Joel 1:3

Joe 1:3 Tell ye your children of it, and [let] your children [tell] their children, and their children another generation.

Ver. 3. Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children] Heb. Cipher them up diligently, after the manner of mathameticians; reckon up the several years with the several calamities thereof to your children and nephews, that they may hear, and fear, and do no more so, Deu 19:20. Let your woes be their warnings, your sufferings their standing sermons; your corrections their instructions. See 1Co 10:5-12. Ruina maiorum sit cautela minornm (Greg. Mot.). Hast thou marked the old way (saith Eliphaz to Job, Job 22:15-16), which wicked men have trodden, which were cut down out of time; whose foundation was overflown with a flood (Heb. a flood was poured upon their foundation), which said unto God, Depart from us? &c. He speaketh of those antediluvian atheists, buried in one universal grave of waters. See Jos 22:20 Neh 13:26 Jdg 1:5-7, and learn to keep a catalogue of God’s great works, whether of mercy or judgment; yea, to polish and garnish them for the use of posterity, not with vain affectation of wit, nor with pedantic pomp of words, but with sobriety and holy gravity, as here; such as may stick by our children, and leave impression.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1:3 God’s people would tell future generations about what was taking place so that their descendants would benefit from the lessons they had learned (cp. Deut 4:9; 6:20-25).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Tell ye your children--in order that they may be admonished by the severity of the punishment to fear God (Psa 78:6-8; compare Exo 13:8; Jos 4:7).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 3. Tell ye your children of it] To heighten the effect, he still conceals the subject, and informs them that it is such as should be handed down from father to son through all generations.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

He then adds, Tell it to your children, your children to their children, their children to the next generation. In this verse the Prophet shows that the matter deserved to be remembered, and was not to be despised by posterity, even for many generations. It appears now quite clear that the Prophet threatens not what was to be, as some interpreters think; it would have been puerile: but, on the contrary, he expostulates here with the Jews, because they were so slothful and tardy in considering God’s judgments; and especially as it was a remarkable instance, when God employed not usual means, but roused, and, as it were, terrified men by prodigies. Of this then tell: for עליה olie means no other thing than ‘tell or declare this thing to your children;’ and further, your children to their children. When any thing new happens, it may be, that we are at first moved with some wonder; but our feeling soon vanishes with the novelty, and we disregard what at first caused great astonishment. But the Prophet here showed, that such was the judgment of God of which he speaks, that it ought not to have been overlooked, no, not even by posterity. Let your children, he says, declare it to those after them, and their children to the fourth generation: it was to be always remembered.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

3. Recount concerning it to your children] recount,—a stronger word than tell, and implying some narrative of particulars.

to your children, &c.] comp. (also with recount) Exo_10:2; Psa_22:30 (R.V.), Psa_48:13, Psa_78:4; Psa_78:6; and “our fathers have recounted to us,” Jdg_6:13; Psa_44:1; Psa_78:3. Usually, it is the memory of Jehovah’s deliverances, which is thus to be handed on from father to son (comp. also Exo_12:26 f., Exo_13:8; Exo_13:14; Deu_4:9; Deu_6:20 f.; Jos_4:6 f., 21 f.); here it is the memory of an unprecedented disaster.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Tell ye your children of it,.... Give them a particular account of it; describe the creatures and their number as near as you can; say when they begun and how long they continued, and what devastations they made, and what was the cause and reason of such a judgment, your sins and transgressions:

and let your children tell their children, and their children other generation; or, "to the generation following" (l); let it be handed down from one generation to another that it may be a caution to future posterity how they behave and lest they bring down the like awful judgments on them. What this referred to was as follows:

(l) "posteritati sequenti", Vatablus; "generationi posterae", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Tarnovius.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Tell ye your children of it - In the order of God’s goodness, generation was to declare to generation the wonders of His love. “He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their children, that the generation to come might know them, the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children that they might ... not forget the works of God” Psa 78:5-7. This tradition of thankful memories God, as the Psalmist says, enforced in the law; “Take heed to thyself, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, but teach them thy sons and thy sons’ sons” (Deu 4:9; add Deu 6:6-7; Deu 11:19). This was the end of the memorial acts of the ritual, that their sons might inquire the meaning of them, the fathers tell them God’s wonders Deu 6:20-24. Now contrariwise, they are, generation to generation, to tell concerning it, this message of unheard-of woe and judgment. The memory of God’s deeds of love should have stirred them to gratitude; now He transmits to them memories of woe, that they might entreat God against them, and break off the sins which entail them.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Generation. Prophecies relate to all future times, that people may see their accomplishment, (Worthington) and believe. (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Declare it very particularly, or record it, write it as in a book, that your children may know it, and the memory of it may be perpetuated; for as it was a very wonderful and unusual thing, so it was for to mind us of the cause of it, and what it taught, or should have taught, them and us.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. The prophet thus draws attention to the event which be is about to relate, or rather predict, a8 a calamity unknown in the memory of living men, unheard of in the days of their fathers, unparalleled in the past experience of their nation, and one affecting all the inhabitants of the land. He challenges the old men whose memory went furthest back, and whose experience had been longest and largest, to confirm his statements; he calls on the inhabitants of the land to consider an event in which they were all concerned, and to recognize the hand of God in a disaster in which all would be involved. But, though the visitation with which they are threatened had had no precedent or parallel among the generation then present, or that which preceded it, or for many long years before, it was not to remain without memorial or record in the time to come. To this end the prophet commands his countrymen of Judah to relate it to their children, to their grandchildren, and even to their great-grand-children. The expression reminds us of Virgil"s"Yea, sons of sons, and those who shall from them be born.

It reads like a reminiscence of what is recorded of one of the plagues the plague of locusts in Egypt, of which we read in Exo_10:6, "Which neither thy fathers, nor thy fathers" fathers have seen, since the day they were upon the earth unto this day;" while the direction to have it transmitted by tradition seems an echo of what we read in the second verse of the same chapter: "That thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son"s son, what things I have wrought in Egypt." Similarly, it is written Psa_78:5, Psa_78:6, "He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children." The solemn manner in which the prophet draws attention to this by "Hear," "Give ear," and the earnestness with which he insists on the record of it being handed on from generation to generation, are intended to impress on the people the work of God in this visitation, its severity, the sin that caused it, and the call to repentance conveyed by it.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.