Yoel 1:13

1:13 Get dressed ¹  and lament, you priests!

Wail, you who minister at the altar!

Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you servants of my God,

because no one brings grain offerings or drink offerings

to the temple of your God anymore. ² 

Yoel 2:3

2:3 Like fire they devour everything in their path; ³ 

a flame blazes behind them.

The land looks like the Garden of Eden ⁴  before them,

but behind them there is only a desolate wilderness –

for nothing escapes them! ⁵ 

Yoel 2:17

2:17 Let the priests, those who serve the Lord, weep

from the vestibule all the way back to the altar. ⁶ 

Let them say, “Have pity, O Lord, on your people;

please do not turn over your inheritance to be mocked,

to become a proverb ⁷  among the nations.

Why should it be said ⁸  among the peoples,

“Where is their God?”

[1:13]  ¹ tn Heb “put on.” There is no object present in the Hebrew text, but many translations assume “sackcloth” to be the understood object of the verb “put on.” Its absence in the Hebrew text of v. 13 is probably due to metrical considerations. The meter here is 3 + 3, and that has probably influenced the prophet’s choice of words.

[1:13]  ² tn Heb “for grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.”

[2:3]  ³ tn Heb “a fire devours before it.”

[2:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “like the garden of Eden, the land is before them.”

[2:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “and surely a survivor there is not for it.” The antecedent of the pronoun “it” is apparently עַם (’am, “people”) of v. 2, which seems to be a figurative way of referring to the locusts. K&D 26:191-92 thought that the antecedent of this pronoun was “land,” but the masculine gender of the pronoun does not support this.

[2:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “between the vestibule and the altar.” The vestibule was located at the entrance of the temple and the altar was located at the other end of the building. So “between the vestibule and the altar” is a merism referring to the entire structure. The priestly lament permeates the entire house of worship.

[2:17]  ⁷ tn For the MT reading לִמְשָׁל (limshol, an infinitive, “to rule”), one should instead read לְמָשָׁל (lÿmashal, a noun, “to a byword”). While the consonantal Hebrew text permits either, the context suggests that the concern here is more one of not wanting to appear abandoned by God to ongoing economic depression rather than one of concern over potential political subjection of Israel (cf. v. 19). The possibility that the form in the MT is an infinitive construct of the denominative verb II מָשַׁל (mashal, “to utter a proverb”) does not seem likely because of the following preposition (Hebrew בְּ [bÿ], rather than עַל [’al]).

[2:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “Why will they say?”