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Selected Verse: Joel 1:8 - Strong Concordance

Verse	Translation	Text
Joe 1:8	Strong Concordance	Lament [0421] like a virgin [01330] girded [02296] with sackcloth [08242] for the husband [01167] of her youth [05271].
	King James	Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse

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A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]
Lament--O "my land" (Joe 1:6; Isa 24:4). virgin . . . for the husband--A virgin betrothed was regarded as married (Deu 22:23; Mat 1:19). The Hebrew for "husband" is "lord" or "possessor," the husband being considered the master of the wife in the East. of her youth--when the affections are strongest and when sorrow at bereavement is consequently keenest. Suggesting the thought of what Zion's grief ought to be for her separation from Jehovah, the betrothed husband of her early days (Jer 2:2; Eze 16:8; Hos 2:7; compare Pro 2:17; Jer 3:4).

A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]

Lament--O "my land" (Joe 1:6; Isa 24:4).

virgin . . . for the husband--A virgin betrothed was regarded as married (Deu 22:23; Mat 1:19). The Hebrew for "husband" is "lord" or "possessor," the husband being considered the master of the wife in the East.

of her youth--when the affections are strongest and when sorrow at bereavement is consequently keenest. Suggesting the thought of what Zion's grief ought to be for her separation from Jehovah, the betrothed husband of her early days (Jer 2:2; Eze 16:8; Hos 2:7; compare Pro 2:17; Jer 3:4).

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]
Lament like a virgin - The prophet addresses the congregation of Israel, as one espoused to God ; "'Lament thou,' daughter of Zion," or the like. He bids her lament, with the bitterest of sorrows, as one who, in her virgin years, was just knit into one with the husband of her youth, and then at once was, by God's judgment, on the very day of her espousal, ere yet she ceased to be a virgin, parted by death. The mourning which God commands is not one of conventional or becoming mourning, but that of one who has put away all joy from her, and takes the rough garment of penitence, girding the haircloth upon her, enveloping and embracing, and therewith, wearing the whole frame. The haircloth was a coarse, rough, formless, garment, girt close round the waist, afflictive to the flesh, while it expressed the sorrow of the soul. God regarded as a virgin, the people which He had made holy to Himself Jer 2:2. He so regards the soul which He has regenerated and sanctified. The people, by their idolatry, lost Him who was a Husband to them; the soul, by inordinate affections, is parted from its God. : "God Almighty was the Husband of the synagogue, having espoused it to Himself in the patriarchs and at the giving of the law. So long as she did not, through idolatry and other heavy sins, depart from God, she was a spouse in the integrity of mind, in knowledge, in love and worship of the true God." : "The Church is a Virgin; Christ her Husband. By prevailing sins, the order, condition, splendor, worship of the Church, are, through negligence, concupiscence, avarice, irreverence, worsened, deformed, obscured." "The soul is a virgin by its creation in nature; a virgin by privilege of grace; a virgin also by hope of glory. Inordinate desire maketh the soul a harlot; manly penitence restoreth to her chastity; wise innocence, virginity. For the soul recovereth a sort of chastity, when through thirst for righteousness, she undertakes the pain and fear of penitence; still she is not as yet raised to the eminence of innocence. - In the first state she is exposed to concupiscence; in the second, she doth works of repentance; in the third, bewailing her Husband, she is filled with the longing for righteousness; in the fourth, she is gladdened by virgin embraces and the kiss of Wisdom. For Christ is the Husband of her youth, the Betrother of her virginity. But since she parted from Him to evil concupiscence, she is monished to return to Him by sorrow and the works and garb of repentance." : "So should every Christian weep who has lost Baptismal grace, or has fallen back after repentance, and, deprived of the pure embrace of the heavenly Bridegroom, embraced instead these earthly things which are as dunghills Lam 4:5, having been brought up in scarlet, and being in honor, had no understanding Psa 49:12, Psa 49:20. Whence it is written, "let tears run down like a river day and night; give thyself no rest" Lam 2:18. Such was he who said; rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not Thy law" Psa 119:136.

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]

Lament like a virgin - The prophet addresses the congregation of Israel, as one espoused to God ; "'Lament thou,' daughter of Zion," or the like. He bids her lament, with the bitterest of sorrows, as one who, in her virgin years, was just knit into one with the husband of her youth, and then at once was, by God's judgment, on the very day of her espousal, ere yet she ceased to be a virgin, parted by death. The mourning which God commands is not one of conventional or becoming mourning, but that of one who has put away all joy from her, and takes the rough garment of penitence, girding the haircloth upon her, enveloping and embracing, and therewith, wearing the whole frame. The haircloth was a coarse, rough, formless, garment, girt close round the waist, afflictive to the flesh, while it expressed the sorrow of the soul. God regarded as a virgin, the people which He had made holy to Himself Jer 2:2.

He so regards the soul which He has regenerated and sanctified. The people, by their idolatry, lost Him who was a Husband to them; the soul, by inordinate affections, is parted from its God. : "God Almighty was the Husband of the synagogue, having espoused it to Himself in the patriarchs and at the giving of the law. So long as she did not, through idolatry and other heavy sins, depart from God, she was a spouse in the integrity of mind, in knowledge, in love and worship of the true God." : "The Church is a Virgin; Christ her Husband. By prevailing sins, the order, condition, splendor, worship of the Church, are, through negligence, concupiscence, avarice, irreverence, worsened, deformed, obscured." "The soul is a virgin by its creation in nature; a virgin by privilege of grace; a virgin also by hope of glory. Inordinate desire maketh the soul a harlot; manly penitence restoreth to her chastity; wise innocence, virginity. For the soul recovereth a sort of chastity, when through thirst for righteousness, she undertakes the pain and fear of penitence; still she is not as yet raised to the eminence of innocence. - In the first state she is exposed to concupiscence; in the second, she doth works of repentance; in the third, bewailing her Husband, she is filled with the longing for righteousness; in the fourth, she is gladdened by virgin embraces and the kiss of Wisdom. For Christ is the Husband of her youth, the Betrother of her virginity. But since she parted from Him to evil concupiscence, she is monished to return to Him by sorrow and the works and garb of repentance." : "So should every Christian weep who has lost Baptismal grace, or has fallen back after repentance, and, deprived of the pure embrace of the heavenly Bridegroom, embraced instead these earthly things which are as dunghills Lam 4:5, having been brought up in scarlet, and being in honor, had no understanding Psa 49:12, Psa 49:20. Whence it is written, "let tears run down like a river day and night; give thyself no rest" Lam 2:18. Such was he who said; rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not Thy law" Psa 119:136.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]
The whole nation is to mourn over this devastation. Joe 1:8. "Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. Joe 1:9. The meat-offering and the drink-offering are destroyed from the house of Jehovah. The priests, the servant of Jehovah. mourn. Joe 1:10. The field is laid waste, the ground mourns: for the corn is laid waste: the new wine is spoiled, the oil decays. Joe 1:11. Turn pale, ye husbandmen; howl, ye vinedressers, over wheat and barley: for the harvest of the field is perished. Joe 1:12. The vine is spoiled, and the fig-tree faded; the pomegranate, also the palm and the apple tree: all the trees of the field are withered away; yea, joy has expired from the children of men." In Joe 1:8 Judah is addressed as the congregation of Jehovah. אלי is the imperative of the verb אלה, equivalent to the Syriac 'elā', to lament. The verb only occurs here. The lamentation of the virgin for the בּעל נעוּריה, i.e., the beloved of your youth, her bridegroom, whom she has lost by death (Isa 54:6), is the deepest and bitterest lamentation. With reference to חגרת־שׂק, see Delitzsch on Isa 3:24. The occasion of this deep lamentation, according to Joe 1:9, is the destruction of the meat-offering and drink-offering from the house of the Lord, over which the servants of Jehovah mourn. The meat and drink offerings must of necessity cease, because the corn, the new wine, and the oil are destroyed through the devastation of the field and soil. Hokhrath minchâh does not affirm that the offering of the daily morning and evening sacrifice (Exo 29:38-42) - for it is to this that מנחה ונסך chiefly, if not exclusively, refers - has already ceased; but simply that any further offering is rendered impossible by the failure of meal, wine, and oil. Now Israel could not suffer any greater calamity than the suspension of the daily sacrifice; for this was a practical suspension of the covenant relation - a sign that God had rejected His people. Therefore, even in the last siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, the sacrificial worship was not suspended till it had been brought to the last extremity; and even then it was for the want of sacrificers, and not of the material of sacrifice (Josephus, de bell. Jud. vi. 2, 1). The reason for this anxiety was the devastation of the field and land (Joe 1:10); and this is still further explained by a reference to the devastation and destruction of the fruits of the ground, viz., the corn, i.e., the corn growing in the field, so that the next harvest would be lost, and the new wine and oil, i.e., the vines and olive-trees, so that they could bear no grapes for new wine, and no olives for oil. The verbs in Joe 1:11 are not perfects, but imperatives, as in the fifth verse. הבישׁ has the same meaning as bōsh, as in Jer 2:26; Jer 6:15, etc., to stand ashamed, to turn pale with shame at the disappointment of their hope, and is probably written defectively, without ו, to distinguish it from הובישׁ, the hiphil of יבשׁ, to be parched or dried up (Joe 1:10 and Joe 1:12). The hope of the husbandmen was disappointed through the destruction of the wheat and barley, the most important field crops. The vine-growers had to mourn over the destruction of the vine and the choice fruit-trees (Joe 1:12), such as the fig and pomegranate, and even the date-palm (gam-tâmâr), which has neither a fresh green rind nor tender juicy leaves, and therefore is not easily injured by the locusts so as to cause it to dry up; and tappūăch, the apple-tree, and all the trees of the field, i.e., all the rest of the trees, wither. "All trees, whether fruit-bearing or not, are consumed by the devastating locusts" (Jerome). In the concluding clause of Joe 1:12, the last and principal ground assigned for the lamentation is, that joy is taken away and withered from the children of men (hōbbı̄sh min, constr. praegn.). כּי introduces a reason here as elsewhere, though not for the clause immediately preceding, but for the הבישׁוּ and הילילוּ in Joe 1:11, the leading thought in both verses; and we may therefore express it by an emphatic yea.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]

The whole nation is to mourn over this devastation. Joe 1:8. "Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. Joe 1:9. The meat-offering and the drink-offering are destroyed from the house of Jehovah. The priests, the servant of Jehovah. mourn. Joe 1:10. The field is laid waste, the ground mourns: for the corn is laid waste: the new wine is spoiled, the oil decays. Joe 1:11. Turn pale, ye husbandmen; howl, ye vinedressers, over wheat and barley: for the harvest of the field is perished. Joe 1:12. The vine is spoiled, and the fig-tree faded; the pomegranate, also the palm and the apple tree: all the trees of the field are withered away; yea, joy has expired from the children of men." In Joe 1:8 Judah is addressed as the congregation of Jehovah. אלי is the imperative of the verb אלה, equivalent to the Syriac 'elā', to lament. The verb only occurs here. The lamentation of the virgin for the בּעל נעוּריה, i.e., the beloved of your youth, her bridegroom, whom she has lost by death (Isa 54:6), is the deepest and bitterest lamentation. With reference to חגרת־שׂק, see Delitzsch on Isa 3:24. The occasion of this deep lamentation, according to Joe 1:9, is the destruction of the meat-offering and drink-offering from the house of the Lord, over which the servants of Jehovah mourn. The meat and drink offerings must of necessity cease, because the corn, the new wine, and the oil are destroyed through the devastation of the field and soil. Hokhrath minchâh does not affirm that the offering of the daily morning and evening sacrifice (Exo 29:38-42) - for it is to this that מנחה ונסך chiefly, if not exclusively, refers - has already ceased; but simply that any further offering is rendered impossible by the failure of meal, wine, and oil. Now Israel could not suffer any greater calamity than the suspension of the daily sacrifice; for this was a practical suspension of the covenant relation - a sign that God had rejected His people. Therefore, even in the last siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, the sacrificial worship was not suspended till it had been brought to the last extremity; and even then it was for the want of sacrificers, and not of the material of sacrifice (Josephus, de bell. Jud. vi. 2, 1). The reason for this anxiety was the devastation of the field and land (Joe 1:10); and this is still further explained by a reference to the devastation and destruction of the fruits of the ground, viz., the corn, i.e., the corn growing in the field, so that the next harvest would be lost, and the new wine and oil, i.e., the vines and olive-trees, so that they could bear no grapes for new wine, and no olives for oil. The verbs in Joe 1:11 are not perfects, but imperatives, as in the fifth verse. הבישׁ has the same meaning as bōsh, as in Jer 2:26; Jer 6:15, etc., to stand ashamed, to turn pale with shame at the disappointment of their hope, and is probably written defectively, without ו, to distinguish it from הובישׁ, the hiphil of יבשׁ, to be parched or dried up (Joe 1:10 and Joe 1:12). The hope of the husbandmen was disappointed through the destruction of the wheat and barley, the most important field crops. The vine-growers had to mourn over the destruction of the vine and the choice fruit-trees (Joe 1:12), such as the fig and pomegranate, and even the date-palm (gam-tâmâr), which has neither a fresh green rind nor tender juicy leaves, and therefore is not easily injured by the locusts so as to cause it to dry up; and tappūăch, the apple-tree, and all the trees of the field, i.e., all the rest of the trees, wither. "All trees, whether fruit-bearing or not, are consumed by the devastating locusts" (Jerome). In the concluding clause of Joe 1:12, the last and principal ground assigned for the lamentation is, that joy is taken away and withered from the children of men (hōbbı̄sh min, constr. praegn.). כּי introduces a reason here as elsewhere, though not for the clause immediately preceding, but for the הבישׁוּ and הילילוּ in Joe 1:11, the leading thought in both verses; and we may therefore express it by an emphatic yea.

Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65]
The husband of her youth - Espoused to her, but snatched away by an untimely death.

Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826
Lament like a virgin - for the husband of her youth - Virgin is a very improper version here. The original is בתולה bethulah, which signifies a young woman or bride not a virgin, the proper Hebrew for which is עלמה almah. See the notes on Isa 7:14 (note), and Mat 1:23 (note).

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⁴ Wilt thou not from this time cry [07121] unto me, My father [01], thou art the guide [0441] of my youth [05271]?

¹⁷ Which forsaketh [05800] the guide [0441] of her youth [05271], and forgetteth [07911] the covenant [01285] of her God [0430].

⁷ And she shall follow [07291] after her lovers [0157], but she shall not overtake [05381] them; and she shall seek [01245] them, but shall not find [04672] them: then shall she say [0559], I will go [03212] and return [07725] to my first [07223] husband [0376]; for then was it better [02896] with me than now [06258].

⁸ Now when I passed [05674] by thee, and looked [07200] upon thee, behold, thy time [06256] was the time [06256] of love [01730]; and I spread [06566] my skirt [03671] over thee, and covered [03680] thy nakedness [06172]: yea, I sware [07650] unto thee, and entered [0935] into a covenant [01285] with thee, saith [05002] the Lord [0136] GOD [03069], and thou becamest mine.

² Go [01980] and cry [07121] in the ears [0241] of Jerusalem [03389], saying [0559], Thus saith [0559] the LORD [03068]; I remember [02142] thee, the kindness [02617] of thy youth [05271], the love [0160] of thine espousals [03623], when thou wentest [03212] after [0310] me in the wilderness [04057], in a land [0776] that was not sown [02232].

¹⁹ Then [1161] Joseph [2501] her [846] husband [435], being [5607] a just [1342] man, and [2532] not [3361] willing [2309] to make [3856] her [846] a publick example [3856], was minded [1014] to put [630] her [846] away [630] privily [2977].

²³ If a damsel [05291] that is a virgin [01330] be betrothed [0781] unto an husband [0376], and a man [0376] find [04672] her in the city [05892], and lie [07901] with her;

⁴ The earth [0776] mourneth [056] and fadeth away [05034], the world [08398] languisheth [0535] and fadeth away [05034], the haughty [04791] people [05971] of the earth [0776] do languish [0535].

⁶ For a nation [01471] is come up [05927] upon my land [0776], strong [06099], and without number [04557], whose teeth [08127] are the teeth [08127] of a lion [0738], and he hath the cheek teeth [04973] of a great lion [03833].

¹³⁶ Rivers [06388] of waters [04325] run down [03381] mine eyes [05869], because they keep [08104] not thy law [08451].

¹⁸ Their heart [03820] cried [06817] unto the Lord [0136], O wall [02346] of the daughter [01323] of Zion [06726], let tears [01832] run down [03381] like a river [05158] day [03119] and night [03915]: give [05414] thyself no rest [06314]; let not the apple [01323] of thine eye [05869] cease [01826].

²⁰ Man [0120] that is in honour [03366], and understandeth [0995] not, is like [04911] the beasts [0929] that perish [01820].

¹² Nevertheless man [0120] being in honour [03366] abideth [03885] not: he is like [04911] the beasts [0929] that perish [01820].

⁵ They that did feed [0398] delicately [04574] are desolate [08074] in the streets [02351]: they that were brought up [0539] in scarlet [08438] embrace [02263] dunghills [0830].

¹¹ Be ye ashamed [03001], O ye husbandmen [0406]; howl [03213], O ye vinedressers [03755], for the wheat [02406] and for the barley [08184]; because the harvest [07105] of the field [07704] is perished [06].

¹² The vine [01612] is dried up [03001], and the fig tree [08384] languisheth [0535]; the pomegranate [07416] tree, the palm tree [08558] also, and the apple tree [08598], even all the trees [06086] of the field [07704], are withered [03001]: because joy [08342] is withered away [03001] from the sons [01121] of men [0120].

¹⁰ The field [07704] is wasted [07703], the land [0127] mourneth [056]; for the corn [01715] is wasted [07703]: the new wine [08492] is dried up [03001], the oil [03323] languisheth [0535].

¹⁵ Were they ashamed [03001] when they had committed [06213] abomination [08441]? nay [01571], they were not at all [0954] ashamed [0954], neither [01571] could [03045] they blush [03637]: therefore they shall fall [05307] among them that fall [05307]: at the time [06256] that I visit [06485] them they shall be cast down [03782], saith [0559] the LORD [03068].

²⁶ As the thief [01590] is ashamed [01322] when he is found [04672], so is the house [01004] of Israel [03478] ashamed [03001]; they, their kings [04428], their princes [08269], and their priests [03548], and their prophets [05030],

¹⁰ The field [07704] is wasted [07703], the land [0127] mourneth [056]; for the corn [01715] is wasted [07703]: the new wine [08492] is dried up [03001], the oil [03323] languisheth [0535].

³⁸ Now this is that which thou shalt offer [06213] upon the altar [04196]; two [08147] lambs [03532] of the first [01121] year [08141] day [03117] by day [03117] continually [08548].
³⁹ The one [0259] lamb [03532] thou shalt offer [06213] in the morning [01242]; and the other [08145] lamb [03532] thou shalt offer [06213] at even [06153]:
⁴⁰ And with the one [0259] lamb [03532] a tenth [06241] deal of flour [05560] mingled [01101] with the fourth part [07253] of an hin [01969] of beaten [03795] oil [08081]; and the fourth part [07243] of an hin [01969] of wine [03196] for a drink offering [05262].
⁴¹ And the other [08145] lamb [03532] thou shalt offer [06213] at even [06153], and shalt do [06213] thereto according to the meat offering [04503] of the morning [01242], and according to the drink offering [05262] thereof, for a sweet [05207] savour [07381], an offering made by fire [0801] unto the LORD [03068].
⁴² This shall be a continual [08548] burnt offering [05930] throughout your generations [01755] at the door [06607] of the tabernacle [0168] of the congregation [04150] before [06440] the LORD [03068]: where I will meet [03259] you, to speak [01696] there unto thee.

⁹ The meat offering [04503] and the drink offering [05262] is cut off [03772] from the house [01004] of the LORD [03068]; the priests [03548], the LORD'S [03068] ministers [08334], mourn [056].

²⁴ And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell [01314] there shall be stink [04716]; and instead of a girdle [02290] a rent [05364]; and instead of well set [04639] hair [04748] baldness [07144]; and instead of a stomacher [06614] a girding [04228] of sackcloth [08242]; and burning [03587] instead of beauty [03308].

⁶ For the LORD [03068] hath called [07121] thee as a woman [0802] forsaken [05800] and grieved [06087] in spirit [07307], and a wife [0802] of youth [05271], when thou wast refused [03988], saith [0559] thy God [0430].

⁸ Lament [0421] like a virgin [01330] girded [02296] with sackcloth [08242] for the husband [01167] of her youth [05271].

¹⁰ The field [07704] is wasted [07703], the land [0127] mourneth [056]; for the corn [01715] is wasted [07703]: the new wine [08492] is dried up [03001], the oil [03323] languisheth [0535].

⁹ The meat offering [04503] and the drink offering [05262] is cut off [03772] from the house [01004] of the LORD [03068]; the priests [03548], the LORD'S [03068] ministers [08334], mourn [056].

⁸ Lament [0421] like a virgin [01330] girded [02296] with sackcloth [08242] for the husband [01167] of her youth [05271].

²³ Behold [2400], a virgin [3933] shall be with child [1722] [1064] [2192], and [2532] shall bring forth [5088] a son [5207], and [2532] they shall call [2564] his [846] name [3686] Emmanuel [1694], which [3739] being interpreted [3177] is [2076], God [2316] with [3326] us [2257].

¹⁴ Therefore the Lord [0136] himself shall give [05414] you a sign [0226]; Behold, a virgin [05959] shall conceive [02030], and bear [03205] a son [01121], and shall call [07121] his name [08034] Immanuel [06005] [0410].