Amos 4:7-8

4:7 “I withheld rain from you three months before the harvest. ¹ 

I gave rain to one city, but not to another.

One field ²  would get rain, but the field that received no rain dried up.

4:8 People from ³  two or three cities staggered into one city to get ⁴  water,

but remained thirsty. ⁵ 

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

Yesaya 33:9

33:9 The land ⁶  dries up ⁷  and withers away;

the forest of Lebanon shrivels up ⁸  and decays.

Sharon ⁹  is like the desert; ¹⁰ 

Bashan and Carmel ¹¹  are parched. ¹² 

Yeremia 12:4

12:4 How long must the land be parched ¹³ 

and the grass in every field be withered?

How long ¹⁴  must the animals and the birds die

because of the wickedness of the people who live in this land? ¹⁵ 

For these people boast,

“God ¹⁶  will not see what happens to us.” ¹⁷ 

Yeremia 14:2

14:2 “The people of Judah are in mourning.

The people in her cities are pining away.

They lie on the ground expressing their sorrow. ¹⁸ 

Cries of distress come up to me ¹⁹  from Jerusalem. ²⁰ 

Yoel 1:9-13

1:9 No one brings grain offerings or drink offerings

to the temple ²¹  of the Lord anymore. ²² 

So the priests, those who serve the Lord, are in mourning.

1:10 The crops of the fields ²³  have been destroyed. ²⁴ 

The ground is in mourning because the grain has perished.

The fresh wine has dried up;

the olive oil languishes.

1:11 Be distressed, ²⁵  farmers;

wail, vinedressers, over the wheat and the barley.

For the harvest of the field has perished.

1:12 The vine has dried up;

the fig tree languishes –

the pomegranate, date, and apple ²⁶  as well.

In fact, ²⁷  all the trees of the field have dried up.

Indeed, the joy of the people ²⁸  has dried up!

1:13 Get dressed ²⁹  and lament, you priests!

Wail, you who minister at the altar!

Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you servants of my God,

because no one brings grain offerings or drink offerings

to the temple of your God anymore. ³⁰ 

Yoel 1:16-18

1:16 Our food has been cut off right before our eyes! ³¹ 

There is no longer any joy or gladness in the temple of our God! ³² 

1:17 The grains of seed ³³  have shriveled beneath their shovels. ³⁴ 

Storehouses have been decimated

and granaries have been torn down, for the grain has dried up.

1:18 Listen to the cattle groan! ³⁵ 

The herds of livestock wander around in confusion ³⁶ 

because they have no pasture.

Even the flocks of sheep are suffering.

[4:7]  ¹ sn Rain…three months before the harvest refers to the rains of late March-early April.

[4:7]  ² tn Heb “portion”; KJV, ASV “piece”; NASB “part.” The same word occurs a second time later in this verse.

[4:8]  ³ tn The words “people from” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[4:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “to drink.”

[4:8]  ⁵ tn Or “were not satisfied.”

[33:9]  ⁶ tn Or “earth” (KJV); NAB “the country.”

[33:9]  ⁷ tn Or “mourns” (BDB 5 s.v. I אָבַל). HALOT 6-7 lists homonyms I אבל (“mourn”) and II אבל (“dry up”). They propose the second here on the basis of parallelism. See 24:4.

[33:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “Lebanon is ashamed.” The Hiphil is exhibitive, expressing the idea, “exhibits shame.” In this context the statement alludes to the withering of vegetation.

[33:9]  ⁹ sn Sharon was a fertile plain along the Mediterranean coast. See 35:2.

[33:9]  ¹⁰ tn Or “the Arabah” (NIV). See 35:1.

[33:9]  ¹¹ sn Both of these areas were known for their trees and vegetation. See 2:13; 35:2.

[33:9]  ¹² tn Heb “shake off [their leaves]” (so ASV, NRSV); NAB “are stripped bare.”

[12:4]  ¹³ tn The verb here is often translated “mourn.” However, this verb is from a homonymic root meaning “to be dry” (cf. HALOT 7 s.v. II אָבַל and compare Hos 4:3 for usage).

[12:4]  ¹⁴ tn The words “How long” are not in the text. They are carried over from the first line.

[12:4]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “because of the wickedness of those who live in it.”

[12:4]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “he.” The referent is usually identified as God and is supplied here for clarity. Some identify the referent with Jeremiah. If that is the case, then he returns to his complaint about the conspirators. It is more likely, however, that it refers to God and Jeremiah’s complaint that the people live their lives apart from concern about God.

[12:4]  ¹⁷ tc Or reading with the Greek version, “God does not see what we are doing.” In place of “what will happen to us (אַחֲרִיתֵנוּ, ’akharitenu, “our end”) the Greek version understands a Hebrew text which reads “our ways” (אָרְחוֹתֵנו, ’orkhotenu), which is graphically very close to the MT. The Masoretic is supported by the Latin and is retained here on the basis of external evidence. Either text makes good sense in the context. Some identify the “he” with Jeremiah and understand the text to be saying that the conspirators are certain that they will succeed and he will not live to see his prophecies fulfilled.

[12:4]  sn The words here may be an outright rejection of the Lord’s words in Deut 32:20, which is part of a song that was to be taught to Israel in the light of their predicted rejection of the Lord.

[14:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Judah mourns, its gates pine away, they are in mourning on the ground.” There are several figures of speech involved here. The basic figure is that of personification where Judah and it cities are said to be in mourning. However, in the third line the figure is a little hard to sustain because “they” are in mourning on the ground. That presses the imagination of most moderns a little too far. Hence the personification has been interpreted “people of” throughout. The term “gates” here is used as part for whole for the “cities” themselves as in several other passages in the OT (cf. BDB 1045 s.v. שַׁעַר 2.b, c and see, e.g., Isa 14:31).

[14:2]  ¹⁹ tn The words “to me” are not in the text. They are implicit from the fact that the Lord is speaking. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[14:2]  ²⁰ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[1:9]  ²¹ tn Heb “house.” So also in vv. 13, 14, 16.

[1:9]  ²² tn Heb “grain offering and drink offering are cut off from the house of the Lord,”

[1:10]  ²³ tn Heb “the field has been utterly destroyed.” The term “field,” a collective singular for “fields,” is a metonymy for crops produced by the fields.

[1:10]  ²⁴ tn Joel uses intentionally alliterative language in the phrases שֻׁדַּד שָׂדֶה (shuddad sadeh, “the field is destroyed”) and אֲבְלָה אֲדָמָה (’avlah ’adamah, “the ground is in mourning”).

[1:11]  ²⁵ tn Heb “embarrassed”; or “be ashamed.”

[1:12]  ²⁶ tn This Hebrew word וְתַפּוּחַ (vÿtappuakh) probably refers to the apple tree (so most English versions), but other suggestions that scholars have offered include the apricot, citron, or quince.

[1:12]  ²⁷ tn These words are not in the Hebrew text but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[1:12]  ²⁸ tn Heb “the sons of man.”

[1:13]  ²⁹ tn Heb “put on.” There is no object present in the Hebrew text, but many translations assume “sackcloth” to be the understood object of the verb “put on.” Its absence in the Hebrew text of v. 13 is probably due to metrical considerations. The meter here is 3 + 3, and that has probably influenced the prophet’s choice of words.

[1:13]  ³⁰ tn Heb “for grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.”

[1:16]  ³¹ tn Heb “Has not the food been cut off right before our eyes?” This rhetorical question expects an affirmative answer; the question has been translated as an affirmation for the sake of clarity and emphasis.

[1:16]  ³² tn Heb “joy and gladness from the house of our God?” Verse 16b is a continuation of the rhetorical question begun in v. 16a, but has been translated as an affirmative statement to make the meaning clear. The words “There is no longer any” are not in the Hebrew text, but have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[1:17]  ³³ tn Heb “seed.” The phrase “the grains of” does not appear in the Hebrew, but has been supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.

[1:17]  ³⁴ tc This line is textually uncertain. The MT reads “the seed shrivels in their shovels/clods.” One Qumran manuscript (4QXXII^c) reads “the heifers decay in [their] s[talls].” LXX reads “the heifers leap in their stalls.”

[1:17]  tn These two lines of v. 17 comprise only four words in the Hebrew; three of the four are found only here in the OT. The translation and meaning are rather uncertain. A number of English versions render the word translated “shovels” as “clods,” referring to lumps of soil (e.g., KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[1:18]  ³⁵ tn Heb “how the cattle groan!”

[1:18]  ³⁶ tn Heb “the herds of cattle are confused.” The verb בּוּךְ (bukh, “be confused”) sometimes refers to wandering aimlessly in confusion (cf. Exod 14:3).