Joel 2:16

Gather the people,.... The common people, all the inhabitants of the land, Joe 1:14; summon them to meet together in the temple, in order to humble themselves before God for their sins, and implore

Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet.

Gather the people, assemble the elders: see . Gather the children; though they understand little what is done, yet their cries under the affliction of a fast ascend, God hears, and with pity looks on their tears. And those that suck the breasts; let your fast be most universal, spare not sucking children, bring them with you; their tears and cries may perhaps move the congregation to greater mourning and earnest supplication to God for mercy, or will be a fit object to present unto the God of mercy to move him to show mercy. So the Ninevites, ,8. Let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber; let the new-married man leave the mirth of the nuptials, and lay aside his bravery awhile, and afflict himself with the rest. And the bride out of her closet, or chamber, in which with the virgins she adorned herself or caressed them. That these may more earnestly seek the Lord, let them at this season forbear lawful delights.

Joe 2:16 Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet.Ver. 16. Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, &c.] Let the priests, God’ s ministers, see to it, that the people come together; and for the better too, as much as in them lies. For they are to the people in place of watchmen, of sentinels, of ambassadors, and in Christ’ s own stead, who seems to say unto them, as Psalms 50:5, "Gather my saints together unto me, those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice," that they may meet me with entreaties of peace, disarm mine indignation conceived against them, and quench the flame thereof with their tears; not quench the spirit in their teachers by their crossness and backwardness to business of this nature. Assemble the elders] Whether for age, as Job 15:10, or for place of authority, as Joshua 7:6 1 Samuel 15:30 Rth 4:4. These must be chief doers and most forward at fasts, as was Joshua, Jehoshaphat, the King of Nineveh, Ezra, &c. For, 1. They are most guilty in regard of their years and their office, which either addeth two wings to their sins, viz., example and scandal, whereby facile volant, non facile violant, they soar much higher, and fly much farther; 2. Their presence, counsel, and countenance may be a great furtherance to the work. See Ezekiel 46:10. The prince in the midst of the people, when they go in shall go in; and when they go forth shall go forth. A. Lapide saith, that the elder sort are to meet, because they are least lustful and more prayerful. It should be so, I confess; but how many old goats are there abroad that even hang over hell, which gapeth for them? and as the canker soonest entereth into the white rose, so doth corruption easily creep into the white head. He was a rare old man of whom we read, that being tempted to sin said, Nay: lest he should stain his white head. Gather the children, and those that suck the breasts] For they are Church members, and to them also pertain the public dangers and calamities; out of which times and cases, children and novices are not to be tied to these austerities of religion (as our Saviour showeth, Matthew 9:17), as little, as new wine is to be put into old vessels. Add hereunto, that the parents might by the sight of their poor children (subject to God’ s wrath by their default) be brought to a farther sense of their own sinfulness; and moved by their cries and laments ut ferventius orent, et plorent, to cry and pray more earnestly, Ephesians 2:3 Romans 5:12.

(15, 16) Sanctify a fast.—The prophet renews, therefore, his summons to the priests to proclaim a day of humiliation, on which all, without distinction of age or circumstances, are to be required to present themselves before the Lord. There was no room for the plea, “I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.”

Verse 16. Gather the children] Let all share in the humiliation, for all must feel the judgment, should it come. Let no state nor condition among the people be exempted. The elders, the young persons, the infants, the bridegroom, and the bride; let all leave their houses, and go to the temple of God.

16. An expansion of the injunctions contained in the rest of Joe 1:14 a. sanctify an assembly] i.e. hold a sacred religious meeting. gather the elders] the old men (R.V. marg.). All are to take part in the great public act of national humiliation and supplication, neither old men nor children are to be excepted; even the newly married bride and bridegroom, who might deem themselves entitled to claim exemption from such duties (cf. Deuteronomy 24:5), are to come forth from their retirement for the purpose. closet] rather, pavilion; the idea suggested by ‘closet’ is too modern. The reference is no doubt to the special nuptial tent (cf. 2 Samuel 16:22), still, in Arabia, erected for the consummation of a marriage. In Arabic a common phrase for ‘to marry a wife’ is ‘to build over her’ (sc. a tent, with reference to this custom). The later bridal bed, with its canopy, appears to be a survival of the more primitive ‘tent’[40]. Ḥ ?uppβh is a rare word in Hebrew: in Psalms 19:5 it is spoken of also as the bridegroom’s. Here ḥ ?ιder (‘chamber’), in the parallel clause, appears to be merely a poetical synonym of it[41]. [40] See W. R. Smith, Marriage and Kinship in Early Arabia, pp. 167–170, 291; Wellhausen’s essay, Die Ehe bei den Arabern in the Gφttingen Nachrichten, 1893, No. 11, p. 444 f.; and Levy’s Neuhebr. Wφrterbuch, s. v. πִּ ?πּ ?εּ ?ο (1:348), and ηεּ ?τָּ ?δ (2:92). [41] Cf. Judges 14:18, where δηγֵ ?ψδ should probably be read for δηψρδ, “before he went into the bride-chamber”

Sanctify the congregation - o: “Do what in you lies, by monishing, exhorting, threatening, giving the example of a holy life, that the whole people present itself holy before its God” , “lest your

Joe 2:15-17 are an emphatic re-iteration of the exhortation in Joe 1:14. Joe 2:15 takes us back to Joe 2:1, where the priests are exhorted to blow the trumpet.