Joel 2:12

Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye [even] to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:

Ver. 12. Therefore also now, saith the Lord] Now, though it be late first, and, as you may think, too late, Nunquam sero si serio. Now, though the dreadful day of the Lord be very near at hand; yea, though the locusts be already come, as Kimchi senseth it. Oh that ye would know at the last in this your day of grace, the things that belong to your peace, before the gate be shut, the drawbridge taken up, the taper burnt out, &c. "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation," 2 Corinthians 6:2. The apostle (after the prophet Isaiah) purposely beateth upon the το νυν, as if he should say, Now, or never; since thou mayest, the very next minute, be cut off by the stroke of death from all further time of repentance and acceptation. Up, therefore, and be doing. It is the Lord himself that thus saith,

Turn ye even to me] Usque ad me, altogether as far as to me; give not the half turn only; begin not to repent, and then give over the work. Some are ever about to repent, but they can never find time and hearts to set seriously about it, to do it in good earnest, stultitia semper incipit vivere folly always begins to live (Sen.). Some wamblings they have, as I may say, and some short-winded wishes, some kind of willingness and velleity, but it doth not boil up to the full height of resolution to return. The prodigal changed many places ere he came home. Many came out of Egypt that yet never came into Canaan.

With all your heart] With the heart, Jeremiah 4:14 Proverbs 23:26, and with the whole heart, in opposition to a divided heart, Hosea 10:2, a double heart, James 4:8, a heart and a heart, Psalms 12:2. This whole heart is elsewhere called a true heart, Hebrews 10:22, a perfect heart, 2 Chronicles 16:10, truth in the inwards, Psalms 51:6, where there is an unfeigned faith, 1 Timothy 1:5, laborious love, 1 Thessalonians 1:3, sound and cordial repentance, as here, undissembled wisdom, James 3:17, such holiness as rendereth a man like to a crystal glass with a light in the midst of it, doing the truth, John 3:21, and having his works full, Revelation 3:1,2, being a true worshipper, John 4:24, an Israelite indeed, John 1:47. God he knows to be just and jealous: he will not endure co-rivals or co-partners in the kingdom. His jurisdiction is without peculiar: he will not divide with the devil. Be the gods of heathen good fellows? saith one; the true God is a jealous God, and will not share his glory with another. He must be served truly, that there be no halting; and totally, that there be no halving.

And with fasting, weeping, and with mourning] With deep and downright humiliation, suitable to your sins, as Ezra 9:6. Ye have inveterate stains; such as will not be gotten out till the cloth be almost rubbed to pieces. Satan hath intrenched himself in your hearts, and will not be gotten out but by fasting and prayer. Fasting is of itself but a bodily exercise, and meriteth nothing; for religion consisteth not in meat and drink; in the belly, full or empty, Rom 14:17 Colossians 2:23; but fasting is a singular furtherance to the practice of repentance and the enforcing of our prayers. See Ezra 8:21. As full feeding increaseth corruption, Jeremiah 5:7,8, so religious abstinence macerateth, tameth, and subdueth the rebel flesh, 1 Corinthians 9:27, giving it the blue eye, υπωτιαζω, as there and 2 Corinthians 7:11, so that not the body so much as the soul is made more active by emptiness. Fasting days are soul fatting days, they fit men for conversion, as here, and make much to the humbling of the spirit; hence they are called days of humiliation and of self-affliction, Leviticus 16:31; Leviticus 23:37 .

And with weeping] Drown your sins in a deluge of tears; cleanse your wounds by washing in this precious water; quench hell fire with it, kill the worm, fetch out sin's venom: there is a healing property in these troubled waters. Tears of vine branches are said to cure the leprosy, and the olive is reported to be most fruitful when it most distilleth. These April showers bring on May flowers, and make the heart as a watered garden; or as some faces appear most oriently beautiful when most bedewed with tears. Peter never looked so sweetly as when he wept bitterly; David never sung more pathetically than when his heart was broken most penitentially, Psa 6:1-10 Psalms 51:1,19. when tears instead of gems were the ornament of his bed, as Chrysostom speaketh. Mary Magdalene (that great weeper), as she made her eyes a fountain to wash Christ's feet in, so she had his wounds as a fountain to bathe her soul in; yea, she had afterwards the first sight of the revived Phoenix, whom she held fast by those feet that had lately trod upon the lion and the adder.

And with mourning] This is added, as a degree beyond the former. Men may fast, and yet find their pleasures, Isaiah 58:13, weep out of stomach, as Esau, or compliment, as Phryne the harlot, who was surnamed κλαυσιγελως, weep-laugh, because she could easily do either: and as among the Brasilians tears are for a present salutation, and as soon gone as if they had said, How do ye? Ut flerent oculos erudiere suos (Ovid). What is a humbling day without a humbled heart? not only a religious incongruity, but a high provocation; like Zimri's act, when all the congregation were weeping before the door of the tabernacle. Here, therefore, the Lord calleth to mourning, funeral mourning, as the word signifieth: with tabering upon the breast, Nahum 2:7, smiting on the thigh, Jeremiah 31:19, beating on the head, face, and other parts, sicut mulierculae in puerperio facere solent, saith Luther there. Nudaque marmoreis percussit pectora palmis (Ovid). See Isaiah 32:11; Isaiah 22:12. Sorrow for sin must not be slight and sudden, but sad and soaking: the heart must be turned into a Hadadrimmon, Zechariah 12:10,11, where the prophet seems, in a sort, to be at a stand for comparisons fit enough and full enough to set forth their sorrow, who, looking upon Christ, whom they had pierced, felt the very nails sticking in their own hearts as so many sharp daggers, or stings of scorpions. The good soul (say the school-men) seeth more cause of grief for sinning than for the death of Christ: because therein was aliquid placens, something that pleaseth: but sin is simpliciter displicens, simply displeasing. So that God's mourners need not send for mourning women to teach them to mourn, as Jeremiah 9:17, but rather have need to be comforted, lest they should be swallowed up with overmuch grief, 2 Corinthians 2:7, and lest Satan get an advantage against them, 2 Corinthians 2:11, by mixing the detestable darnel of desperation with the godly sorrow of a pure penitent heart, as Mr Philpot, martyr, speaketh.