What Does Joel 1:5 Mean?
Wake, you who are drunk, and weep; and howl, all you drinkers of wine, over the new wine, for it is cut off from your mouth.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.THE KEY
The thing that once dulled the senses becomes the absence that forces them awake.
THE MEANING
You hear a summons to wake from intoxication just as the wine is cut off from your mouth. The deprivation is not disguised: weeping and howling give voice to what this loss feels like now.
THE ROOT
נִכְרַת
nikhrat
GROWS FROM
כרת
karat
to cut, sever, or cut off
The verse’s “cut off” uses כרת (karat), “to cut”; the same verb appears in כָּרַת בְּרִית (karat berit), “cut a covenant.” Hebrew uses this root for both severance and covenant-making, giving the loss a forceful edge while the verse still names a literal absence of wine.
ALSO GROWS
karat berit: literally, “cut a covenant”; idiomatically, make a covenant
כָּרַת בְּרִית
Genesis uses this same root in “made a covenant,” showing that כרת can name a decisive act of separation or binding.
karet: cutting off; excision
כָּרֵת
This related form echoes the force of the severance described in the verse.
שִׁכּוֹרִים
shikkorim
GROWS FROM
שכר
shakar
to become drunk or intoxicated
“you who are drunk” in this verse is shikkorim. The root joins the intoxicated person to the intoxicating drink: Hebrew uses related forms for “drunk” and “strong drink.” The command to wake lands against that shared root as the familiar wine disappears.
ALSO GROWS
shekar: strong or intoxicating drink
שֵׁכָר
This branch names a drink by its intoxicating quality, sharing the root found in “drunkards.”
shikkor: drunk; intoxicated
שִׁכּוֹר
This form names the state of the people summoned to wake.
THE PATTERN
When abundance is removed, what it was holding at bay surfaces as grief and hunger.
The new wine mourns, the vine droops, all the glad of heart groan.Woe to you who are filled now, for you will hunger. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.THE THREAD
On that day the LORD cut a covenant with Abram, saying, To your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.In Joel, נִכְרַת (nikhrat) means “is cut off”; Genesis uses the same root כרת (karat), “cut,” in כָּרַת בְּרִית (karat berit), “cut a covenant,” translated “made a covenant.” The shared root shows that this verb can name both a severance and a covenant-making act, sharpening the sense of what has been parted from the drinkers.
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