ty presented nothing corresponding to this feature?

It is only the heaviest and most continuous suffering, and not a
transitory plague by locusts, which can justify the call in i. 8: "Howl
like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth." This
verse forms the transition to ver. 9, where the sacrifice in the house
of Jehovah appears as cut off, and connects Joel with Hosea, in whom
the image, of which the outlines only are given here, appears finished.
Zion has also lost the friend of her youth--the Lord; compare Prov. ii.
17: "Who forsaketh the friend of her youth, and forgot the covenant of
her God;" Is. liv. 6; Jer. ii. 2, iii. 4.--Of great [Pg 311] importance
for the question under consideration are ver. 9: "The meat-offering and
drink-offering are cut off from the house of the Lord;" and ver. 13:
"Gird yourselves and lament, ye priests, howl ye ministers of the
altar, come, spend all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God; for
the meat-offering and drink-offering are withholden from the house of
your God." It is quite inconceivable that the want of provisions,
resulting from a natural devastation by real locusts, could have been
the reason that the meat-offering and drink-offering, which, in a
material point of view, were of so little value, should have been
withheld from the Lord; inasmuch as the cessation of it appears in
these passages as the consummation of the national calamity. During the
siege of Jerusalem by Pompey, the legal sacrifices existed, according
to _Josephus_ (_Arch._ xiv. 4, Sec. 3), even amidst the greatest dangers
to life, during the irruption of the enemies into the city, and in the
midst of the carnage. It is true that, during the last siege by the
Romans, when matters had come to an extremity, _Johannes_ ordered the
sacrifices to be discontinued. But this was done, not from want of
materials, but because there were none to offer them--from [Greek:
andron aporia], as _Josephus_ says (_Bell. Jud._ vi. 2, Sec. 1; compare
_Reland_ in _Havercamp_ on this passage)--and to the great
dissatisfaction of the people in the city, [Greek: ho demos deinos
athumei]. The national view is expressed in what _Josephus_ says on
this occasion to Johannes, to whom he had been sent by Titus on account
of this event: "If any man should rob thee of thy daily food, thou,
most wicked man, wouldst certainly consider him as thine enemy. Dost
thou then think that thou wilt have for thine associate in