Joel 1:11

“Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen, etc.] Tillers of the land, who have took a great deal of pains in cultivating the earth, dunging, ploughing, and sowing it; confusion may cover you, because of your disappointment, the increase not answering to your expectations and labours: howl, O ye vinedressers; that worked in the vineyards, set the vines, watered and pruned them, and, when they had done all they could to them, were dried up with the drought, or devoured by the locusts, as they were destroyed by the Assyrians or Chaldeans; and therefore had reason to howl and lament, all their labour being lost: for the wheat and for the barley: because the harvest of the field is perished; this belongs to…”

“Be . . . ashamed--that is, Ye shall have the shame of disappointment on account of the failure of "the wheat" and "barley . . . harvest." howl . . . vine dressers--The semicolon should follow, as it is the "husbandmen" who are to be "ashamed . . . for the wheat." The reason for the "vine dressers" being called to "howl" does not come till Joe 1:12, "The vine is dried up."”

“Be ye ashamed, O ye farmers - The prophet dwells on and expands the description of the troubles which he had foretold, setting before their eyes the picture of one universal dessolation. For the details of sorrow most touch the heart, and he wished to move them to repentance. He pictures them to themselves; some standing aghast and ashamed of the fruitlessness of their toil others giving way to bursts of sorrow, and all things around waste and dried. Nothing was exempt. Wheat and barley, widespread as they were (and the barley in those countries, “more fertile” than the wheat,) perished utterly. The rich juice of the vine, the luscious sweetness of the fig the succulence of the ever-green…”

“Be ye ashamed - This is a just cause why you should lament and enquire why God is so displeased with you. Joel 1:14”

“ashamed: Jer 14:3, Jer 14:4; Rom 5:5 because: Isa 17:11; Jer 9:12 Joel 1:12”