Joel 1:14

Sanctify yea a fast,.... This is spoken to the priests, whose business it was to appoint a fast, as the Targum renders it; or to set apart a time for such religious service, as the word signifies;

Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD, Sanctify ye a fast - appoint a solemn fast.

Sanctify ye; you priests, ministers of my God, set apart a day, or more days, appoint a time, forbid all servile work and sensual pleasures, do what you may to prepare for such a necessary work. A fast; wherein to afflict yourselves, confess your sins, repent of them, sue out your pardon, and return to God, that tie may remove your present calamities, and prevent the future. Call a solemn assembly; proclaim and publish it, that every one may know they are restrained from common, daily work, and that they are commanded to come together, most solemnly to seek the Lord. Gather the elders; both for age and for authority, magistrates and rulers, who possibly had been by their sins, more than others, cause of these grievous calamities, and should now be examples to others in repenting. And all the inhabitants of the land; make this fast as public and universal as you can, command all the people of the land, all that dwell with you; perhaps the prophet intends proselytes of the law, and those of commerce, as well as the Jews. Into the house of the Lord; courts of the temple, for priests only might go into the temple itself; the court of Israel, where the people were wont to pray. Your God; remember the covenant by which you are his people, and he is your God, that you may plead his promises as well as wait for his mercies. And cry unto the Lord, with tears of repentance, with prayer of faith, cry more with the broken heart than loud voice.

Joe 1:14 Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders [and] all the inhabitants of the land [into] the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD,Ver. 14. Sanctify ye a fast] Having humbled yourselves, preach repentance to others. That is the best sermon that is digged out of a man’ s own breast. "Sanctify yourselves first, and then prepare your brethren," saith Josiah to the priests of his time, 2 Chronicles 35:6. A religious fast (for that the prophet intends here by sanctify), rightly observed and referred to religious ends, is both a testimony of true repentance, and a furtherance thereunto; for it tames the rebel flesh, 1 Corinthians 9:27, which else will wantonize and overtop the spirit, Deuteronomy 32:15. And it giveth wings to our prayers, which before grovelled on the ground, as it were. Fasting inflameth prayer; and prayer sanctifieth fasting. Sanctify therefore a fast, call a solemn assembly] Heb. a day of restraint, separating yourselves, as Zechariah 8:19, from all fleshly delights; amercing and punishing yourselves in that sort by a holy revenge, as Psalms 35:18, and afflicting your souls with voluntary sorrows for your sins and miseries. Gather the elders] Both those qui canis et annis sunt tales, who are full of days and so of sins; and also those that are in place of authority, whose offences have soared higher on the wings of example and scandal. And all the inhabitants of the land] For as all are sin guilty, so your unanimity and charity will further the service. All should get together in this case, and bring their buckets to quench a common fire; the more public and general the humiliation is, the more pleasing and prevalent, Judges 20:26 2 Chronicles 30:8; 2 Chronicles 30:13 Jonah 3:5; Jonah 3:7-8. Into the house of the Lord your God] Which house was a type of Christ (in whom God heareth his), and had made many promises to prayers there put up in faith, 1 Kings 18:37-39 2 Chronicles 6:28-29. Of the Lord your God] Yours still by virtue of the covenant: be sure to keep faith in heart, when we are at the greatest under. And cry unto the Lord] With the heart, at least, as Moses did at the Red Sea, when yet none heard him but the ear of heaven only ( Moses egit vocis silentio ut magis audiretur); and as Hannah did when she uttered no audible voice, and yet poured forth her soul to the Lord with such a strange and unwonted writing of her lips, that Eli thought she had been drunk, 1 Samuel 1:15.

(14) A solemn assembly.—The Hebrew word strictly means a festival day, on which the people gathered themselves together, being relieved from work. Here they are summoned for a fast. The word may also be translated, as in the margin, “a day of restraint,” its root signifying to shut, to hold back.

Verse 14. Call a solemn assembly] עצרה atsarah signifies a time of restraint, as the margin has it. The clause should be translated-consecrate a fast, proclaim a time of restraint; that is, of total abstinence from food, and from all secular employment. All the elders of the land and the representatives of the people were to be collected at the temple to cry unto the Lord, to confess their sins, and pray for mercy. The temple was not yet destroyed. This prophecy was delivered before the captivity of Judah.

14. Sanctify a fast] Fasting is a common observance in the East, especially among Semitic peoples; and it is frequently mentioned in the Old Testament. The essence of a fast consists in the voluntary abstention, for a season, even from ordinary and innocent bodily enjoyment; it is thus an expression of sympathy with human affliction,—for instance during mourning, 1 Samuel 31:13; 2 Samuel 1:12. More often, however, it is mentioned as a distinctly religious observance, expressive of self-abasement and sorrow for sin, and resorted to, especially at the time of some grave disaster, whether on the part of individuals or the nation, in conjunction with prayer or sacrifice, for the purpose, if possible, of propitiating God’s favour; see e.g. Judges 20:26; 1 Samuel 7:6; 2 Samuel 12:16; 1 Kings 21:27; Psalms 69:10-11; Ezra 10:6; Nehemiah 9:1; Jonah 3:5-9; Daniel 9:3; Jdt 4:9; Jdt 4:13. Extraordinary general fasts are spoken of as “proclaimed” by royal authority, 1 Kings 21:9; 1 Kings 21:12; Jeremiah 36:9 (cf. Ezra 8:21). During the exile, four annual fast-days were established in commemoration of events connected with the fall of Jerusalem (Zechariah 7:3; Zechariah 7:5; Zechariah 8:19). The annual Day of Atonement was also observed as a fast (Leviticus 16:29). See further on Joe 2:12-13. a solemn assembly] a public religious gathering, in which all may join. On the term used (‘atzârâh), see on Amos 5:21. elders] lit. old men; but here probably (unlike Joe 1:2, Joe 2:16) the term is used in its official sense (as Isaiah 3:14, Ezekiel 8:1, and frequently). and cry unto Jehovah] expressing, on the nation’s behalf, penitence, and entreating Him to stay the threatened destruction.

Sanctify ye a fast - He does not say only, “proclaim,” or “appoint a fast,” but “sanctify it.” Hallow the act of abstinence, seasoning it with devotion and with acts meet for repentance.

13, 14. The affliction is not removed by lamentation and mourning; on the contrary, in the prophet’s mind it is but beginning.