Joel 2:13

And rend your heart, and not your garments,.... Which latter used to be done in times of distress, either private or public, and as a token of grief and sorrow, Genesis 37:34; nor was it criminal or

And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.

Rend your heart; lay them open, as chirurgeons lay open putrefying sores that they may be thoroughly cleansed; remove iniquity from your heart, as the Chaldee paraphrast. And not your garments; as hypocrites do, who in sudden or great troubles easily stoop to tear a loose garment, but hardly are brought to rend their hearts: what God expecteth most they cannot be persuaded to, but what he careth least for they are ready to do. Be not such hypocrites before God, who cannot be mocked, nor spare them who dare do it: let your garments escape if you please; but your hearts, break them, circumcise them, . Turn unto the Lord your God; in repenting keep hope alive, look to God as your God, who by covenant hath promised to stow you mercy on your repenting and turning to him, 30:8,9 Isaiah 55:7 ,20 32:38-10. He is gracious; gentle, easy to be entreated, and ready to forgive the guilty. Merciful; compassionate, and ready to show pity and relieve the indigent: you are both guilty and afflicted; return to your God, who is gracious to pardon your guilt, and merciful to relieve your miseries. Slow to anger; who hath spared, doth still spare, and waits purposely that you might have time to repent, and turn and live. Of great kindness: your provocations are many and great, yet return, for his mercy is great, his kindnesses are many. And repenteth him of the evil; not as man, but as becometh his own holy, just, and immutable nature, he turneth from executing the fierceness of his wrath, . Be wise and obedient, and follow my counsel, repent and make your peace with God.

Joe 2:13 And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he [is] gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.Ver. 13. And rend your heart and not your garments] i.e. not your garments only, which was gestus perturbationis among the Jews, a gesture usual with them, to set forth the greatness of their grief and displeasure; as, 1. At funerals and loss of friends, as Genesis 37:34 2. In case of blasphemy, as 2 Kings 18:37 3. In time of common calamity, Esther 4:1. Tum pius Aeneas humeris abseindere vestem Auxilioque vocare Deos, et tendere palmas (Virg.). Godly sorrow for sin should exceed all other sorrows whatsoever, both in intention and extension; the whole soul sending continual streams into it out of every faculty. And hence it is that the prophet here calleth upon them to rend, and as it were to discontinuate their hearts. Cor integram cor scissum, the broken heart is the only sound heart; and to rend the garment, and not the heart, is as very a fraud as that of players, who seem to wound themselves, but do not; and make a show of thrusting themselves through their bodies, but the sword passeth only through their clothes. Stage players can act to the life those whom they impersonate; yea, outstrip them in outward actions; so do hypocrites the true Christian. Doth good Josiah melt at the menaces of the law, and weep, and rend his clothes, and humble himself? 2 Chronicles 34:27; wicked Ahab will also, in like case, rend his clothes, put sackcloth upon his flesh, fast, lie in sackcloth, and go softly and heavily, as sorrowful men and mourners use to do, 1 Kings 21:27. Doth the publican fix his eyes on the ground? those hypocrites in Isaiah will hang down their heads as bulrushes. Doth holy Timothy weaken his constitution with religious abstinence? the false Pharisee will not only weaken his constitution, but wither and disfigure his complexion, αφανιζουσι, that he may appear to men to fast, Matthew 6:16. Such pains men will be at for applause, for a little stinking breath, which yet cannot blow one cold blast upon them when they shall be frying in hell for their seemingness. "Rend, therefore, your hearts," saith the prophet; "break up your fallow ground, circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the filthy foreskin of your hearts," Jeremiah 4:3-4, "wash them from wickedness, that ye may be saved," Joe 2:14. Be ye active, and voluntaries in your sorrows for sin. Virtus nolentium nulla est, feigned and forced grief is nothing worth. Judas grieved, confessed, restored, and yet miscarried. He went not forth, as Peter, to weep bitterly; he did not cast himself into heaviness, as James 4:9-10. It was fired out of him, as sweet water out of roses; it was squeezed out of him, as verjuice out of crabs.

(13) Repenteth him of the evil—i.e., in the sense that of His own will He would not the death of a sinner. The judgments of God, like His mercies, are conditional. As the “Lord repented (i.e., grieved) that He had made Saul king over Israel,” and revoked the appointment, so now He repenteth Him of the evil which will fall on His people if impenitent. If they will repent, it may be He will do it not.

Verse 13. Rend your heart] Let it not be merely a rending of your garments, but let your hearts be truly contrite. Merely external worship and hypocritical pretensions will only increase the evil, and cause God to meet you with heavier judgments. For he is gracious] Good and benevolent in his own nature. Merciful] Pitying and forgiving, as the effect of goodness and benevolence. Slow to anger] He is not easily provoked to punish, because he is gracious and merciful. Of great kindness] Exuberant goodness to all them that return to him. And repenteth him of the evil.] Is ever ready to change his purpose to destroy, when he finds the culprit willing to be saved. See Clarke on Exodus 34:6; "Exodus 34:7".

13. And rent your heart, and not your garments] The rending of garments was an expression of exceptional emotion, whether of grief, or terror, or horror, upon occasion of some specially overwhelming misfortune (see e.g. Genesis 37:29; Genesis 37:34; Genesis 44:13; Numbers 14:6; Judges 11:35; 2 Samuel 1:2; 2 Samuel 3:31; 1 Kings 21:27; 2 Kings 5:7-8; 2 Kings 11:14; 2 Kings 19:1; 2 Kings 22:11; Ezra 9:3; Esther 4:1): deep, however, as the grief was, which thus found expression, the prophet demands, for sin, a deeper grief still, one viz. which should, speaking figuratively, rend the hard and stony (Ezekiel 36:26; Zechariah 7:12) heart, and make it pervious to godlike thoughts and emotions. Comp. the ‘broken and crushed (contrite) heart’ of Psalms 51:17; and the figure of the circumcision of the heart, Deuteronomy 10:16, Jeremiah 4:4. Fasting, like other external ordinances (cf. on Amos 5:21 f.), was liable to degenerate into an unspiritual form (see Isaiah 58:3 b, 4, 5; Zechariah 7:5); and the prophet insists accordingly, with earnestness, on the spiritual conditions which must accompany it, if it is to be a reality. Comp. especially the eloquent development of the same theme in Isaiah 58:3-12, where the true fast, in which Jehovah delights, is said to consist in acts of mercy, philanthropy, and liberality. See also Matthew 6:16-18; and Sir 34:26. gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger, and of great kindness] Almost verbatim from Exodus 34:6 (the great declaration of Jehovah’s character, made to Moses): similarly Psalms 86:15; Psalms 103:8; Psalms 145:8, Jonah 4:2 b, Nehemiah 9:17; comp. also the first two epithets in Numbers 14:18; Psalms 111:4; Nehemiah 9:31; 2 Chronicles 30:9. and repenteth him of the evil] So also Jonah 4:2 b. The evil meant is that which He has threatened to bring upon an individual or a nation. The implicit condition of Jehovah’s repentance is, of course, the prior repentance of the individual or nation concerned, and their unreserved abandonment of their evil way: see Jeremiah 18:5-12; Jonah 3:10. (Other motives are, however, sometimes assigned for Jehovah’s repentance, as Exodus 32:12-14; Amos 7:2-3; Amos 7:5-6; cf. 2 Samuel 24:16.)

And rend your hearts and not your garments - that is, “not your garments only” (see the note at Hosea 6:6).

12-14. There is still hope. The door of mercy is open, and if the people turn to Jehovah in a spirit of penitence he may yet pardon. 12.