CinematicBible Songs
Listen NowSupport
ENESPT-BRFIL
ENESPT-BRFIL
Back to all lyrics
Artwork for Sanctify Ye a Fast

Joel 1:13-20

Sanctify Ye a Fast

Lyrics · Joel

Sanctify Ye a Fast

Joel 1:13-20

LISTEN HERE
Lyrics

About this song

About this song

This song belongs to the Joel collection. One recording is available to play here, with the complete lyrics below.

Bible book
Joel
Collection
Joel
Musical styles
Uncategorized
[Processional Chant] Gird the priests; let the altar hear grief, Cry to the LORD while the seed rots below, Sleep in the sackcloth, no night of relief. The barn has no answer, the stream does not flow. [Verse 1] Sanctify a fast, gather all in the house, Not scattered complaint but one humbled mouth. Cattle stand restless, the sheep have no field, [Bridge] Even wild creatures pant toward the One who can heal. The day draws near like destruction at noon, [Chorus] Cry to the LORD while the seed rots below, The barn has no answer, the stream does not flow. Joy left the sanctuary and silence filled the room. Fast is not theater, sackcloth not disguise, [Verse 2] Gather the elders and let honest prayer rise. When every reserve and every pasture has passed, The nation has nothing but God and the fast. [Final Chorus] Cry to the LORD while the seed rots below, The barn has no answer, the stream does not flow. Fast is not theater, sackcloth not disguise, The nation has nothing but God and the fast.

About the passage

Joel 1: A ruined harvest empties field and sanctuary

The Book of Joel opens by making catastrophe a matter of memory before it becomes a matter of explanation. Elders are asked whether anything in their experience compares with what the land has suffered, and the disaster is ordered to be told onward through successive generations. The loss then moves through every layer of communal life. Wine disappears, vines and fig trees are stripped, farmers and vinedressers lose their harvest, and the house of the LORD loses the grain and drink offerings that depended on those fields. Priests therefore gather the community for fasting and lament while the approaching day of the LORD gives the visible scarcity a larger horizon. By the end, the damage has reached seed, barns, pasture, watercourses, cattle, sheep, and wild beasts. Human prayer and animal distress stand beside one another in a land whose ability to sustain life has been steadily stripped away.

Study Joel 1 in depth