Bible Strands
Joel 1:8
Wail like a virgin dressed in sackcloth, grieving for the husband of her youth.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet Joel addresses Judah during a locust plague that has stripped the land bare. He issues this command to the nation to match the agricultural devastation with formal public mourning.
The words — The imperative אֱלִ֕לי ('e.Li) commands a "wail," paired with the simile כִּ/בְתוּלָ֥ה (ki/v.tu.Lah) meaning "like a virgin." The phrase חֲגֻֽרַת־ שַׂ֖ק (cha.gu.rat- sak) literally renders "girded of sackcloth," the prescribed garment for intense grief.
The thread — This mandated mourning aligns with Isaiah 22:12, where Yahweh calls for weeping and sackcloth, and mirrors the priestly mourning in Joel 1:9 following the cutoff of grain and drink offerings. The pattern of divine judgment paired with structured lament also appears in James 5:1.
Why it lands — The text demands a direct, physical response to national ruin by adopting the posture of bereaved mourning. It requires readers to equate ecological and agricultural collapse with the loss of a spouse, mandating the same public lamentation.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 22:12 On that day the Lord GOD of Hosts called for weeping and wailing, for shaven heads and the wearing of sackcloth.
- Malachi 2:15 Has not the LORD made them one, having a portion of the Spirit? And why one? Because He seeks godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.
- James 5:1 Come now, you who are rich, weep and wail over the misery to come upon you.
- Proverbs 2:17 who abandons the partner of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God.
- Isaiah 24:7 The new wine dries up, the vine withers. All the merrymakers now groan.
- Isaiah 32:11 Shudder, you ladies of leisure; tremble, you daughters of complacency. Strip yourselves bare and put sackcloth around your waists.
- Jeremiah 3:4 Have you not just called to Me, ‘My Father, You are my friend from youth.
- Jeremiah 9:17 This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Take note, and summon the wailing women; send for the most skillful among them.
- Joel 1:13 Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests; wail, O ministers of the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God, because the grain and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God.
- Joel 2:12 “Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning.”