Monday, May 13, 2013

locusts

Good morning brothers and sisters,
This week we're getting ready for Pentecost and the gift of the Holy Spirit. When the Spirit came and Peter tried to explain what was happening he went back to a passage from the book of the Prophet Joel. So we're going to get ready first by getting to know Joel. Joel is a short book. We can't pin down Joel's setting exactly, but scholars guess the fifth century before Christ, which is after the return from exile.

Joel was sent to Israel to interpret a terrible plague of locusts that almost destroyed agricultural life. He interprets it as God's judgment and calls Israel to repent and return to the Lord. He talks a lot about temple sacrifice including grain and wine offerings to God. The locusts become apocalyptic and Joel see's the end of time. Let's take a look to see what we can learn about repentance and God's calling.

Blessings as you start your week,
Sam

 


Joel 1:1-13
The word of the Lord that came to Joel son of Pethuel: 2Hear this, O elders, give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your ancestors? 3Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. 4What 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. 5Wake up, you drunkards, and weep; and wail, all you wine-drinkers, over the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth. 6For a nation has invaded my land, powerful and innumerable; its teeth are lions’ teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness. 7It has laid waste my vines, and splintered my fig trees; it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down; their branches have turned white.

8Lament like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth. 9The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests mourn, the ministers of the Lord. 10The fields are devastated, the ground mourns; for the grain is destroyed, the wine dries up, the oil fails. 11Be dismayed, you farmers, wail, you vinedressers, over the wheat and the barley; for the crops of the field are ruined. 12The vine withers, the fig tree droops. Pomegranate, palm, and apple— all the trees of the field are dried up; surely, joy withers away among the people. 13Put on sackcloth and lament, you priests; wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, pass the night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God! Grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.

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