Even the Animals Pant
16 Isn’t the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God? 17 The seeds rot under their clods. The granaries are laid desolate. The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered. 18 How the animals groan! The herds of livestock are perplexed, because they have no pasture. Yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate. 19 Yahweh, I cry to you, for the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame has burned all the trees of the field. 20 Yes, the animals of the field pant to you, for the water brooks have dried up, and the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
The chapter ends with the prophet praying, and with creatures who cannot pray doing the only thing they can.
Isn't the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God? Two losses are named as one — the table and the temple — and the phrase before our eyes insists that nothing here is theoretical.
Verses 17 and 18 stay at ground level. Seeds rotting under their clods, granaries desolate, barns broken down because there is nothing to keep in them. Then the livestock: herds bewildered for lack of pasture, flocks made desolate. The verb for the cattle describes confusion rather than pain, and it is exactly right — animals that do not understand what has been taken from them.
Verse 19 turns to prayer, and the prophet goes first: Yahweh, I cry to you. He does not summon others to do what he has not done.
And verse 20 gives the chapter its last image. The animals of the field pant toward God, because the water brooks have dried up. They cannot repent, fast, or assemble. They lift their heads toward the source of rain, and Joel records it as though it counted — which the psalm also does, where young lions seek their food from God Psalms 104:21.
settled What this mark means