Joel Chapters 2:18-3:21/Commentary

The Book of Joel Chapters 2:18-3:21 Forgiveness and Restoration

2:18 “Then the Lord will be zealous for His land”: Here is how God will respond to genuine repentance on the part of the nation. God always gives the sinner incentives to repent (John 3:16; Romans 2:6ff). The side reference here says, “Or, was zealous”, which may infer that God is revealing to us that the people at this time actually did repent. “God promised to the repentant heart that His godly jealous love (as a husband for his wife) would move Him to have pity on His people” (Gaebelein p. 253). “Since He loves His people as the apple of His eye (Deut. 32:10; Zechariah 2:8), He is equally zealous for their welfare” (Laetsch p. 123).

2:19 Genuine repentance will move God to completely reverse the fortunes of the people. The land which had been devastated and deprived of all agricultural products will once again produce abundantly, so much so that the people will be completely full and satisfied. God will never again make them a reproach among the nations, if they are faithful. 2:20 The northern army (whether locusts or an actual army) will be driven out of the land. I am impressed with how quickly God can reverse the fortunes of an entire nation. In addition, be amazed at what genuine repentance can accomplish and how it can change the future.

Oh the blessings of which people deprive themselves by refusing to repent (Romans 2:1-6)!

2:21-23 Whereas joy and gladness had been absent from the land (1:16), now He twice urges the people to rejoice. Whereas the land had experienced a drought (1:17-20), now an abundance of rain would fall (2:23). The wild animals which had suffered (1:20) would now have green and lush pasture (1:19-20).

2:23 The sons of Zion were the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the early rain is the rain of autumn that causes the grain to sprout and the latter rain is the rain of late spring that causes the grain to mature before the harvest. He would again send the refreshing former and latter rains, thus speaking to them of his renewed care

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for His people. One translation in the side reference on this verse has the expression teacher of righteousness. The reason for this is that the Hebrew term moreh, can be translated “rain” or “teacher”. It seems to me that the rain itself taught the people that their relationship with God had been restored and that as a result they should continue to pursue righteousness. Has God’s wonderful blessings in our lives taught us anything, or do we take them for granted?

Compare with Acts 14:17.

2:24-25 God will so abundantly bless genuine repentance that the bounty to come will more than make up for what they lost during the locust invasion.

Consider the expression, “years”. The vineyards and orchards had been thoroughly destroyed, which would have robbed them of their fertility for years.

Therefore, God is asking the people to trust Him for these future blessings.

People may repent, but the immediate physical blessings of that repentance may not show up for years. Can we wait and can we continue to trust God? 2:26-27 Such a reversal in fortunes would prove to the people that God is in their midst and that He is God and there is no other. “Songs of praises will be heard throughout the land in honor of the Lord, who had dealt wondrously with His people, wondrously in sending His righteous judgments, a devastation so sudden and complete as no human power could have effected it, and even more wondrously in His rapid and complete deliverance” (Laetsch p. 127). Those who place their trust in such a God will never be put to shame. If we end up humiliating ourselves, the cause isn’t God or His word, rather we only bring shame upon ourselves when we depart from His teachings.

The Outpouring of the Spirit 2:28 Tremendous spiritual blessings would follow the material fullness promised. The specific fulfillment of this section of Scripture is declared by Peter to have been on Pentecost following the resurrection of Jesus (Acts 2:16ff).

2:28 “On all mankind”: Not on everyone, for even in the first century many Christians didn’t have the Holy Spirit in a miraculous sense (1 Corinthians 12:28ff). Rather, the expression “on all mankind” includes both Jews (Acts 2:1-4), and Gentiles (Acts 10-11).

2:28 “Sons, daughters, old men, young men”: Philip had four virgins daughters who prophesied (Acts 21:9), and Paul tells of women who prophesied (1 Corinthians 11:5). The receiving of the miraculous manifestation of the Holy 2

Spirit would be without distinction of age, gender or social order, “servants and handmaids”. “Prophesying stands for the whole of teaching by inspiration of the Spirit. Visions and dreams indicate two forms of revelation by which God would make Himself known to the prophet (Numbers 12:6). It is concluded, therefore, that what took place on Pentecost marked the beginning of the complete fulfillment of Joel’s word” (Hailey p. 54).

2:29 One writer noted that nowhere in the Old Testament period did God ever select a slave to be a prophet, yet in the New Testament Church such would happen.

2:30-31 This is the terminology found in the Old Testament for an approaching judgment (Isaiah 13:10; 34:4; Jeremiah 4:23). When Jesus came into this world, He brought both salvation and condemnation. He brought deliverance for those who accepted Him and condemnation for those who rejected Him (John 3:16ff).

“Jesus came not to judge the world but to save it (John 3:17-18); yet judgment became an inevitable result of His work (John 3:18-19)…The rejection of the truth of the Spirit by the Jews, and their persecutions of Christians, became the forerunner of God’s great judgment upon Jerusalem by the Romans, A.D. 70.

The destruction of Jerusalem, which fulfilled the prophecy, in turn becomes a prophetic type of the ultimate end of the world and of the judgment of God on the world of the ungodly—that is, on those who reject the Spirit of God in refusing to hear His Word” (Hailey pp. 54-55).

2:32 God always offers deliverance for those who will trust Him. Even in the midst of His judgments, God provides a way of escape. The term “whoever” indicates anyone. In Acts chapter two, calling on the name of the Lord involves, faith, repentance and baptism (Acts 2:37-38; 22:16).

Chapter 3 3:1-2 The word “For” connects the things following with what had been said above. The phrase, “in those days and at that time” identifies the judgment as being in the period of the outpouring of the Spirit, the period of time following the day of Pentecost. The use of the plural days indicates a period of time rather than a specific point in time.

3:1 “When I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem”: Since this happens after Acts 2, this restoration cannot refer to the physical restoration that followed the Babylonian captivity. Amos also uses the expression “I will bring back the 3

captivity of My people Israel” (9:14) in a Messianic context (9:11-12); this is quoted by James and applied to the period under Christ (Acts 15:14-18). Thus this is talking about the return of Judah and Jerusalem in a spiritual sense (Isaiah 11:11/Romans 15:12). The Jews who accepted the gospel message constituted the remnant that God was gathering (Romans 11:1ff).

3:2-3 The “valley of Jehoshaphat” means “Jehovah judges”. This isn’t a literal place in Palestine (for no valley in Palestine could contain all the nations), but rather an ideal place where God’s judgment is executed. All the nations which had a part in persecuting His people will be judged.

3:3 The cruelty of such nations is described, the lives of Judean children were considered cheap. Little boys were sold as payment for a brief fling with a prostitute. Little girls were regarded as worth no more than the temporary gratification afforded by wine. Such a statement should have encouraged every Israelite generation that the nations which persecuted Israel would be recompensed.

3:4-8 The judgment is directed first against the Phoenicians. These peoples are charged with having sold His people into slavery and having carried them into the islands of Greece. Apparently here Joel pauses to point out the judgment coming upon neighboring nations some time after his own day. “What are you to me”: “The Living God is not impressed with the resurgent military power of the Philistines or the burgeoning commercial empire of Tyre and Sidon” (Smith p. 91). “Are you rendering Me a recompense?”: “The participle denotes a characteristic trait. They sought to return evil to the Lord by opposing Him, harassing His people, thinking to impoverish Him by looting His Temple and carrying its silver and gold and precious vessels to their own palaces and temples (5)” (Laetsch p. 131). God took such attacks upon His people and His Temple very personally. In like manner, when people try to undermine the success of the Church, they are actually opposing God and seeking to harm Him. But those who oppose God will be swiftly recompensed.

3:5 First, they had looted the Temple in Jerusalem. Putting that captured Temple treasury in the shrine of an idol signaled, in the ancient mind, the victory of the pagan god over the God of Israel. See 2 Chron. 21:16-17.

3:6 The districts of western Canaan, Tyre, and Sidon were well-known slave dealers in the ancient world. The Greeks were the descendants of Javan (Genesis 10:2,4). The cities of Tyre and Sidon had cruelly deported Israelites far from their 4

homes, where they were in imminent contact with idolatry and in danger of joining it.

3:7-8 Yet the Lord will stir up enemies against these cities and in the end their sons and daughters will end up being sold as slaves to the Sabeans, in southern Arabia. “Sheba, in southern Arabia, is farther to the SE than was Greece to the NW” (Hailey p. 57). God would give these slave dealers a taste of their own medicine.

3:8 “For the Lord has spoken”: “What has just been expressed is not the consensus of contemporary opinion, nor the personal malicious desire of Joel.

This threat is an expression of the solemn decree of God. Thus it most certainly would be fulfilled” (Smith p. 92). In the years that followed, both Hezekiah and Uzziah warred against the Philistines. During the inter-testamental period the Maccabean rulers did the same. Philistia was totally dominated by Judea. As for the Phoenicians, they were cruelly conquered and enslaved by Alexander the Greek in 332 B.C.. “A like judgment will be meted out to all opponents of the New Testament Church, the Church of Christ. That also will be surrounded by enemies; no longer by Moab and Philistia, but by foes far more powerful, far more resourceful. We think of imperial Rome, of Gnosticism, Islam, papal Rome, Rationalism, atheistic Communism. Yet all these enemies of God’s Church will have their Valley of Jehoshaphat” (Laetsch p. 132).

Judgment of the Nations “After referring to the judgment upon the neighboring peoples who had abused the people of God, the prophet resumes the thought introduced in verse 2, and brings into focus all the heathen nations and God’s universal judgment against them” (Hailey p. 58).

3:9-11 The implements of peaceful agricultural pursuits are to be converted into implements of war. This is the very opposite of what we find within the kingdom of God (the church) (Isaiah 2:2-4). Since all this is to happen after Acts chapter 2 (Joel 2:28-31; 3:1), this is a judgment upon all the nations who do not embrace the gospel message. In fact, these verses are a challenge to the nations, that is, any nation which opposes His people will be cut down to size.

“The coming conflict is so serious that these adversaries are urged to secure as many weapons as possible. They should even beat their plowshares into swords and their pruning hooks into spears. All available manpower would be needed.

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A total mobilization of surrounding nations against God and His people is envisioned. Even the physically weak and psychological misfits were not to be exempt. This huge army represents all the forces—physical, spiritual, intellectual —which have been hostile to God’s people” (Smith p. 93).

Thus God is telling us, that even though it sees like the whole world is against us, the world will still lose! The world may throw everything at us including the kitchen sink, but the world will still lose in the end.

3:12 Notice the word “let”, here is human freewill, God allows and will not prevent people from opposing the truth. 3:13 The prophet uses two illustrations by which to impress this judgment: a harvest ripe unto threshing and the harvest of a vineyard ready for the wine vat. The point is that these nations are ripe for judgment, and such imagery denotes the ease by which God judges a nation. A superpower or all the resources of the world which have been arrayed against His truths, are like helpless grapes in His hand.

3:14 The expression, “Multitudes, multitudes”, signifies a noisy, vociferous, boisterous crowd. Carefully note, God is condemning vast numbers of people for their opposition to His people. This passage certainly doesn’t endorse the idea that God will end up saving just about everyone (Matthew 7:13-14).

3:15-16 The association of darkness with God’s judgments in the Bible is frequent. “The idea is that nature is horrified at the approach of Yahweh in judgment…If sun, moon and stars shrink before the approach of Yahweh, mere mortal man would have no chance of success. Thus the darkening of the heavenly bodies signals a terrible slaughter upon which the creation itself does not wish to gaze” (Smith p. 95). Yet, there is deliverance even during such times of judgment for the faithful.

3:17 “Through times of judgment and of refuge men will know that Jehovah is God and that in spiritual Zion He reigns over the nations and over His people…

Spiritual Zion is impregnable; strangers will not pass through her as they did through physical Jerusalem. The kingdom over which Jehovah reigns from Zion is one that cannot be shaken (Hebrews 12:28); it will stand forever (Daniel 2:44), and finally to be delivered by His Son to Himself in glory (1 Corinthians 15:2428)” (Hailey p. 60).

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Security for God’s People 3:18 That which follows, verses 18-21, is identified with verse 17 by the expression, “And it will come about in that day”. In that day must also refer to the same time period, that is, the time period after Acts chapter 2. So the picture of the mountains dripping with sweet wine, the hills flowing with milk, and the brooks flowing with water is a picture of the spiritual plenty that will exist in the church (Ephesians 1:3; 3:19; Colossians 2:10).

3:18 The house of the Lord in the New Testament is the church (1 Timothy 3:15).

From the church would flow a stream to water arid places like the Valley of Shittim. “Joel is symbolically announcing that the Gospel would bring newness of life to a dying world” (Smith p. 97). The church would bring God’s refreshing spiritual truths and salvation to areas on the globe which have been absolutely barren of any spiritual life (Acts 26:18; 18:1ff).

3:19 Egypt and Edom, traditional enemies of God’s people may stand for all worldly powers in every age which attempt to oppose the spread of the gospel.

3:20 In contrast, spiritual Israel, the church will abide forever (Matthew 16:1819). In the New Testament, we find the message that God will judge those who persecute His people (Revelation 6:10-11).

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