Joel 1:8 (DRB)

Passage

Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

Nearby Context

Joel 1:6 For a nation come up upon my land, strong, and without number: his teeth are like the teeth of a lion: and his cheek teeth as of a lion's whelp.

Joel 1:7 He hath laid my vineyard waste, and hath pilled off the bark of my fig tree: he hath stripped it 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 Sacrifice and libation is cut off from the house of the Lord: the priests, the Lord's ministers, have mourned:

Joel 1:10 The country is destroyed, the ground hath mourned: for the corn is wasted, the wine is confounded, the oil hath languished.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "lament", "like", "virgin", "girded", "sackcloth", "husband", and "youth". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "lament" and "like", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 7's "He hath laid my vineyard waste and..." into verse 9's "Sacrifice and libation is cut off from...", so "lament" and "like" 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 "lament" and "like" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.