17 The seeds rot under their clods. The granaries are laid desolate. The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The seed is rotten under the clods - Not only was all to be cut off for the present, but, with it, all hope for the future. The scattered seed, as it lay, each under its clod known to God, was dried up, and so decayed. The garners lay desolate, nay, were allowed to go to ruin, in hopelessness of any future harvest.
The seed is rotten under their clods - When the sprout was cut off as low as possible by the locusts, there was no farther germination. The seed rotted away.
The seed is rotten under their clods,.... Or "grains" (z) of wheat or barley, which had been sown, and, for want of rain, putrefied and wasted away under the clods of earth, through the great drought; so that what with locusts, which cropped that that did bud forth, and with the drought, by reason of which much of the seed sown came to nothing, an extreme famine ensued: the Targum is,
"casks of wine rotted under their coverings:''
the garners are desolate; the "treasuries" (a), or storehouses, having nothing in them, and there being nothing to put into them; Jarchi makes these to be peculiar for wine and oil, both which failed, Joel 1:10;
the barns are broken down; in which the wheat and barley had used to be laid up; but this judgment of the locusts and drought continuing year after year, the walls fell down, and, no care was taken to repair them, there being no, use for them; these were the granaries, and, as Jarchi, for wheat particularly:
for the corn is withered; that which sprung up withered and dried away, through the heat and drought: or was "ashamed" (b); not answering the expectation of the sower.
(z) "grana", Pagninus, Montanus, Mercerus, Tarnovius, Cocceius, Bochartus. So Ben Melech, who observes they are so called, because they are separated and scattered under the earth. (a) "thesauri", Pagninus, Montanus, Mercerus, Vatablus, Piscator. (b) "confusum est", V. L. "puduit", Drusius; "pudore afficit", Cocceius.
is rotten--"is dried up," "vanishes away," from an Arabic root [MAURER]. "Seed," literally, "grains." The drought causes the seeds to lose all their vitality and moisture.
garners--granaries; generally underground, and divided into separate receptacles for the different kinds of grain.
Laid desolate - Run to ruin because the owners discouraged with the barrenness of the seasons, would not repair them.
*More commentary available at chapter level.