9 The meal offering and the drink offering are cut off from Yahweh's house. The priests, Yahweh's ministers, mourn.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Here, in other words, the Prophet paints the calamity; for, as it has been said, we see how great is the slowness of men to discern God's judgments; and the Jews, we know, were not more attentive to them than we are now. It was, therefore, needful to prick them with various goads, as the Prophet now does, as though he said, "If ye are not now concerned for want of food, if ye consider not even what the very drunkards are constrained to feel, who perceive not the evil at a distance, but taste it in their lips -- if all these things are of no account with you, do at least look on the temple of God, which is now destitute of its ordinary services; for through the sterility of your fields, through so great a scarcity, neither bread nor wine is offered. Since then ye see that the worship of God has ceased, how is it ye yourselves still remain? Why is it that ye perceive not that God's fury is kindled against you? For surely except God had been most grievously offended, he would at least have had some regard for his own worship; he would not have suffered his temple to remain without sacrifices." The Jews, we know, daily poured their libations, and offered meat-offerings. When, therefore, Joel mentions mnchh meneche and libation, he doubtless meant to show that the worship of God was nearly abolished. But God would have never permitted such a thing, had he not been grievously offended by the sins of men. Hence the indifference, or rather the stupidity of the people, is more clearly proved, inasmuch as they perceived not the signs of God's wrath made evident even in the very temple. It follows --
The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off - The meat offering and drink offering were part of every sacrifice. If the materials for these, the grain and wine, ceased, through locusts or drought or the wastings of war, the sacrifice must become mangled and imperfect. The priests were to mourn for the defects of the sacrifice; they lost also their own subsistence, since the altar was, to them, in place of all other inheritance. The meat and drink offerings were emblems of the materials of the holy eucharist, by which Malachi foretold that, when God had rejected the offering of the Jews, there should be a "pure offering" among the pagan Joel 1:11. When then holy communions become rare, the meat and drink offering are literally cut off from the house of the Lord, and those who are indeed priests, the ministers of the Lord, should mourn. Joel foretells that, however love should wax cold, there should ever be such. He forsees and foretells at once, the failure, and the grief of the priests. Nor is it an idle regret which he foretells, but a mourning unto their God. : "Both meat offering and drink offering hath perished from the house of God, not in actual substance but as to reverence, because, amid the prevailing iniquity there is scarcely found in the Church, who should duly celebrate, or receive the sacraments."
The meat-offering and the drink-offering is cut off - The crops and the vines being destroyed by the locusts, thee total devastation in plants, trees, corn, etc., is referred to and described with a striking variety of expression in this and the following verses.
The meat offering and the drink offering is (f) cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the LORD'S ministers, mourn.
(f) The signs of God's wrath appeared in his temple, in so much that God's service was discontinued.
The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the Lord,.... The meat offering was made of fine flour, oil, and frankincense; and the drink offering was of wine; and, because of the want of corn and wine, these were not brought to the temple as usual; and which was matter of great grief to religious persons, and especially to the priests, as follows:
the priests, the Lord's ministers, mourn; partly because they had no work to do, and could not answer to their character, the ministers of the Lord, in ministering about holy things, and bringing the sacrifices and offerings of the people to him; and partly because of their want of food, their livelihood greatly depending on the offerings brought, part of which belonged to them, and on which they and their families lived.
The greatest sorrow to the mind of a religious Jew, and what ought to impress the whole nation with a sense of God's displeasure, is the cessation of the usual temple-worship.
meat offering--Hebrew, mincha; "meat" not in the English sense "flesh," but the unbloody offering made of flour, oil, and frankincense. As it and the drink offering or libation poured out accompanied every sacrificial flesh offering, the latter is included, though not specified, as being also "cut off," owing to there being no food left for man or beast.
priests . . . mourn--not for their own loss of sacrificial perquisites (Numbers 18:8-15), but because they can no longer offer the appointed offerings to Jehovah, to whom they minister.
The drink - offering - By the destruction of the vines, all wine (out of which they ought to offer the drink - offering) failed.
*More commentary available at chapter level.