Joel 1:5-7
Joel commands the careless to wake up and weep because the source of their comfort has been destroyed — the vine is ruined and the fig tree stripped bare.
5 Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.
6 For a nation has come up on my land, strong, and without number. His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a lioness.
7 He has laid my vine waste, and stripped my fig tree. He has stripped its bark, and thrown it away. Its branches are made white.
Joel commands the careless to wake up and weep because the source of their comfort has been destroyed — the vine is ruined and the fig tree stripped bare.
To awaken those numbed by indulgence and comfort by showing that the locust devastation has stripped away the wine and fig tree upon which their ease depends, confronting false security with real loss.
This unit follows the opening summons of 1:1-4 and narrows the address to the most comfortable members of the community — the drunkards, whose false security is most fully exposed by the loss of wine and vine. The vine and fig tree language sets up the comprehensive lament of 1:8-12.
A Devastated Land and the Call to Lament Before the LORD
When devastation exposes the fragility of life, God calls his people to wake up, lament honestly, and cry out to him before the day of the LORD comes near.