Joel 1:9 (ASV)

Passage

The meal-offering and the drink-offering are cut off from the house of Jehovah; the priests, Jehovah`s ministers, mourn.

Nearby Context

Joel 1:7 He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig-tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white.

Joel 1:8 Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

Joel 1:9 The meal-offering and the drink-offering are cut off from the house of Jehovah; the priests, Jehovah`s ministers, mourn.

Joel 1:10 The field is laid waste, the land mourneth; for the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth.

Joel 1:11 Be confounded, O ye husbandmen, wail, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field is perished.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "meal-offering", "drink-offering", "house", "jehovah", "priests", "ministers", and "mourn". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "meal-offering" and "drink-offering", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 8's "Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth..." into verse 10's "The field is laid waste the land...", so "meal-offering" and "drink-offering" belong inside that flow. In Joel context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "meal-offering" and "drink-offering" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.