It is only the heaviest and most continuous suffering, and not a transitory plague by locusts, which can justify the call in i. 8: "Howl like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth." This verse forms the transition to ver. 9, where the sacrifice in the house of Jehovah appears as cut off, and connects Joel with Hosea, in whom the image, of which the outlines only are given here, appears finished. Zion has also lost the friend of her youth--the Lord; compare Prov. ii. 17: "Who forsaketh the friend of her youth, and forgot the covenant of her God;" Is. liv. 6; Jer. ii. 2, iii. 4.--Of great [Pg 311] importance for the question under consideration are ver. 9: "The meat-offering and drink-offering are cut off from the house of the Lord;" and ver. 13: "Gird yourselves and lament, ye priests, howl ye ministers of the altar, come, spend all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God; for the meat-offering and drink-offering are withholden from the house of your God." It is quite inconceivable that the want of provisions, resulting from a natural devastation by real locusts, could have been the reason that the meat-offering and drink-offering, which, in a material point of view, were of so little value, should have been withheld from the Lord; inasmuch as the cessation of it appears in these passages as the consummation of the national calamity. During the siege of Jerusalem by Pompey, the legal sacrifices existed, according to _Josephus_ (_Arch._ xiv. 4, § 3), even amidst the greatest dangers to life, during the irruption of the enemies into the city, and in the midst of the carnage. It is true that, during the last siege by the Romans, when matters had come to an extremity, _Johannes_ ordered the sacrifices to be discontinued. But this was done, not from want of materials, but because there were none to offer them--from ἀνδρῶν ἀπορίᾳ, as _Josephus_ says (_Bell. Jud._ vi. 2, § 1; compare _Reland_ in _Havercamp_ on this passage)--and to the great dissatisfaction of the people in the city, ὁ δῆμοσ δεινῶς ἀθυμεῖ. The national view is expressed in what _Josephus_ says on this occasion to Johannes, to whom he had been sent by Titus on account of this event: "If any man should rob thee of thy daily food, thou, most wicked man, wouldst certainly consider him as thine enemy. Dost thou then think that thou wilt have for thine associate in this war, God, whom thou hast robbed of His eternal worship?" But the sound explanation readily suggests itself, as soon as it is admitted that behind the locusts the Gentiles are concealed. In that case, Dan. ix. 27, where the destroyer makes sacrifice and oblation to cease, is parallel. The destruction of the temple is also announced by the contemporary Amos in chap. ix.; compare ii. 5: "And I send fire upon Judah, and it devours the palaces of Jerusalem." Of a similar purport, in the time after Joel, is the passage in Micah, chap. iii. 12.