Yesaya 63:3

63:3 “I have stomped grapes in the winepress all by myself;

no one from the nations joined me.

I stomped on them ¹  in my anger;

I trampled them down in my rage.

Their juice splashed on my garments,

and stained ²  all my clothes.

Yoel 3:13

3:13 Rush forth with ³  the sickle, for the harvest is ripe!

Come, stomp the grapes, ⁴  for the winepress is full!

The vats overflow.

Indeed, their evil is great! ⁵ 

Yoel 1:19-20

1:19 To you, O Lord, I call out for help, ⁶ 

for fire ⁷  has burned up ⁸  the grassy pastures, ⁹ 

flames have razed ¹⁰  all the trees in the fields.

1:20 Even the wild animals ¹¹  cry out to you; ¹² 

for the river beds ¹³  have dried up;

fire has destroyed ¹⁴  the grassy pastures. ¹⁵ 

[63:3]  ¹ sn Nations, headed by Edom, are the object of the Lord’s anger (see v. 6). He compares military slaughter to stomping on grapes in a vat.

[63:3]  ² tn Heb “and I stained.” For discussion of the difficult verb form, see HALOT 170 s.v. II גאל. Perhaps the form is mixed, combining the first person forms of the imperfect (note the alef prefix) and perfect (note the תי- ending).

[3:13]  ³ tn Heb “send.”

[3:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “go down” or “tread.” The Hebrew term רְדוּ (rÿdu) may be from יָרַד (yarad, “to go down”) or from רָדָה (radah, “have dominion,” here in the sense of “to tread”). If it means “go down,” the reference would be to entering the vat to squash the grapes. If it means “tread,” the verb would refer specifically to the action of those who walk over the grapes to press out their juice. The phrase “the grapes” is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[3:13]  ⁵ sn The immediacy of judgment upon wickedness is likened to the urgency required for a harvest that has reached its pinnacle of development. When the harvest is completely ripe, there can be no delay by the reapers in gathering the harvest. In a similar way, Joel envisions a time when human wickedness will reach such a heightened degree that there can be no further stay of divine judgment (cf. the “fullness of time” language in Gal 4:4).

[1:19]  ⁶ tn The phrase “for help” does not appear in the Hebrew, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[1:19]  ⁷ sn Fire here and in v. 20 is probably not to be understood in a literal sense. The locust plague, accompanied by conditions of extreme drought, has left the countryside looking as though everything has been burned up (so also in Joel 2:3).

[1:19]  ⁸ tn Heb “consumed.” This entire line is restated at the end of v. 20.

[1:19]  ⁹ tn Heb “the pastures of the wilderness.”

[1:19]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “a flame has set ablaze.” This fire was one of the effects of the drought.

[1:20]  ¹¹ tn Heb “beasts of the field.”

[1:20]  ¹² tn Heb “long for you.” Animals of course do not have religious sensibilities as such; they do not in any literal sense long for Yahweh. Rather, the language here is figurative (metonymy of cause for effect). The animals long for food and water (so BDB 788 s.v. עָרַג), the ultimate source of which is Yahweh.

[1:20]  ¹³ tn Heb “sources of water.”

[1:20]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “consumed.”

[1:20]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the pastures of the wilderness.”