When God Shuts Off the Water Text: Joel 1:13-20
Introduction: The Grammar of Calamity
We live in a soft and sentimental age. When disaster strikes, our first instinct is to look for a human cause we can sue or a government program we can create. A hurricane hits, and the talking heads immediately begin to chatter about climate change. A plague descends, and we look to virologists and pharmaceutical companies as our saviors. A drought withers the land, and we talk about water conservation policies. And in all this, we studiously, almost religiously, avoid asking the most obvious and foundational question: what is God saying?
Our secularism has made us deaf to the language of Heaven. We have forgotten that famines, plagues, and droughts are part of God's vocabulary. He is not a distant, deistic clockmaker who wound the world up and then went on vacation. He is the sovereign Lord of history, and He governs the world through His providence. This means that nothing, not a single locust, not a single withered seed, happens apart from His decree. As Calvin said, not a drop of rain falls without the express command of God.
The prophet Joel is sent to a people who have forgotten this grammar. They are experiencing a devastating locust plague, followed by a severe drought. Their economy is shattered, their food supply is gone, and even their worship has been crippled. And Joel's task is to interpret this calamity for them. He is to tell them that this is not just a random, unfortunate confluence of meteorological and entomological events. This is the hand of God. This is covenantal judgment. This is a shot across the bow, a warning trumpet blast, calling them to wake up and repent before the final, ultimate "Day of Yahweh" arrives.
And so this passage is not just an ancient historical record of an agrarian crisis. It is a timeless lesson on how God deals with His people. It teaches us that God is willing to get our attention through our stomachs, through our bank accounts, and through the created order itself. He is willing to disrupt our lives, our comfort, and even our religious routines in order to draw us back to Himself. This is a severe mercy, but it is a mercy nonetheless. The worst judgment of all is not famine or drought, but for God to leave a sinful people alone.
The Text
Gird yourselves with sackcloth And lament, O priests; Wail, O ministers of the altar! Come, spend the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God; For the grain offering and the drink offering Are withheld from the house of your God. Set apart a fast as holy, Call for a solemn assembly; Gather the elders And all the inhabitants of the land To the house of Yahweh your God, And cry out to Yahweh. Alas for the day! For the day of Yahweh is near, And it will come as destruction from the Almighty. Has not food been cut off before our eyes, Gladness and joy from the house of our God? The seeds shrivel under their clods; The storehouses are desolate; The barns are pulled down, For the grain is dried up. How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle wander aimlessly Because there is no pasture for them; Even the flocks of sheep suffer. To You, O Yahweh, I cry; For fire has consumed the pastures of the wilderness, And the flame has burned up all the trees of the field. Even the beasts of the field pant for You; For the water brooks are dried up, And fire has consumed the pastures of the wilderness.
(Joel 1:13-20 LSB)
A Call to the Leadership (v. 13)
Joel begins his urgent appeal by addressing the spiritual leadership of Judah.
"Gird yourselves with sackcloth And lament, O priests; Wail, O ministers of the altar! Come, spend the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God; For the grain offering and the drink offering Are withheld from the house of your God." (Joel 1:13)
Repentance must begin in the house of God, and it must begin with the leadership of the house of God. Joel calls the priests, the ministers of the altar, to take the lead in this national mourning. They are to gird themselves with sackcloth, the ancient equivalent of dressing down in grief and humility. This is not a time for fine vestments and comfortable religion. This is a time for wailing, for public, heartfelt lamentation. He even tells them to spend the night in sackcloth, indicating a prolonged, intense season of repentance.
Why must they lead? Because the crisis has struck at the very heart of their ministry. The grain and wine, the basic elements for the daily offerings, are gone. The locusts ate the grain and the drought withered the vines. This means the prescribed worship of God has ceased. This is a spiritual catastrophe. When a nation's sins become so grievous, God will sometimes shut down the very means of grace. He is saying, "I will not accept your hollow worship. I will not receive your empty rituals." When the offerings are withheld, it is a sign that fellowship with God has been broken.
This is a sobering word for pastors and elders today. When we see spiritual drought in our land, when we see the church anemic and worldly, the first place we must look is in the mirror. The leaders must lead in repentance. We cannot simply scold the congregation from the pulpit. We must put on the sackcloth ourselves and cry out to God. Corporate repentance is not something pastors call for; it is something they lead in.
A Call to the People (v. 14)
From the leadership, the call expands to include the entire nation.
"Set apart a fast as holy, Call for a solemn assembly; Gather the elders And all the inhabitants of the land To the house of Yahweh your God, And cry out to Yahweh." (Joel 1:14)
The response to this national crisis must be corporate and public. Joel commands them to "set apart a fast." The word for "set apart" is the same word used for consecrating something to God, to make it holy. This is not to be a mere diet or a public relations stunt. It is to be a holy fast, a nationwide act of self-denial and consecration, setting aside the normal routines of life to seek God's face.
They are to call a "solemn assembly." This is a formal, official gathering of everyone. Notice the scope: the elders, who represent the civic leadership, and "all the inhabitants of the land." No one is exempt. This is an all-hands-on-deck emergency. The crisis affects everyone, and so the repentance must involve everyone. They are all to gather at the temple, the house of Yahweh, the center of their covenant life. And what are they to do there? "Cry out to Yahweh." This is not a polite, whispered prayer. This is a desperate, loud, unified cry for mercy from a people who know they are in deep trouble.
We have largely lost this practice of corporate, public repentance in the modern church. We have privatized our faith to such an extent that the idea of a whole community gathering to fast and cry out to God seems foreign, even embarrassing. But when a nation is under the judgment of God, individualized piety is not enough. God deals with us not just as individuals, but as families, churches, and nations. And He expects us to repent in the same way.
The Approaching Storm (v. 15-16)
Joel now explains the reason for this urgency. The current disaster, as terrible as it is, is merely a foreshadowing of something far worse.
"Alas for the day! For the day of Yahweh is near, And it will come as destruction from the Almighty. Has not food been cut off before our eyes, Gladness and joy from the house of our God?" (Joel 1:15-16)
The prophet cries, "Alas for the day!" He is looking through the present calamity, the locusts and the drought, and seeing what it points to: "the day of Yahweh." This is a major theme in the prophets. The Day of the Lord is a time when God personally and powerfully intervenes in history to judge His enemies and to save His people. Here, the emphasis is on judgment. It will come as "destruction from the Almighty." The Hebrew word for destruction is "shod," and the word for Almighty is "Shaddai." Joel is using a powerful play on words: "shod from Shaddai." It is a day of terrifying, overwhelming power.
Joel is teaching the people, and us, to interpret present judgments as warnings of a final judgment. The locusts are God's invading army in miniature, a preview of the Babylonian armies that would later come. This principle holds true throughout Scripture. The flood in Noah's day, the destruction of Sodom, the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., these are all historical "days of the Lord" that point toward the final, great and terrible Day of the Lord at the end of history. God gives us these smaller trailers to warn us about the feature film.
The effect of this judgment is the removal of joy. Food has been cut off, which is bad enough. But this has resulted in gladness and joy being removed "from the house of our God." True worship is joyful. The feasts of Israel were meant to be joyous celebrations of God's goodness and provision. But when sin enters, and judgment follows, the joy evaporates. A joyless church is a church under a curse.
The Groaning Creation (v. 17-18)
The prophet then provides a vivid, poetic description of the drought's devastating impact on the entire created order.
"The seeds shrivel under their clods; The storehouses are desolate; The barns are pulled down, For the grain is dried up. How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle wander aimlessly Because there is no pasture for them; Even the flocks of sheep suffer." (Joel 1:17-18)
The curse is comprehensive. It starts in the soil itself: the seeds shrivel and die before they can even sprout. This leads to empty storehouses and dilapidated barns. The entire agricultural infrastructure is collapsing. The judgment of God is not neat and tidy; it is ruinous.
But it is not just humanity that suffers. The curse extends to the animal kingdom. "How the beasts groan!" The cattle are confused and distressed, wandering without pasture. The sheep, known for their hardiness, are also suffering. This is a profound theological point. When man, the head of creation, sins, the entire creation under him suffers the consequences. The Apostle Paul picks up this theme in Romans 8, when he says that "the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now" (Romans 8:22). The ground was cursed for Adam's sake, and here we see that principle at work. Our sin has cosmic consequences. The environmental crises we see in our own day are not, at root, a problem of carbon emissions; they are a problem of sin. A rebellious humanity will always produce a groaning creation.
The Prophet's Cry (v. 19-20)
"To You, O Yahweh, I cry; For fire has consumed the pastures of the wilderness, And the flame has burned up all the trees of the field. Even the beasts of the field pant for You; For the water brooks are dried up, And fire has consumed the pastures of the wilderness." (Joel 1:19-20)
In the face of this overwhelming desolation, Joel models the very thing he has been calling the people to do. He cries out to Yahweh. He practices what he preaches. His prayer is born out of the reality of the situation. A "fire," a metaphor for the scorching heat and drought, has consumed everything. The pastures are gone, the trees are burnt, the streams are dry.
And in a stunning turn of phrase, he says, "Even the beasts of the field pant for You." The dumb animals, in their instinctual thirst, are looking to Heaven, the source of rain. They are crying out to their Creator in the only way they know how. The beasts are showing more spiritual sense than the people of Judah. It is a rebuke. If the cattle have the sense to look to God for water, how much more should His covenant people look to Him for mercy?
This is the posture of true repentance. It is a cry of utter dependence. It is recognizing that there is no human solution. The government cannot make it rain. The scientists cannot fix this. Only God can. And so, like the panting beasts, we must turn our faces heavenward and cry out to Him. Our only hope in the face of judgment is to appeal to the Judge Himself.
Conclusion: The Invitation in the Judgment
It is easy to read a passage like this and see only gloom and doom. But that would be to miss the point entirely. The very fact that God sends a prophet to interpret the judgment is an act of profound grace. The very call to repent is a wide-open door of hope. God is not telling them this so they can despair; He is telling them this so they can turn and live.
Every judgment of God in this life, short of the final judgment, is a merciful invitation. It is God turning up the heat to get us to jump out of the pot. He brings the fire and the drought to our lives, He withholds the grain and the wine, He allows the beasts to groan, all in order to get us to cry out to Him. He is afflicting the body to save the soul.
And we know where this ultimately leads. The Day of Yahweh that Joel saw coming did indeed come. It came in the form of Assyrian and Babylonian armies. But it came in its most ultimate form at the cross. On that day, the sky grew dark, the earth shook, and the true Day of the Lord arrived. All the judgment, all the covenant curses, all the destructive fire of God's wrath against sin was poured out, not on us, but on His Son. Jesus endured the ultimate drought when He cried out, "I thirst." He became the sin offering so that our fellowship with God, our grain and drink offerings, could be restored forever.
Therefore, when God's judgments, great or small, come into our lives or into our nation, we should not despair. We should see them as God's megaphone, calling us to flee to the cross. He is calling us to do what Joel called Judah to do: to gather together, to humble ourselves, and to cry out to Him. For He has promised that all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. That was the promise then, and it is the promise now.