Verse Lens · Context pointer
Joel 1:16 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 16. 16Is not the meat cut off before our eyes, yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God?
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Role in This Section
This verse turns observation of lost food and worship joy into a communal question.
Read It With
- Joel 1:13–20
Read Joel 1:13–20 together. This verse turns observation of lost food and worship joy into a communal question. Read Joel 1:13–20 as one complete prophetic movement: Priests must lead the whole land in embodied lament and appeal to the LORD because present deprivation anticipates the terrible Day; Joel finally cries out as crops, worship, cattle, flocks, wild animals, watercourses, and pastures fail.
Why It Needs Context
This line performs one step inside Joel 1:13–20; isolating it would detach the image or action from the unit's speaker, cause, response, and outcome. Specifically, this verse turns observation of lost food and worship joy into a communal question.
Read Joel 1:13–20 together
Why these verses belong together: Priestly lament, assembly, day-of-the-LORD alarm, food collapse, animal suffering, and Joel's prayer form one escalating appeal.
Verse 13. 13 Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the meat offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God.
Verse 14. 14 Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD,
Verse 15. 15 Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.
Verse 16. 16 Is not the meat cut off before our eyes, yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God?
Verse 17. 17 The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered.
Verse 18. 18 How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.
Verse 19. 19 O LORD, to thee will I cry: for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field.
Verse 20. 20 The beasts of the field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Joel 1:13–20 — Priests Gather the Land, and the Prophet Cries with CreationSources used for this context pointer
How certain is this explanation? strong
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: Joel 1:13–20, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Joel
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew forms, morphology, repeated roots, clause relationships, names, and the base wording behind translation discussion.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Joel.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 1:13–20
Open source ↗