Joel 1:1-7
Tell It to Your Children
1This is the word of the LORD that came to Joel son of Pethuel:
2Hear this, O elders; and give ear, all who dwell in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your fathers?
3Tell it to your children; let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.
4What the devouring locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust has left, the young locust has eaten; and what the young locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.
5Wake up, you drunkards, and weep; wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it has been cut off from your mouth.
6For a nation has invaded My land, powerful and without number; its teeth are the teeth of a lion, and its fangs are the fangs of a lioness.
7It has laid waste My grapevine and splintered My fig tree. It has stripped off the bark and thrown it away; the branches have turned white.
Berean Standard Bible
Joel begins by asking the elders and everyone who lives in the land to pay attention. Something has happened that must not be treated as ordinary. The prophet does not start by explaining every cause. He starts by asking whether anyone has seen anything like it before.
Tell it to your children; let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.
The disaster is described as a sequence of locusts. One kind leaves something behind, another eats what remains, and another strips away what the previous one missed. Whether the text is describing several waves of locusts or using a sequence to show total devastation, the result is clear: the land's food and future have been consumed.
Then the prophet speaks to drunkards and drinkers of wine. Their grief is not treated as a joke. The sweet wine has been cut off from their mouths, and the loss reaches into ordinary pleasures. A crisis often becomes visible first through the things people can no longer take for granted.
The invader is then compared to a nation with the teeth of a lioness. It lays waste to the LORD's grapevine and splinters His fig tree, stripping away bark and leaving white branches. The trees are not background decoration. They represent food, work, celebration, and the patience required for a harvest.
The command to tell children is therefore more than a lesson about insects. It is a call to remember honestly. A family may want to protect children from every hard story, but forgetting a disaster also forgets the people who suffered and the God to whom they cried. Memory can teach gratitude, preparation, and compassion.
When a harvest disappears, we do not need to rush toward an explanation. We can say what was taken, listen to older people who remember, and teach younger people that faith does not require pretending the harvest was never lost. The story must be told because what happens to a community shapes the generation that comes after it.
How We Know
Deuteronomy 4:9 tells Israel to make God's works known to children and grandchildren. Psalm 78:4-6 gives the same responsibility: tell the coming generation about the LORD's praiseworthy deeds so that they will set their hope in God. Joel's command to tell the children places the locust disaster inside that biblical practice of faithful memory.
Questions
1 Who is told to listen?
AnswerThe elders and everyone who lives in the land are told to give ear.
2 What are they told to do with the story?
AnswerThey are told to tell it to their children, grandchildren, and the next generation.
3 What has happened to the crops and trees?
AnswerA sequence of locusts has eaten what the earlier locusts left. The grapevine, fig tree, and other sources of food have been devastated.
4 Why does honest memory matter in a family?
AnswerIt helps people remember loss, honor those who suffered, and learn gratitude and compassion instead of pretending hardship never happened.
What This Means for Us
We do not need to give children a neat explanation for every loss before we can tell the truth about it. Tell the story carefully, name what was damaged, and show the next generation where the family turned for help.
Prayer
God, help us remember honestly. Give us wisdom to tell hard stories with care, gratitude for what remains, and compassion for people whose harvest has been lost. Amen.