Joel 1:11
“Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished.”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →Farmers and vinedressers are told to be ashamed and to wail, for the entire harvest has perished.
What Does Joel 1:11 Mean?
Now the workers of the soil are addressed directly. The husbandmen who plant grain and the vinedressers who tend the vines are told to be ashamed and to howl. Wheat and barley, the basic bread of life, are gone; the harvest of the field has perished. The labor of a year has come to nothing, and the men whose hands worked the ground stand empty.
The shame Joel calls for is not mere embarrassment but the humbling of those who trusted in their own toil. Hard work is good, yet it cannot command the rain or hold back the locust. When the harvest fails despite every effort, the farmer is brought to the end of his self-reliance. That is a painful but holy place, for there a person learns to look past his plow to the God who alone gives the increase. Lament here is the first honest step toward dependence on Him.