developed, winged locust (this is also the name of the locust that God once used as a plague over Egypt);

3. the third, called “creeping locust” (or ‘jumper’), is called yélek and is a different type of locust;

4. the fourth, “stripping locust” (or ‘exterminator’) is called chasil and is yet another species.

The Bible mentions nine kinds of locusts, of which the four that Joel mentions are the most dangerous and harmful.

Because a swarm of locusts eats everything and leaves nothing, “left” will mean “what has sprouted again” after all had been eaten. This is also in line with the idea that the country was successively visited by four species of locusts.

The number four is found in two other Scriptures which speak of punishments from God over the people (Jer 15:3; Eze 14:21). Four is the number of the earth. The earth has four wind directions (cf. Dan 7:2; Rev 7:1 ; Rev 20:8). There are also four seasons that determine life on earth. The number four stands for something all-encompassing. Mentioning the names of four locusts indicates that it is a judgment that has spread across Judah, in all directions.

For a harvest-dependent people, a plague like that of locusts is a life-threatening disaster. The harvest feasts that are held each time indicate the importance of the harvest. Suddenly there is no more harvest to collect. Everything disappears in one go. There is no insurance covering the damage. All livelihoods have disappeared. The country is on the edge of the abyss. Therefore the message of Joel must be heard. Or are the people so far from God that they cannot be reached?

Among the people of God in our time, ‘locusts’ have systematically been busy robbing God’s people of their food. In God’s Word, locusts are associated with demonic powers (Rev 9:3). These powers are infiltrating Christianity more and more. They manipulate Christians who do not place themselves under the authority of the Word of God, but believe that they can serve God in their own way.

People who pretend to be leaders of God’s people tell the people that you should not take the Bible seriously. Or they tell you that the Bible is only true if you experience what it says. As if God’s truth depends on a person’s feelings about it, and not merely on the fact that God has spoken and that it is therefore only true, no matter how contrary that may sometimes be to certain human feelings. In that situation, prophets are needed to remind us of what we have lost and to point out the rich content and nutritional value of the Word of God.