Joel 1:17

The seed is rotten under their clods,.... Or "grains" (z) of wheat or barley, which had been sown, and, for want of rain, putrefied and wasted away under the clods of earth, through the great

The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered. The seed is rotten - "is dried up," 'vanishes away,' from an Arabic root (Maurer).

The seed; called so from the seedsman’ s scattering it abroad when he soweth it, and in this place only so used, for aught I can observe, and yet this use of it here is justified by all the following words; the grain which is sown for the seed against next spring. Is rotten; is putrefied, grown musty and fruitless; nor is this word any where else used in Scripture. Under their clods, and earth, from under which the seed covered should spring up, but now, as unsound, rotten, and fruitless seed, is lost under it. The garners, or storehouses, treasuries of corn, in which it was kept for future use, are laid desolate; either run to ruin, because the owners, discouraged with the barrenness of the seasons, would not repair them; this will intimate that this judgment lasted some years, and is better ground for it than the four sorts of vermin repeated one after another, in : or else desolate, being pulled down, and the materials employed for other uses, till they may have corn to keep in them. The barns, in which they lodged their unthrashed corn, are broken down; neglected, and without repair; for the corn is withered; there was no use of them, no corn to be laid up, all withered, and therefore the barns were not regarded.

Joe 1:17 The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered.Ver. 17. The seed is rotten under their clods] It lieth buried or drowned with excessive rain and moisture, corrupting the seed soon after it was sown: and that which was not so marred was afterwards, when it came to be grain, dried up with excessive heat. The corn is withered] So that the garners were desolated, the barns broken down for want of stuffing, and for that there was no use of them, since they sowed but reaped not, Micah 6:15. The husbandman was called to mourning, Amos 5:16, for a threefold calamity that lay upon his tillage. First, immoderate rain in or about seeding; secondly, locusts and other vermin at spring; thirdly, extreme drought after all, Joe 1:19-20. Thus God followeth sinners with one plague in the neck of another (as he did Pharaoh, that sturdy rebel), till he have made his foes his footstools. To multiply sin is to multiply sorrow, Psalms 16:4; to heap up wickedness is to heap up wrath, Romans 2:5. "I will heap mischiefs upon them," saith God; "I will spend mine arrows upon them," Deuteronomy 32:23, which yet cannot be all spent up, as Ovid feared of his Jupiter, that if he should punish men for every offence his store of thunder bolts would be soon spent and exhausted. “ Si queries peccent homines sua fulmina mittat Iupiter, exiguo tempore inermis erit. ”

(17) The corn is withered.—The results of the terrible drought, coincident with the ravages of the locusts, are now described. The ancient versions present difficulty and variety in the exact rendering of this verse, owing to several words occurring in it being not found elsewhere in Holy Scripture. On the whole the English text seems correct and satisfactory.

Verse 17. The seed is rotten under their clods] When the sprout was cut off as low as possible by the locusts, there was no farther germination. The seed rotted away.

17. The grains shrivel (R.V. marg.) under their shovels (or hoes)] unable to withstand the scorching heat. This is the only rendering which the existing text will permit[32]; but the last word especially is not satisfactory. Merx (p. 100 f.) examines the passage at some length; but his restoration is not convincing. [32] Grains, lit. things parted (cf. Syr. perdβ). A.V. is rotten follows Ibn Ezra and Kimchi in explaining the Heb. ‘βbhηsh from the Aram, ‘aphash, to rot; but the meaning is unsuitable (for rotting is not an effect of drought), and the Arab. ‘abisa, to be dried up (esp. of dirt) both agrees better phonetically and yields a preferable sense. ξπψτεϊ is derived obviously from πψσ to sweep away (Judges 5:21, of a torrent; so also in Arab. and Syr.): in Arab. the corresponding word means a broom for sweeping away mud &c., also (now) a shovel, and in Palestine (PEFQSt., 1891, p. III), a hoe, and in Aram. a shovel for removing ashes (Numbers 4:14, &c.). The Arab. gurf does not mean gleba terrae (Keil), but (Lane, Arab. Lex. p. 411) the water-worn bank of a stream. Clod (Heb. ψִ ?βγ, Job 21:33; Job 38:38) would not be a probable generalization even of a word signifying properly masses of earth swept away by a stream.garners] lit. treasuries, store-houses,—a word, in itself, of wider meaning than “garner”: cf. 1 Chronicles 27:27-28 (for wine and oil); 2 Chronicles 32:27 (for money and other valuables); Nehemiah 13:12, &c. are laid desolate … broken down] being empty, and falling into disrepair through disuse. barns] not the usual word (Deuteronomy 28:8, &c.), but another, not found elsewhere, though nearly resembling the word found in Haggai 2:19. is withered] sheweth shame, fig. for fails, as Joe 1:10; Joe 1:12.

The seed is rotten under the clods - Not only was all to be cut off for the present, but, with it, all hope for the future. The scattered seed, as it lay, each under its clod known to God, was dried up, and so decayed.

15-20. Not a petition which the prophet puts into the mouths of the priests, but the prophet’s own words, explaining the seriousness of the calamity and thus presenting the reason for the appeal in 13, 14.