Text -- Joel 2:18-27 (NET)

The Lord’s Response

2:18 Then the Lord became zealous for his land; he had compassion on his people. 2:19 The Lord responded to his people, “Look! I am about to restore your grain as well as fresh wine and olive oil. You will be fully satisfied. I will never again make you an object of mockery among the nations. 2:20 I will remove the one from the north far from you. I will drive him out to a dry and desolate place. Those in front will be driven eastward into the Dead Sea, and those in back westward into the Mediterranean Sea. His stench will rise up as a foul smell.” Indeed, the Lord has accomplished great things. 2:21 Do not fear, my land! Rejoice and be glad, because the Lord has accomplished great things! 2:22 Do not fear, wild animals! For the pastures of the wilderness are again green with grass. Indeed, the trees bear their fruit; the fig tree and the vine yield to their fullest. 2:23 Citizens of Zion, rejoice! Be glad because of what the Lord your God has done! For he has given to you the early rains as vindication. He has sent to you the rains– both the early and the late rains as formerly. 2:24 The threshing floors are full of grain; the vats overflow with fresh wine and olive oil. 2:25 I will make up for the years that the ‘arbeh-locust consumed your crops– the yeleq-locust, the hasil-locust, and the gazam-locust– my great army that I sent against you. 2:26 You will have plenty to eat, and your hunger will be fully satisfied; you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has acted wondrously in your behalf. My people will never again be put to shame. 2:27 You will be convinced that I am in the midst of Israel. I am the Lord your God; there is no other. My people will never again be put to shame.

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Wesley: Joe 2:20

That part of the locusts which are toward the north.

Wesley: Joe 2:20

The van of this army shall be driven into the dead sea, east of Jerusalem.

Wesley: Joe 2:20

The rear of this army shall be driven into the west sea.

Wesley: Joe 2:20

The stench of these locusts destroying and lying putrified on the face of the earth, or the corpses of the Assyrians slain and unburied.

Wesley: Joe 2:22

Bring forth as much as they are able to stand under.

Wesley: Joe 2:23

The autumn rain which is needful to mellow the earth and fit it to receive the corn.

Wesley: Joe 2:23

Needful to bring forward and ripen the fruits, accounted the latter rain because these husbandmen and vine - dressers reckoned from seed time to spring and harvest.

Wesley: Joe 2:23

That is, our March.

Wesley: Joe 2:24

The vessels into which the liquor ran out of the press.

Wesley: Joe 2:25

Make up to you.

Wesley: Joe 2:26

In one year giving as much as the locusts wasted in the years foregoing.

Wesley: Joe 2:26

Neither disappointed of your hopes, nor necessitated to seek relief among the heathen.

JFB: Joe 2:18

When God sees His people penitent.

JFB: Joe 2:18

As a husband jealous of any dishonor done to the wife whom he loves, as if done to himself. The Hebrew comes from an Arabic root, "to be flushed in face" through indignation.

JFB: Joe 2:19

Rather, as Hebrew, "the corn . . . the wine . . . the oil," namely, which the locusts have destroyed [HENDERSON]. MAURER not so well explains, "the corn, &c., necessary for your sustenance." "The Lord will answer," namely, the prayers of His people, priests, and prophets. Compare in the case of Sennacherib, 2Ki 19:20-21.

JFB: Joe 2:20

The Hebrew expresses that the north in relation to Palestine is not merely the quarter whence the invader comes, but is his native land, "the Northlander"; namely, the Assyrian or Babylonian (compare Jer 1:14-15; Zep 2:13). The locust's native country is not the north, but the south, the deserts of Arabia, Egypt, and Libya. Assyria and Babylon are the type and forerunner of all Israel's foes (Rome, and the final Antichrist), from whom God will at last deliver His people, as He did from Sennacherib (2Ki 19:35).

JFB: Joe 2:20

More applicable to a human army's van and rear, than to locusts. The northern invaders are to be dispersed in every other direction but that from which they had come: "a land barren and desolate," that is, Arabia-Deserta: "the eastern (or front) sea," that is, the Dead Sea: "the utmost (or hinder) sea," that is, the Mediterranean. In front and behind mean east and west; as, in marking the quarters of the world, they faced the east, which was therefore "in front"; the west was behind them; the south was on their right, and the north on their left.

JFB: Joe 2:20

Metaphor from locusts, which perish when blown by a storm into the sea or the desert, and emit from their putrefying bodies such a stench as often breeds a pestilence.

JFB: Joe 2:20

That is, because the invader hath haughtily magnified himself in his doings. Compare as to Sennacherib, 2Ki 19:11-13, 2Ki 19:22, 2Ki 19:28. This is quite inapplicable to the locusts, who merely seek food, not self-glorification, in invading a country.

JFB: Joe 2:21-23

In an ascending gradation, the land destroyed by the enemy, the beasts of the field, and the children of Zion, the land's inhabitants, are addressed, the former two by personification.

JFB: Joe 2:21-23

In contrast to the "great things" done by the haughty foe (Joe 2:20) to the hurt of Judah stand the "great things" to be done by Jehovah for her benefit (compare Psa 126:2-3).

JFB: Joe 2:22

(Zec 8:12). As before (Joe 1:18, Joe 1:20) he represented the beasts as groaning and crying for want of food in the "pastures," so now he reassures them by the promise of springing pastures.

JFB: Joe 2:23

Not merely in the springing pastures, as the brute "beasts" which cannot raise their thoughts higher (Isa 61:10; Hab 3:18).

JFB: Joe 2:23

The autumnal, or "former rain," from the middle of October to the middle of December, is put first, as Joel prophesies in summer when the locusts' invasion took place, and therefore looks to the time of early sowing in autumn, when the autumnal rain was indispensably required. Next, "the rain," generically, literally, "the showering" or "heavy rain." Next, the two species of the latter, "the former and the latter rain" (in March and April). The repetition of the "former rain" implies that He will give it not merely for the exigence of that particular season when Joel spake, but also for the future in the regular course of nature, the autumn and the spring rain; the former being put first, in the order of nature, as being required for the sowing in autumn, as the latter is required in spring for maturing the young crop. The Margin, "a teacher of righteousness," is wrong. For the same Hebrew word is translated "former rain" in the next sentence, and cannot therefore be differently translated here. Besides, Joel begins with the inferior and temporal blessings, and not till Joe 2:28 proceeds to the higher and spiritual ones, of which the former are the pledge.

JFB: Joe 2:23

Rather, "in due measure," as much as the land requires; literally, "according to right"; neither too much nor too little, either of which extremes would hurt the crop (compare Deu 11:14; Pro 16:15; Jer 5:24; see on Hos 6:3). The phrase, "in due measure," in this clause is parallel to "in the first month," in the last clause (that is, "in the month when first it is needed," each rain in its proper season). Heretofore the just or right order of nature has been interrupted through your sin; now God will restore it. See my Introduction to Joel.

JFB: Joe 2:24

The effect of the seasonable rains shall be abundance of all articles of food.

JFB: Joe 2:25

The reverse order from Joe 1:4, where (see on Joe 1:4) God will restore not only what has been lost by the full-grown consuming locust, but also what has been lost by the less destructive licking locust, and swarming locust, and gnawing locust.

JFB: Joe 2:26

Shall no longer endure the "reproach of the heathen (Joe 2:17), [MAURER]; or rather, "shall not bear the shame of disappointed hopes," as the husbandmen had heretofore (Joe 1:11). So spiritually, waiting on God, His people shall not have the shame of disappointment in their expectations from Him (Rom 9:33).

JFB: Joe 2:27

As in the Old Testament dispensation God was present by the Shekinah, so in the New Testament first, for a brief time by the Word made flesh dwelling among us (Joh 1:14), and to the close of this dispensation by the Holy Spirit in the Church (Mat 28:20), and probably in a more perceptible manner with Israel when restored (Eze 37:26-28).

JFB: Joe 2:27

Not an unmeaning repetition from Joe 2:26. The twice-asserted truth enforces its unfailing certainty. As the "shame" in Joe 2:26 refers to temporal blessings, so in this verse it refers to the spiritual blessings flowing from the presence of God with His people (compare Jer 3:16-17; Rev 21:3).

Clarke: Joe 2:19

Yea, the Lord will answer - It is not a peradventure; it will surely be done; if ye seek God as commanded, ye will find him as promised

Clarke: Joe 2:19

I will send you corn and wine - He will either prevent the total ravaging of the land, or so bless it with extraordinary vegetable strength, that ye shall have plentiful crops.

Clarke: Joe 2:20

I will remove far off from you the northern army - "That is, the locusts; which might enter Judea by the north, as Circassia and Mingrelia abound with them. Or the locusts may be thus called, because they spread terror like the Assyrian armies, which entered Judea by the north. See Zep 2:13."- Newcome. Syria, which was northward of Judea, was infested with them; and it must have been a northern wind that brought them into Judea, in the time of Joel; as God promises to change this wind, and carry them into a barren and desolate land, Arabia Deserta. "And his face toward the east sea,"i.e., the Dead Sea, which lay eastward of Jerusalem. "His hinder part toward the utmost sea,"the western sea, i.e., the Mediterranean

Clarke: Joe 2:20

And his stink shalt come up - After having been drowned by millions in the Mediterranean, the reflux of the tide has often brought them back, and thrown there in heaps upon the shore, where they putrefied in such a manner as to infect the air and produce pestilence, by which both men and cattle have died in great multitudes. See Bochart, Hieroz., vol. ii., p. 481

Livy, and St. Augustine after him, relate that there was such an immense crowd of locusts in Africa that, having eaten up every green thing, a wind arose that carried them into the sea, where they perished; but being cast upon the shore, they putrefied, and bred such a pestilence, that eighty thousand men died of it in the kingdom of Massinissa, and thirty thousand in the garrison of Utica, in which only ten remained alive. See Calmet and Livy, lib. xc., and August. De Civitate Dei, lib. iv., c. 31. We have many testimonies of a similar kind

Clarke: Joe 2:20

Because he hath done great things - Or, כי ki , although he have done great things, or, after he has done them, i.e., in almost destroying the whole country.

Clarke: Joe 2:21

Fear not - for the Lord will do great things - The words are repeated from the preceding verse; Jehovah will do great things in driving them away, and supernaturally restoring the land to fertility.

Clarke: Joe 2:23

The former rain moderately - המורה לצדקה hammoreh litsedakah , "the former rain in righteousness,"that is, in due time and in just proportion. This rain fell after autumn, the other in spring. See Hos 6:3

Clarke: Joe 2:23

In the first month - בראשון barishon , "as aforetime."So Bp. Newcome. In the month Nisan. - Syriac.

Clarke: Joe 2:25

I will restore - the years - It has already been remarked that the locusts not only destroyed the produce of that year, but so completely ate up all buds, and barked the trees, that they did not recover for some years. Here God promises that he would either prevent or remedy that evil; for he would restore the years that the locusts, cankerworm, caterpillar, and palmerworm had eaten.

Clarke: Joe 2:26

Praise the name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you - In so destroying this formidable enemy; and so miraculously restoring the land to fertility, after so great a devastation.

Calvin: Joe 2:18

The Prophet here again repeats, that prayers would not be in vain, provided the Jews truly humbled themselves before God. Then God, he says, will be jealous for his land and spare his people. He confirms what I have already said that God would deal mercifully with his people, because they were his heritage, that is because he had chosen them for himself. For the title of heritage, whence does it proceed except from the gratuitous covenant of God? for the Jews were not more excellent than others, but election was the only fountain from which the Jews had to draw any hope. We now then see why these words, God will be jealous for his land, are added; as though he said “Though this land has been polluted by the wickedness of men, yet God has consecrated it to himself: He will, therefore, regard his own covenant, and thus turn away his face from looking on their sins.” He will spare, he says, his people, that is, his chosen people: for, as I have said, the Prophet no doubt ascribes here the safety of the people, and the hope of their safety, to the gratuitous election of God; for the jealousy of God is nothing else but the vehemence and ardor of his paternal love. God could not, indeed, express how ardently he loves those whom he has chosen without borrowing, as it were, what belongs to men. For we know that passions appertain not to him; but he is set forth as a father, who burns with jealousy when he sees his son ill-treated; he acknowledges his own blood, his bowels are excited, — or, as a husband, who, on seeing dishonor done to his wife, is moved; and though he had been a hundred times offended, he yet forgets every offense; for he regards that sacred union between himself and his wife. Such a character, then, does God assume, that he might the better express how much and how intensely he loves his own elect. Hence he says, God will be jealous for his land. As he has hitherto been inflamed with just wrath, so now a contrary feeling will overcome the former; not that God is agitated by various passions, as I have already said, but this mode of speaking transferred from men, is adopted on account of our ignorance.

Calvin: Joe 2:19

He afterwards says, God has answered ⁸ and said to his people, Behold, I will send to you corn, wine, and oil. The Prophet does not here recite what had been done, but, on the contrary, declares, that God in future would be reconciled to them; as though he said, “I have hitherto been a herald of war, and bidden all to prepare themselves for the coming evil: but now I am a messenger to proclaim peace to you; if only you are resolved to turn to God, and to turn unfeignedly, I do now testify to you that God will be propitious to you; and as to your prayers know that they are already heard; that is, know that as soon as they were conceived, they were heard by the Lord.” Hence he says, He has answered; that is “If, moved by my exhortation, ye return with sincerity to God, he will meet you, nay, he has already met you; he waits not until ye have done all that ye ought to do; but when he bids you to come to his temple and to weep, he at the same time wipes off your tears, he removes every cause of sorrow and anxiety.” God, then, has answered; that is, “I am to you a certain and sufficient witness, that your prayers have been already accepted before God, though, as I have before reminded you, ye have not offered them.”

And, at the same time, he speaks of the effect, Behold, I will send to you corn, wine, and oil; and ye shall be satisfied. Here, by the effects, he proves that God would be propitious; for want of food was the first evidence of God’s displeasure, to be followed by the destruction which the Prophet had threatened. What does he say now? God will restore to you abundance of corn, wine, and oil; and he says further, I will not give you to the Gentiles for a reproach that they may rule over you

We now then apprehend the meaning of the Prophet; for he not only promises that God would be placable but also declares that he was already placable; and this he confirms by external tokens; for God would immediately remove the sins of his wrath, and turn them into blessings. Hence he says, ‘He will give you abundance of corn, wine, and oil, so as fully to satisfy you.’ As they had perceived that God was angry with them by the sterility of the land, and also by its produce being consumed by chafers, by locusts, and other animals or insects; so now the Lord would testify his love to them by the abounding fruitfulness of every thing. And then he joins another sentence, I will not give you any more for a reproach to the Gentiles. When he says, “any more,” he intimates that they had been before exposed to reproach; and we indeed know that they were then suffering many evils; but there remained that destruction of which we have heard. God does then here promise, that they should no more be subject to the reproaches of the Gentiles provided they repented; for the Prophet ever speaks conditionally. It now follows —

Calvin: Joe 2:20

In this verse he more fully confirms the Jews, that they might not be afraid of reproach from the Gentiles. It may have been that the Assyrians were now in readiness, prepared for war; it was then difficult to free the Jews from every fear. The Prophet had said generally that they would be no more subject to the mockeries of the Gentiles; but yet fear could not but be felt by them. “We see the Assyrians already armed; and what can we expect but to be devoured by them? for we are not able to resist them.” Anxiety then must have constantly tormented the Jews, had he not distinctly and in express words declared, “It is in God’s power to drive away the Assyrians, and to confound all their attempts.” The Prophet, therefore, is now on this subject. The Northlander, ⁹ he says, will I remove far from you. The Chaldeans and the Assyrians, we know, were northward of Judea. He then means here by the North those enemies, whose preparations terrified the Jews. Hence he says, I will drive them from you, and drive them far into a land of desert and of drought ¹⁰. By these words he intimates, that though furnished with the greatest forces, and gaping for the land of Judea, and ready in their cupidity to devour it, the Syrians would yet return home without effecting anything; I will cast them into a desert land. In vain, he says, they covet your abundance, and desire to satisfy themselves with the fertility of your land; for I will drive them and their dread away.

He then adds, His face to the east sea, and his rear to the hindmost sea; that is, I will scatter them here and there, so that his front shall be to one sea, (supposed to be the Salt Sea,) and his extremity to the hindermost sea, which was doubtless the Mediterranean: for the Salt Sea was east to the Jews, that is, it lies, as it is well known, towards the east. We now perceive in part what the Prophet means. But it must, at the same time, be added, that the Prophet removes fear from the Jews, which occupied their minds by observing the power of the Assyrians so great and extensive. “What is to be done? though God is present with us, and protects us by his help, yet how will he resist the Assyrians, for that army will fill the land”. “God will yet find means,” says the Prophet; “though the Assyrians should occupy the whole land, from the Salt or the East Sea to the Meridian or Mediterranean Sea, yet will God drive away this vast multitude: there is no reason then that ye should fear.” Hence the Prophet has designedly set forth how terrible the Assyrian forces would be, that he might show that they could not be resisted, unless the Lord should disperse them and disappoint all their efforts. At last he adds, And his ill savor shall ascend: but I am not able to finish to-day.

Calvin: Joe 2:21

Here he shows that God would have his turn to exalt himself, which the Assyrian presumptuously attempted to do. For God seems for a time to lie still, when he withholds himself, when he puts not forth his power, but waits to see the tendency of the insane conspiracies and the Satanic madness of those who rise up against him and his Church. But having for a time thus restrained himself, he at length comes forth; and this is what the Prophet means when he says, God has highly exalted himself to do his purpose. The Assyrian first attempted this; but now the Lord in his turn will raise up himself. God indeed could have done this before, but he would not; and we see this to be his usual mode of proceeding, to connive at the presumption of men, till the ripened time comes which he has predetermined; and then he dissipates in a moment their enterprises.

God, then, has now nobly exalted himself; therefore rejoice and exult, O Land. But he says first, Fear not, O Land; and then, Exult and rejoice For it was necessary, in the first place, to remove the fear with which the minds of all were now seized. The Prophet, then, begins with consolation; for the Jews could have hardly entertained any joy, except the fear that oppressed them was first shaken off. Hence the Prophet maintains due order by saying, “Fear not, O Land, but rather exult and rejoice.” He afterwards subjoins —

Calvin: Joe 2:22

Here the Prophet turns his address to the beasts; not that his instruction suited them; but it was a more efficacious mode of speaking, when he invited the very beasts to a participation of the people’s joy; for except the Jews had been made to know that God’s wrath was now nigh at hand, no consolation which the Prophet has hitherto applied would have been of any weight with them. But now since they perceived that God’s wrath did not only suspend over them, but extended much farther, even to the beasts, and since the Lord would have mercy on them, so that his blessing would be partaken in common by the beasts and brute animals, the address was far more impressive. We hence see that the Prophet, for the best reason, directed his discourse to the very beasts, though destitute of mind and discernment. For in addressing brute animals he addressed men with double force; that is, he impressed their minds more effectually, so that they might seriously confess how great was God’s wrath, and also how great would be his blessing.

Beasts, he says, fear not. Then the beasts of the field ought to have dreaded the judgment of God which he had before denounced; for except God had been pacified to his people, the fire of his wrath would have consumed the whole land, trees and pastures; so all the beasts must have been famished. But now when God is reconciled to his people, his blessing will smile on the brute animals. What then is to be said of men? For God is properly propitious to them, and not to brute animals. We hence see that the fruit of reconciliation is made more evident, when it is in part extended to the brute creation.

He therefore says, Fear not, ye beasts of the field: for the pastures of the desert will grow, the trees will bring forth their fruit. By these words the Prophet intimates, that had God’s wrath toward his people been implacable, the sterility of the land would not have been improved. Now then whence came so sudden a change that the pastures grew, that the trees produced their fruits, both the fig-tree and the vine, except that God was pleased to bless the land, after having received men into favor? We now then apprehend the meaning of the Prophet, even this, — that the land would be made by an angry God to execute his judgment, and that there would be no remedy for the barrenness of the land until men propitiated God. This is the sum of the whole. It now follows —

Calvin: Joe 2:23

He now exhorts the Jews also to rejoice, but in a way different from that of the land and of the beasts. Rejoice, he says, in your God. For the beasts and the sheep, while rejoicing, cannot raise their thoughts higher than to their food: hence, the joy of brute animals, as they say, terminates in its object. But the Prophet sets forth God before the Jews as the ground of their joy. We then see how he distinguishes them from brute animals from the land and other elements; for he not only bids them to rejoice in meat and drink, in the abundance of provisions, but he also bids them to rejoice in the Lord their God; and he says no more, “The land will yield its strength, or the vines and fig-trees, or the trees, will produce their fruit, and the pastures will grow;” no, he speaks not now in this manner, but he says “God himself will give you rain:” for he had to do with men, endued with understanding, yea, with those very Jews who had been from their childhood taught in the law of God: he speaks, not only of the land, not only of bread and wine, but of the Giver himself.

He then reminds them of God’s blessing, and declares that God would be so propitious to them as to pour down his grace upon them, and act the part of a father and a guardian towards them. God then, he says, will bring forth or give to you rain according to what is necessary. Some translate המורה emure a teacher; and the meaning of the word, we know, is doubtful. At the same time מורה mure is very often taken for rain, and sometimes generally, and sometimes for a particular kind of rain, as we shall presently see. Though then מורה mure signifies a teacher, yet the context here seems not to allow that sense. They who have thus taken it seem to have been led by this one reason, — that it is absurd to set in the first place, and as it were on a higher grade, those fading blessings which belong only to the support and nourishment of the body. But this reason is very foolish; for the Prophets, we know, lead children as it were by initial principles to a higher doctrine. No wonder then that the Prophet here affords them a taste of God’s favor in blessings belonging to the body; he afterwards ascends higher, as we shall see: and this view is certainly what the context demands; for the Prophet says at last, “I will hereafter pour my Spirit on all flesh,” etc. In these words the Prophet commends the favor of God, which ought to be held as the most valuable: but he begins now with temporal benefits, that he might lead by degrees, and by various steps, a people, rude and weak, to something higher.

Then the word, teacher, by no means suits this place; and we must mark also what immediately follows. He introduces a word derived from מורה mure; he afterwards adds מורה mure the second time, which no doubt, means rain; all confess this, and confess it to be taken for rain in the same verse. When all agree then on this point, it seems somewhat strained to render it in the same verse a teacher and also rain; especially since we find that the Prophet’s object is this, — to make the people to recognize God’s blessing in outward things. There is also another thing which has lead astray these interpreters. There follows immediately the word לצדקה latsadke, according to what is just. When they join together these word, המורה לצדקה emure latsadke, they ask, What is the rain of righteousness? They have hence thought that a teacher is here meant. But we know that משפט and צדקה meshapheth and tsadke are often taken in Scripture for a just measure, for equity. “God then will not deal with you unequally as hitherto; but having been reconciled to you, he will reassume the part of a father, and will also observe towards you a legitimate order; for things have been on both sides in confusion, inasmuch as ye have been carrying on war against God, and your wickedness has subverted the whole order of nature. But now, God being pacified towards you, there will be on both sides an equable state of things, everything will be in a fitting condition; he will not deal with you any more in an irregular manner.” We now then perceive the real meaning of the Prophets and see how frivolous are the reasons which influenced these interpreters, who have rendered the words, “Teacher of righteousness.” I do not love strained expositions.

Let us now return to the words of the Prophet: He will give to you, he says, rain according is what is fit; then he adds, He will make to descend on you showering rain, (using another word;) and he adds again the word מורה mure, which, no doubt, means rain, and no one denies this. But yet it seems that the word גשם geshem has here a specific meaning, and some think it to be a violent shower, occasioned by a storm or tempest; and yet we may gather from many parts of Scripture that the word means rain in general. Now מורה mure seems here to be taken for the rain of September, which the Greeks call τξωιμον, προιμον; and so they call מלקוש melkush οψιμον, opsimon, or the latter rain, as a common interpreter has rendered it. And the cultivated land, we know, needs these two rains, that is, after sowing, and when the fruit is ripening, — after sowing, that the ground by receiving moisture may make the seed to grow; for it then wants moisture to nourish the roots. Hence, the rain of September or October, which is after sowing, is rightly called seasonable rain; and the Greeks, as I have already said, call it πρωιμον proimon; and James, following them, so calls it in Jas 5:7, ‘He will give you rain,’ he says, ‘both of the first time and the late rain,’ that is, of the month of March. For in those warm climates the harvests we know, is earlier than with us. We here gather the corn in July but they gather it there in May. The fruit then ripens with them in March, when they need the late rain. And in Jer 5:24 it appears quite evident, that מורה mure, as in this place, is called the rain, which comes down after sowing; for God says there, ‘I will give you,’ etc., and first he uses the general word גשם geshem, and then he adds the two kinds of rain, which are also mentioned here; and afterwards he adds, ‘In their time,’ that is, each rain in its time and season. — Then מורה mure has its time, and מלקוש melkush also has its time; otherwise the words of the prophet would not be consistent.

We now see what the Prophet means. Of the word מלקום melkush we have said something in Hosea. Then the Prophet says now, that God would be so propitious to the Jews, as to neglect no means of testifying his favor towards them; for he would give them rain in the month of October and in the month of March, to fertilize the ground after sowing, and before the harvest or before the fruit came to maturity. Here then is promised to the Jews that the land would be made fertile by natural means. It now follows —

Calvin: Joe 2:24

He goes on with the same subject in this verse, and shows the effects of rain; for when the earth is irrigated and satiated with sufficient moisture, it brings forth fruit, rich and plentiful. God then will cause that the rains shall not be useless, for the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine as well as oil. He afterwards adds —

Calvin: Joe 2:25

The Prophet confirms what he had previously said, and states what is of an opposite character, — that God can as easily restore a rich fruitfulness to the land as he had before rendered it barren by sending devouring insects. I will give you years, (for the other years,) he says; and that the Jews might more fully understand that all this was in God’s hand, he expressly declares that the cankerworms, the chafers, and the locusts ¹¹, were his army and as it were his hired army, whom he had employed as it seemed good to him. The spoilers, then, which had destroyed the whole produce of the land, were, as the Prophet declares, the messengers of God: it was not, he says, by chance that the locusts, or the cankerworms, or the chafers came; but God hired these soldiers, they were his forces and his army to distress the whole people; then famine and want consumed them. It is not then to no purpose that the Prophet mentions here that these destructive insects were God’s army; it is to show more fully what is here promised; for God, who had by this army devoured the whole increase of the land, can now easily restore plenty for the barrenness of past years. Now, when any one lays down his arms, the land is afterwards cultivated, and brings forth its usual fruit: so the Lord also now shows, that the land had been barren, because he had sent forth his army, which laid waste its whole produce. But now, he says, when I shall restore you to favor, there will be no army to devour your fruit: the land then will nourish you, for there will be nothing to prevent you to receive its wonted produce.

Had not the Jews been made assured that the land had been sterile, because the locusts, and the chafers, and the cankerworms, were the army which the Lord had prepared they might have ever dreaded these spoilers: “Surely the locusts will spring up, the chafers and the cankerworms will come, to devour all the fruit.” The Prophet shows that this happened not by chance: “Now then, when God shall be reconciled to you, the land will yield its increase, and nothing shall hinder you from enjoying its abundance.”

By calling this army great, he shows that God has no need of strong forces to subdue men; for when he prepares locusts and insects, which are but little things, they snatch food from the mouths of men and leave them in want; though no one puts forth a sword against them, they yet pine away with hunger. The Prophet then derides here the arrogance of men, and shows that God needs not do much, when he intends to reduce them to nothing. Let us now proceed —

Calvin: Joe 2:26

He now concludes what he has hitherto said of God’s blessing. As the Jews were starving while God was offended, so he promises that when reconciled to him they should have abundance of produce from the land: Ye shall eat plentifully, he says, and satisfy yourselves. But he mentions also their gratitude; for it was an evidence of true repentance when they praised the name of God, whom they understood to be the giver of their abundance; for he had before proved that the land was under his power, when he consumed its whole substance, so that none of it came to supply the wants of man. Hence the Prophet exhorts them to give thanks, that they might thus declare that they from the heart repented. Ye shall then praise the name of Jehovah your God”. Why? “ Because he will deal with you wonderfully. He takes away here every plea for ignorance. We know how difficult it is to lead men to do this act of religion, for which we yet confess that we were born; for what is more natural than to acknowledge God’s bounty towards us, when we enjoy many blessings? But yet, though God in various ways stimulates us, he cannot draw from us genuine gratitude. This is the reason why the Prophet now says, “God will deal with you wonderfully: though ye are stupid, God will yet by his power awaken you; for he will not deal with you in a common way.” He then mentions something miraculous, that he might leave to the Jews no excuse, in case they considered not God’s bounty and perceived not in this change, first, what they had deserved and then how merciful God had been to them: for this change could not have been ascribed to chance; nor was it a common thing, that when the Jews had been for four successive years nearly consumed with wants and when the enemy was at hand, they should see the land now fruitful, that they should see it freed from destructive insects, that they should be also at peace, and not disturbed by the dread of any foreign enemy. Since the Lord, then, would beyond hope give them a serene instead of a turbulent sky, should not such a wonderful change deeply affect them? This is what the Prophet now means, — “As the Lord will deal with you wonderfully, there will be no excuse for your torpidity, if ye will not be diligent in praising his name.”

Not ashamed, he says, shall my people be for ever The Jews are here reminded by implication of their former disgrace; for they had been greatly confounded; though enemies touched them not, no, not even with their finger, they yet died through famine; an enemy was also prepared, as we have seen, to destroy them. They were therefore frightened with dread, and also perplexed with their own evils, by which God had almost worn them out. The Prophet says now, My people shall not be ashamed for ever, intimating that God would at length relieve his people from their evils, that they might not, as hitherto, be ashamed. He at last subjoins —

Calvin: Joe 2:27

He repeats the same sentence; and in the beginning of the verse he unfolds what I have already said — that the miracle would be such as to constrain the people to praise God. Ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel: and this was the case, because God showed not in an ordinary way his kindness to them, and especially because it had been foretold, and also because this reason had been adduced — that God was mindful of his covenant. The manner, then, in which he dealt with them, and farther, the prediction itself, left to the people no pretext for ignorance. Hence the Prophet now says, ‘Ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel,’ and still more, ‘that I am Jehovah your God.’ By these words the Prophet reminds us, that the deliverance of the people from their evils was to be wholly ascribed to the gratuitous mercy of God; for we have already seen, that things would have been past hope, had not this consolation been added — ‘Turn ye even now to me.’ The Prophet therefore repeats, that there would be no other reason why God would deal so kindly with his people, and so mercifully spare them, but this — that he dwelt in the midst of Israel: but whence was this dwelling, except that God had gratuitously chosen this people? This indeed availed much to raise up the people; for how could they have hoped that God would be propitious to them, had they not been reminded of this truth that God was dwelling in the midst of them? Not because they were worthy, but because he deigned to come down to them.

He afterwards adds, And none else. By this sentence the Prophet more sharply stimulates them to return immediately to God; for if they deferred longer disappointment would be in delay. That the Jews, then, might not, after their usual manner, procrastinate, he says that there is no other God; and thus he shows that there was no remedy for their evils, except they sought to be reconciled to God. “There is then no God besides me, and I dwell in the midst of thee.” The Lord claims to himself every power, and then kindly invites the people to himself, and for this reason, — because he dwells in the midst of them. That the people, then, might not form other expectations, God shows that all their hope was in him alone. He farther shows, that salvation was not to be sought afar off, provided the people had not forgotten the covenant, that God was dwelling in the midst of them. But a higher doctrine follows —

Defender: Joe 2:20

This striking prophecy had a precursive fulfillment in the overnight slaying of the Assyrian host that had laid siege to Jerusalem (Isa 37:36). Its ultimate fulfillment will apparently be in the almost equally sudden destruction of the vast armies of Gog and Magog by God (Eze 38:21, Eze 38:22). In both cases the army is a "northern army," and in both cases the great numbers of dead men will cause an "ill savour" (Eze 39:11). The "east sea" possibly means the Caspian Sea; the "utmost sea" is the Mediterranean."

Defender: Joe 2:23

The repentance of the people (Joe 2:12-17) and the divine defeat of their enemies will be accompanied by the ending of the terrible drought and other pestilences. The idyllic conditions described in Joe 2:19-27 must refer to the millennial period that follows the period of great tribulation. The rainfall will be gentle and dispersed throughout the year, perhaps as in the primeval world again (Gen 2:6), rather than in the form of rare violent storms."

TSK: Joe 2:18

be : Isa 42:13; Zec 1:14, Zec 8:2

and pity : Deu 32:16, Deu 32:36, Deu 32:43; Jdg 10:16; Psa 103:13, Psa 103:17; Isa 60:10, Isa 63:9, Isa 63:15; Jer 31:20; Lam 3:22; Hos 11:8, Hos 11:9; Luk 15:20; Jam 5:11

TSK: Joe 2:19

I will send : Joe 2:24, Joe 1:10; Isa 62:8, Isa 62:9, Isa 65:21-24; Hos 2:15; Amo 9:13, Amo 9:14; Hag 2:16-19; Mal 3:10-12; Mat 6:33

and ye : Joe 2:26

and I : Eze 34:29, Eze 36:15, Eze 39:29

TSK: Joe 2:20

remove : Joe 2:2-11, Joe 1:4-6; Exo 10:19

the northern : Jer 1:14

the east : Eze 47:7, Eze 47:8, Eze 47:18; Zec 14:8

utmost : Deu 11:24

his stink : Eze 39:12-16

because : 2Ki 8:13

done : Heb. magnified to do

TSK: Joe 2:21

Fear : Gen 15:1; Isa 41:10, Isa 54:4; Jer 30:9, Jer 30:10; Zep 3:16, Zep 3:17; Zec 8:15

be glad : Psa 65:12, Psa 65:13, Psa 96:11, Psa 96:12, Psa 98:8; Isa 35:1, Isa 44:23, Isa 55:12; Hos 2:21

for : Joe 2:20; Deu 4:32; 1Sa 12:16, 1Sa 12:24; Psa 71:19, Psa 126:1-3; Jer 33:3

TSK: Joe 2:22

afraid : Joe 1:18-20; Psa 36:6, Psa 104:11-14, Psa 104:27-29, Psa 145:15, Psa 145:16, Psa 147:8, Psa 147:9; Isa 30:23, Isa 30:24; Jon 4:11

for the pastures : Joe 1:19; Psa 65:12; Isa 51:3

for the tree : Lev 26:4, Lev 26:5; Psa 67:6, Psa 107:35-38; Eze 34:26, Eze 34:27, Eze 36:8, Eze 36:30,Eze 36:35; Hos 14:5-7; Amo 9:14, Amo 9:15; Hag 2:16; Zec 8:12; Mal 3:10-12

yield : Gen 4:12; 1Co 3:7

TSK: Joe 2:23

ye children : Psa 149:2; Lam 4:2; Zec 9:13; Gal 4:26, Gal 4:27

rejoice : Psa 28:7, Psa 32:11, Psa 33:1, Psa 95:1-3, Psa 104:34; Isa 12:2-6, Isa 41:16, Isa 61:10; Hab 3:17, Hab 3:18; Zep 3:14-17; Zec 9:9, Zec 10:7; Luk 1:46, Luk 1:47; Phi 3:1, Phi 3:3, Phi 4:4

the former : etc. or, a teacher of righteousness, Joe 2:28, Joe 2:29; Deu 32:2; Job 33:23; Psa 72:6, Psa 72:7; Isa 30:21, Isa 30:23; Eph 4:8-11

moderately : Heb. according to righteousness

he will : Lev 26:4; Deu 11:14, Deu 28:12; Pro 16:15; Jer 3:3; Hos 6:3; Zec 10:1; Jam 5:7, Jam 5:8

in : Amo 4:7

TSK: Joe 2:24

Joe 3:13, Joe 3:18; Lev 26:10; Pro 3:9, Pro 3:10; Amo 9:13; Mal 3:10

TSK: Joe 2:25

that : Joe 2:2-11, Joe 1:4-7; Zec 10:6

TSK: Joe 2:26

ye shall : Lev 26:5, Lev 26:26; Deu 6:11, Deu 6:12, Deu 8:10; Neh 9:25; Psa 22:26, Psa 103:5; Pro 13:25; Son 5:1; Isa 55:2, Isa 62:8, Isa 62:9; Mic 6:14; Zec 9:15, Zec 9:17; 1Ti 6:17

and praise : Deu 12:7, Deu 12:12, Deu 12:18, Deu 26:10,Deu 26:11; 1Ti 4:3-5

that : Joe 2:20,Joe 2:21; Gen 33:11; Psa 13:6, Psa 72:18, Psa 116:7, Psa 126:2, Psa 126:3; Isa 25:1

and my : Psa 25:2, Psa 25:3, Psa 37:19; Isa 29:22, Isa 45:17, Isa 49:23, Isa 54:4; Zep 3:11; Rom 5:5; Rom 9:33, Rom 10:11; 1Jo 2:28

TSK: Joe 2:27

I am : Joe 3:17; Lev 26:11, Lev 26:12; Deu 23:14; Psa 46:5, Psa 68:18; Isa 12:6; Eze 37:26-28; Zep 3:17; 2Co 6:16; Rev 21:3

that I : Isa 45:5, Isa 45:18, Isa 45:21, Isa 45:22, Isa 53:6; Eze 39:22, Eze 39:28

and my : Joe 2:26; 1Pe 2:6

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Joe 2:18

Then will the Lord be jealous for His land - Upon repentance, all is changed. Before, God seemed set upon their destruction. It was His great army which was ready to destroy them; He was at its head, giving the word. Now He is full of tender love for them, which resents injury done to them, as done to Himself. The word might more strictly perhaps be rendered, "And the Lord is jealous". He would show how instantaneous the mercy and love of God for His people is, restrained while they are impenitent, flowing forth upon the first tokens of repentance. The word, "jealous for,"when used of God, jealous for My holy Name Eze 39:25, jealous for Jerusalem, Zec 1:14; Zec 8:2, is used, when God resents evil which had been actually inflicted.

Barnes: Joe 2:19

I will send you corn ... - This is the beginning of the reversal of the threatened judgments. It is clear from this, and still more from what follows, that the chastisements actually came, so that the repentance described, was the consequence, not of the exhortations to repentance, but of the chastisement. What was removed was the chastisement which had burst upon them, not when it was ready to burst. What was given, was what before had been taken away. So it ever was with the Jews; so it is mostly with the portions of the Christian Church or with individuals now. Seldom do they take warning of coming woe; when it has begun to burst, or has burst, then they repent and God gives them back upon repentance what He had withdrawn or a portion of it. So the prophet seems here to exhibit to us a law and a course of God’ s judgments and mercies upon man’ s sin. He takes away both temporal and spiritual blessings symbolized here by the grain and wine and oil; upon repentance He restores them. : "Over and against the wasting of the land, he sets its richness; against hunger, fullness; against reproach, unperiled glory; against the cruelty and incursion of enemies, their destruction and putrefaction; against barrenness of fruits and aridity of trees, their fresh shoots and richness; against the hunger of the word and thirst for doctrine, he brings in the fountain of life, and the Teacher of righteousness; against sadness, joy; against confusion, solace; against reproaches, glory; against death, life; against ashes, a crown."

O fruitful and manly penitence! O noble maiden, most faithful intercessor for sins! A plank after shipwreck! Refuge of the poor, help of the miserable, hope of exiles, cherisher of the weak, light of the blind, solace of the fatherless, scourge of the petulant, axe of vices, garner of virtues. Thou who alone bindest the Judge, pleadest with the Creator, conquerest the Almighty. While overcome, thou overcomest; while tortured, thou torturest; while wounding, thou healest; while healthfully succumbing, thou triumphest gloriously. Thou alone, while others keep silence, mountest boldly the throne of grace. David thou leadest by the hand and reconcilest; Peter thou restorest; Paul thou enlightenest; the Publican, taken from the receipt of custom, thou boldly insertest in the choir of the Apostles; Mary, from a harlot, thou bearest aloft and joinest to Christ; the robber nailed to the cross, yet fresh from blood, thou introducest into Paradise. What more? At thy disposal is the court of heaven."

And I will no more make you a reproach - All the promises of God are conditional. They presuppose man’ s faithfulness. God’ s pardon is complete. He will not, He says, for these offences, or for any like offences, give them over to the pagan. So after the captivity He no more made them a reproach unto the pagan, until they finally apostatized, and leaving their Redeemer, owned no king but Caesar. They first gave themselves up; they chose Caesar rather than Christ, and to be servants of Caesar, rather than that He should not be crucified; and so God left them in his hands, whom they had chosen.

Barnes: Joe 2:20

And I will remove far off from you the northern army - God speaks of the human agent under the figure of the locusts, which perish in the sea; yet so as to show at once, that He did not intend the locust itself, nor to describe the mode in which He should overthrow the human oppressor. He is not speaking of the locust itself, for the Northern is no name for the locust which infested Palestine, since it came from the south; nor would the destruction of the locust be in two opposite seas, since they are uniformly driven by the wind into the sea, upon whose waves they alight and perish, but the wind would not carry them into two opposite seas; nor would the locust perish in a "barren and desolate"land, but would fly further; nor would it be said of the locust that he was destroyed, Because he had done great things . But He represents to us, how this enemy should be driven quite out of the bounds of His people, so that he should not vex them more, but perish.

The imagery is from the holy land. The "East sea"is the Dead Sea, once the fertile "vale of Siddim"Gen 14:3, , "in which sea were formerly Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, until God overthrew them."This, in the Pentateuch, is called "the salt sea"Gen 14:3; Num 34:3, Num 34:12, or "the sea of the plain,"or "desert"(Deu 3:17; Deu 4:49; Jos 3:16; Jos 12:3; Jos 15:25; Jos 18:19; also in 2Ki 14:25), explained in Deuteronomy and Joshua to be "the salt sea"Deut. 3; Josh. 3; 12; Ezekiel calls it "the East sea"Eze 47:18, and in Numbers it is said of it, "your south border shall be the salt sea eastward"Num 34:3. The utmost, or rather, the "hinder sea"Deu 11:24; Deu 34:2 (i. e., that which is behind one who is looking toward the east whose Hebrew name is from "fronting"you) is the Mediterranean, "on whose shores are Gaza and Ascalon, Azotus and Joppa and Caesarea."The "land barren and desolate,"lying between, is the desert of Arabia, the southern boundary of the holy land.

The picture then seems to be, that the "Northern"foes filled the whole of Judaea, in numbers like the locust, and that God drove them violently forth, all along the bounds of the holy land, into the desert, the Dead Sea, the Mediterranean. Jerome relates a mercy of God in his own time which illustrates the image; but he writes so much in the language of Holy Scripture, that perhaps he only means that the locusts were driven into the sea, not into both seas. "In our times too we have seen hosts of locusts cover Judaea, which afterward, by the mercy of the Lord, when the priests and people, ‘ between the porch and the altar,’ i. e., between the place of the Cross and the Resurrection prayed the Lord and said, ‘ spare Thy people,’ a wind arising, were carried headlong ‘ into the Eastern sea, and the utmost sea.’ "Alvarez relates how, priests and people joining in litanies to God, He delivered them from an exceeding plague of locusts, which covered 24 English miles, as He delivered Egypt of old at the prayer of Moses . "When we knew of this plague being so near, most of the clerks of the place came to me, that I should tell them some remedy against it. I answered them, that I knew of no remedy except to commend themselves to God and to pray Him to drive the plague out of the land. I went to the Embassador and told him that to me it seemed good that we should make a procession with the people of the land and that it might please our Lord God to hear us; it seemed good to the Embassador; and, in the morning of the next day, we collected the people of the place and all the Clergy; and we took our altar-stone, and those of the place theirs, and our Cross and theirs, singing our litany, we went forth from the Church, all the Portuguese and the greater part of the people of the place. I said to them that they should not keep silence, but should, as we, cry aloud saying in their tongue Zio marinos, i. e., in our’ s, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.

And with this cry and litany, we went through an open wheat-country for the space of one third of a league. It pleased our Lord to hear the sinners, and while we were turning to the place, because their (the locusts’ ) road was toward the sea whence they had come, there were so many after us, that it seemed no otherwise than that they sought to break our ribs and heads with blows of stones, such were the blows they dealt us. At this time a great thunderstorm arose from toward the sea, which came in their face with rain and hail, which lasted three good hours; the river and brooks filled greatly; and when they had ceased to drive, it was matter of amazement, that the dead locusts on the bank of the great river measured two cubits high; and so for the rivulets, there was a great multitude of dead on their banks. On the next day in the morning there was not in the whole land even one live locust."

And his stink shall come up - The image is still from the locust. It, being such a fearful scourge of God, every individual full of activity and life repeated countlessly in the innumerable host, is, at God’ s will and in His time, cast by His word into the sea, and when thrown up by the waves on the shore, becomes in a few hours one undistinguishable, putrefying, heaving mass. Such does human malice and ambition and pride become, as soon as God casts aside the sinful instrument of His chastisement. Just now, a world to conquer could not satisfy it; superior to man, independent, it deems, of God. He takes away its breath, it is a putrid carcass. Such was Sennacherib’ s army; in the evening inspiring terror; "before the morning, he is not"Isa 17:14. "They were all dead corpses."Isa 37:36.

The likeness stops here. For the punishment is at an end. The wicked and the persecutors of God’ s people are cut off; the severance has taken place. On the one side, there is the putrefying mass; on the other, the jubilee of thanksgiving. The gulf is fixed between them. The offensive smell of the corruption ascends; as Isaiah closes his prophecy, "the carcases"of the wicked, the perpetual prey of the "worm and the fire, shall be an abhorring to all flesh."The righteous behold it, but it reaches them not, to hurt them. In actual life, the putrid exhalations at times have, among those on the sea-shore, produced a pestilence, a second visitation of God, more destructive than the first. This, however, has been but seldom. Yet what must have been the mass of decay of creatures so slight, which could produce a wide-wasting pestilence! What an image of the numbers of those who perish, and of the fetidness of sin! Augustine, in answer to the pagan who imputed all the calamities of the later Roman Empire to the displeasure of the gods, because the world had become Christian, says , "They themselves have recorded that the multitude of locusts was, even in Africa, a sort of prodigy, while it was a Roman province. They say that, after the locusts had consumed the fruits and leaves of trees, they were cast into the sea, in a vast incalculable cloud, which having died and being cast back on the shores, and the air being infected thereby, such a pestilence arose, that in the realm of Masinissa alone 800,000 men perished, and manymore in the lands on the coasts. Then at Utica, out of 30,000 men in the prime of life who were there, they assert that 10 only remained."

Jerome says of the locusts of Palestine ; "when the shores of both seas were filled with heaps of dead locusts which the waters had cast up, their stench and putrefaction was so noxious as to corrupt the air, so that a pestilence was produced among both beasts and men."Modern writers say , "The locusts not only produce a famine, but in districts near the sea where they had been drowned, they have occasioned a pestilence from the putrid effluvia of the immense numbers blown upon the coast or thrown up by the tides.": "We observed, in May and June, a number of these insects coming from the south directing their course to the northern shore; they darken the sky like a thick cloud, but scarcely have they quitted the shore before they who, a moment before, ravaged and ruined the country, cover the surface of the sea with their dead bodies, to the great distress of the Franks near the harbor, on account of the stench from such a number of dead insects, driven by the winds close to the very houses.": "All the full-grown insects were driven into the sea by a tempestuous northwest wind, and were afterward cast upon the beach, where, it is said, they formed a bank of 3 or 4 feet high, extending - a distance of near 50 English miles. It is asserted that when this mass became putrid and the wind was southeast the stench was sensibly felt in several parts of Sneuwberg. The column passed the houses of two of our party, who asserted that it continued without any interruption for more than a month.": "The south and east winds drive the clouds of locusts with violence into the Mediterranean, and drown them in such quantities that when their dead are cast on the shore, they infect the air to a great distance."Wonderful image of the instantaneous, ease, completeness, of the destruction of God’ s enemies; a mass of active life exchanged, in a moment, into a mass of death.

Because he hath done great things - Literally, (as in the English margin) ""because he hath magnified to do,"i. e., as used of man, "hath done proudly."To do greatly Joe 2:21; Psa 126:2-3; 1Sa 12:24, or to magnify Himself, Eze 38:23, when used of God, is to display His essential greatness, in goodness to His people, or in vengeance on their enemies. Man’ s great deeds are mostly deeds of great ambition, great violence, great pride, great iniquity; and so of him, the words "he magnified himself, Isa 10:15; Dan 11:36-37, he did greatly"Lam 1:9; Zep 2:8; Dan 8:4, Dan 8:8, Dan 8:11, Dan 8:25, mean, he did ambitiously, proudly, and so offended God. In like way "great doings,"when used of God, are His great works of good ; of man, his great works of evil . : "Man has great deserts, but evil.""To speak great things"Psa 12:3; Dan 7:8, Dan 7:11, Dan 7:20, is to speak proud things: "greatness of heart"Isa 9:9; Isa 10:12 is pride of heart. He is speaking then of man who was God’ s instrument in chastening His people; since of irrational, irresponsible creatures, a term which involves moral fault, would not have been used, nor would a moral fault have been set down as the ground why God destroyed them. The destruction of Sennacherib or Holofernes have been assigned as the fulfillment of this prophecy. They were part of its fulfillment, and of the great law of God which it declares, that instruments, which He employs, and who exceed or accomplish for their own ends, the office which He assigns them, He casts away and destroys.

Barnes: Joe 2:21

Fear not, O land - Before, they were bidden to tremble Joe 2:1, now they are bidden, "fear not;"before, "to turn in weeping, fasting and mourning;"now, "to bound for joy and rejoice;"before, "the land mourned;"now, "the land is bidden to rejoice."The enemy had "done great things;"now the cause of joy is that God had "done great things;"the Almightiness of God overwhelming and sweeping over the might put forth to destroy. It is better rendered, "the Lord hath done great things."If Joel includes herein God’ s great doings yet to come, he speaks of them as, in the purpose of God, already in being; or he may, in this verse, presuppose that this new order of God’ s mercies has begun, in the destruction of the Pagan foe.

Barnes: Joe 2:22

The reversal of the whole former sentence is continued up to man. The beasts of the field "groaned, were perplexed, cried"unto God; now they are bidden, "be not afraid;"before, "the pastures of the wilderness were devoured by fire;"now, they "spring"with fresh tender life; before, "the fig tree"was "withered, the vine languished;"now, they should "yield their strength, put out their full"vigor. For God was reconciled to His people; and all things served them, serving Him.

Barnes: Joe 2:23

Be glad then and rejoice in the Lord your God - All things had been restored for their sakes; they were to rejoice, not chiefly in these things, but in God; nor only in God, but in the Lord their God. "For He hath given you the former rain moderately."The word rendered "moderately"should be rendered "unto righteosness;"the word often as it occurs never having any sense but that of "righteousness;"whether of God or man. The other word מורה môwreh , rendered "the former rain,"confessedly has that meaning in the latter part of the verse, although "yoreh" יורה yôwreh is the distinctive term for "latter rain"Deu 11:14; Jer 5:24. "Moreh"mostly signifies "a teacher"(2Ki 17:28; Job 36:22; Pro 5:13; Isa 9:15; Isa 30:20, (twice); Hab 2:18), which is connected with the other ordinary meanings of the root, "torah, law, etc."The older translators then agreed in rendering, "of righteousness,"or, "unto righteousness", in which case the question as to "moreh,"is only, whether it is to be taken literally of "a teacher,"or figuratively of spiritual blessings, as we say, "the dew of His grace."Even a Jew paraphrases , "But ye, O children of Zion, above all other nations, be glad and rejoice in the Lord your God. For in Him ye shall have perfect joy, in the time of your captivity. "For He will give you an instructor to righteosness;"and He is the king Messias, which shall teach them the way in which they shall walk, and the doings which they shall do."The grounds for so rendering the word are:

(1) Such is almost its uniform meaning.

(2) The righteousness spoken of is most naturally understood of righteousness in man; it is a condition which is the result and object of God’ s gifts, not the Righteousness of God. But "He hath given you the early rain unto righteousness,"i. e., that ye may be righteous, is an unaccustomed expression.

(3) There is a great emphasis on the word , which is not used in the later part of the verse, where rain, (whether actual, or symbolic of spiritual blessings) is spoken of.

(4) The following words, "and He maketh the rain to descend for you,"according to the established Hebrew idiom relates to a separate action, later, in order of time or of thought, than the former. But if the former word "moreh"signified "early rain,"both would mean one and the same thing. We should not say, "He giveth you the former rain to righteousness, and then He maketh the rain, the former rain and the latter rain to descend;"nor doth the Hebrew.

It seems then most probable, that the prophet prefixes to all the other promises, that first all-containing promise of the Coming of Christ. Such is the custom of the prophets, to go on from past judgments and deliverances, to Him who is the center of all this cycle of God’ s dispensations, the Son manifest in the Flesh. He had been promised as a Teacher when that intermediate dispensation of Israel began, the prophet like unto Moses. His Coming old Jacob looked to, "I have longed for Thy salvation, O Lord."Him, well known and longed for by the righteous of old, Joel speaks of as the subject of rejoicing, as Zechariah did afterward, "Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion; behold thy King cometh unto thee."So Joel here, "Exult and joy in the Lord thy God, for He giveth,"or "will give thee, the Teacher unto righteousness,"i. e., the result and object of whose Coming is righteousness; or, as Daniel says, "to bring in everlasting righteousness;"and Isaiah, "By His knowledge,"i. e., by the knowledge of Him, "shall My righteous Servant justify many,"i. e., make many righteous. How His coming should issue in righteousness, is not here said. It is presupposed. But Joel speaks of His Coming, as a gift, "He shall give you;"as Isaiah says, "unto us a Son is given;"and that, as the Teacher, as Isaiah says, "I have given Him a witness to the peoples, a Prince and a Commander unto the people"Isa 55:4; and that, "for righteousness."

"It is the custom of the holy prophets,"says Cyril, "on occasion of good things promised to a part or a few, to introduce what is more general or universal. And these are the things of Christ. To this then the discourse again proceeds. For when was ground given to the earth to rejoice? When did the Lord do mighty things, but when the Word, being God, became Man, that, flooding all below with the goods from above, He might be found to those who believe in Him, as a river of peace, a torrent of pleasure, as the former and latter rain, and the giver of all spiritual fruitfulness?"

The early rain and the latter rain - o : "He multiplies words, expresssive of the richness of the fruits of the earth, that so we may understand how wondrous is the plenteousness of spiritual goods."Being about to speak of the large gift of God the Holy Spirit as an "out-pouring,"he says here that "the largeness of the spiritual gifts thereafter should be as abundant as the riches temporal blessings"hitherto, when God disposed all things to bring about the fruitfulness which He had promised. "The early and latter rain,"coming respectively at the seed-time and the harvest, represent the beginning and the completion; and so, by the analogy of earthly and spiritual sowing, growth and ripeness, they represent preventing and perfecting grace; the inspiration of good purposes and the gift of final perseverance, which brings the just to glory consummated; "the principles of the doctrine of Christ"and "the going on unto perfection Heb 6:1.

In the first month - This would belong only to the latter rain, which falls about the first month, Nisan, or our April, "the former rain"falling about 6 months earlier, at their seed time . Or, since this meaning is uncertain , it may be, "at the first", i. e., as soon as ever it is needed, or in contrast to the more extensive gifts afterward; or, "as at first"i. e., all shall, upon their penitence, be restored as at first. These lesser variations leave the sense of the whole the same, and all are supported by good authorities. It is still a reversal of the former sentence, that, whereas afore the rivers of water were dried up, now the rains should come, each in its season. "In the first month,"and "at the beginning,"express the same thought, the one with, the other without a figure.

For no one then needed to be told that the latter rain, if it fell, should fall "in the first month,"which was its appointed season for falling. If then the words had this meaning, there must have been this emphasis in it, that God would give them good gifts punctually, instantly, at man’ s first and earliest needs, at the first moment when it would be good for him to have them. ‘ As at the beginning,’ would express the same which he goes on to say, that God would bestow the same largeness of gifts as He did, before they forfeited His blessings by forsaking Him. So He says, "I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counselors as at the beginning"; and, "She shall sing there as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she come up out of the land of Egypt"Hos 2:15; and, "then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old and as in the former years"Mal 3:4.

Likeness does not necessarily imply equality as in the words, "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet like unto me"Deu 18:15; and, "that they may be one, even as We are One"Joh 17:22. The good things of the Old Testament had a likeness to those of the New, else "the law"would not have been even the shadow of good things to come Heb 10:1; they had not equality, else they would have been the very things themselves. : "Christ is the whole delight of the soul, from When and through whom there cometh to those who love Him, all fullness of good and supply of heavenly gifts, represented in "the early and latter rain,"and "the full floor of wheat,"and "the fats overflowing with wine and oil."It is true also as to the fullness of the mysteries. For the living water of Holy Baptism is given us as in rain; and as in grain, the Bread of Life, and as in wine the Blood."Before, "the barns were broken down,"since there was nothing to store therein.

As other parts of the natural and spiritual husbandry correspond, and our Lord Himself compares His gracious trials of those who bear fruit, with the pruning of the vine Joh 15:2; it may be that the "vat"wherein the grape or the olive, through pressure, yield their rich juice, is a symbol of the "tribulations,"through which we "must enter the kingdom of God"Act 14:22. : "The holy mind, placed as if in a winefat, is pressed, refined, drawn out pure. It is pressed by calamity; refined from iniquity, purified from vanity. Hence are elicited the groans of pure confession; hence, stream the tears of anxious compunction; hence flow the sighs of pleasurable devotion; hence melt the longings of sweetest love; hence are drawn the drops of purest contemplation. Wheat is the perfecting of righteousness; wine, the clearness of spiritual understanding; oil, the sweetness of a most pure conscience."

Barnes: Joe 2:25

And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten - The order in which these destroyers are named not being the same as before, it is plain that the stress is not on the order, but on the successiveness of the inroads, scourge after scourge. It is plain too that they did not come in the same year, or two years, but year after year, for he says, not "year,"but in the plural, "years."The locusts, although not the whole plague, intended, are not excluded. : "As the power of God was shewn in the plagues of Egypt by small animals, such as the cyniphes, gnats so small as scarce to be seen, so also now,"in creatures so small "is shown the power of God and weakness of man. If a creature so small is stronger than man, "why are earth and ashes proud?"The locusts, small as they are, are in God’ s hands "a great army,"(and from this place probably, Muhammed taught his followers so to call them) and mighty empires are but "the forces of God and messengers of His Providence for the punishing of"His people "by them,""the rod of His Anger;"and when they have done their commission and are cast away by Him, they are as the vilest worms.

: "Since then after repentance God promises such richness, what will Novatus say, who denies repentance or that sinners can be reformed into their former state, if they but do works meet for repentance? For God in such wise receives penitents, as to call them His people, and to say, that they "shall never be confounded,"and to promise, that He will dwell in the midst of them, and that they shall have no other God, but shall, with their whole mind, trust in Him who abides in them forever."

Through repentance all which had been lost by sin, is restored. In itself deadly sin is an irreparable evil. It deprives the soul of grace, of its hope of glory; it forfeits heaven, it merits hell. God, through Christ, restores the sinner, blots out sin, and does away with its eternal consequences. He replaces the sinner where he was before he fell. So God says by Ezekiel; "If the wicked will turn from all the sins which he hath committed and keep all My statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die; all his transgressions that he hath committed shall not be mentioned unto him"Eze 18:21-22; and, "as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness"Eze 33:12. God forgives that wickedness, as though it had never been. If it had never been, man would have all the grace, which he had before his fall.

So then also, after he has been forgiven, none of his former grace, no store of future glory, will be taken from him. The time which the sinner lost, in which he might have gained increase of grace and glory, is lost forever. But all which he had gained before, returns. All his lost love returns through penitence; all his past attainments, which were before accepted by God, are accepted still for the same glory. "Former works which were deadened by sins following, revive through repentance". The penitent begins anew God’ s service, but he is not at the beginning of that service, nor of his preparation for life eternal. If the grace which he had before, and the glory corresponding to that grace, and to his former attainments through that grace, were lost to him, then, although eternally blessed, he would be punished eternally for forgiven sin, which, God has promised, should "not be remembered."

God has also promised to reward all which is "done in the body 2Co 5:10. What is evil, is effaced by the Blood of Jesus. What, through His Grace, was good, and done for love of Himself, He rewards, whether it was before anyone fell, or after his restoration. Else He would not, as He says He will, reward all. And who would not believe, that, after David’ s great fall and great repentance, God still rewarded all that great early simple faith and patience, which He gave him? Whence writers of old say , "It is pious to believe that the recovered grace of God which destroys a man’ s former evils, also reintegrates his good, and that God, when He hath destroyed in a man what is not His, loves the good which He implanted even in the sinner.": "God is pleased alike with the virtue of the just, and the meet repentance of sinners, which restored to their former estate David and Peter.""Penitence is an excellent thing which recalleth to perfection every defect.": "God letteth His sun arise on sinners, nor doth He less than before, give them, most large gifts of life and salvation."

Whence, since the cankerworm, etc. are images of spiritual enemies, this place has been paraphrased ; "I will not allow the richness of spiritual things to perish which ye lost through the passions of the mind."Nay, since none can recover without the grace of God and using that grace, the penitent, who really rises again by the grace of God, rises with larger grace than before, since he has both the former grace, and; in addition, this new grace, whereby he rises.

Barnes: Joe 2:26

And ye shall eat in plenty and be satisfied - It is of the punishment of God, when people eat and are not satisfied (see Hos 4:10); it is man’ s sin, that they are satisfied, and do not to praise God, but the more forget Him Hos 13:6. And so God’ s blessings become a curse to him. God promises to restore His gifts, and to give grace withal, that they should own and thank Him.

Who hath dealt wondrously with you - " First, wonderfully He afflicted and chastened them, and then gave them wonderful abundance of all things, and very great and miraculous consolation after vehement tribulution, so that they might truly say, This is the change of the Right Hand of the Most High."

And My people shall never be ashamed - o : "So that they persevere in His service. Although he incur temporal confusion, yet this shall not last for ever, but the people of the predestinate, penitent, and patient in adversity, will be saved forever."

Barnes: Joe 2:27

And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel - God had foretold their rebellion His forsaking them, "the troubles"which should "find"them, and that they should say, "Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us?"Deu 31:17. It had been the mockery of the Pagan in their distress, "Where is their God?"Joe 2:17. "Now, by the fulfillment of His promises and by all God’ s benefits, they should know that He was among them by special grace as His own peculiar people."Still more was this to be fulfilled to Christians, in whose heart He dwells by love and grace, and of whom He says, "Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there will I be in the midst of them."In the highest sense, "God was in the midst of them,"in that "God the Son, equal to God the Father as touching His Godhead, did, in the truth of human nature, take our flesh. This to see and know, is glory and bliss ineffable. Therefore He repeats, and by repeating, confirms, what he had said, "And My people shall never be ashamed."Yea, glorious, magnified, honored, shall be the people, to whom such a Son was promised, and of whom He was born. Glorious to them is that which the Apostle saith, that "He took not on Him the nature of Angels, but He took the seed of Abraham,"and this glory shall be eternal."

Poole: Joe 2:18

Then when you follow my advice, saith Joel. and heartily you of your sins, and turn to God, &c.,

will the Lord be jealous will show his love and zeal, for the credit of his land, the land of Canaan,

and pity his people consider their prayers, their arguments, and tears, and upon the whole will deal so with them that they shall know I do own them for my people, and that I will do them good.

Poole: Joe 2:19

Yea or And , Heb.

The Lord will answer before it was he would pity, Joe 2:18 ; not as men many times pity and profess to have compassion for the miserable who cry to them, yet do nothing; but God will pity their case and hear their request, nay, grant their request and relieve them.

And say speak to and work for his people.

Unto his people his covenant, praying, repenting, and reforming people.

Behold what he doth for such a people shall be visible, remarkable, and such as they may observe.

I will send you corn, and wine, and oil: fruitful seasons shall come when God sends them, his command to the heavens to pour down their sweet and fruitful influences shall certainly be obeyed; these must hear God, and then the earth shall hear the corn, and wine, and oil, as Hos 2:21,22 .

Ye shall be satisfied therewith you shall have abundance to fill and satisfy you, that you may rejoice in your habitations and know no want.

I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen your heathen neighbours shall no more insult over you ny people, nor over The your God. Obey my prophet, turn from your sins, and I will do you all this good I promise, or you need and ask.

Poole: Joe 2:20

But Heb. And ,

I will remove far off from you the northern army that part of these numerous locusts which are towards the north shall be removed far from you, no more to annoy you on that quarter: some say this refers to the dissipation of Sennacherib’ s army, which came up from the parts which lay somewhat northerly from Jerusalem and Judea.

And will drive him some other part of this locust army shall be driven away into the southern deserts, here described by a

barren and desolate land

His face the van of this army, here called the face , shall be driven into the

east sea the sea of Tiberias, or the Salt Sea, or the Dead Sea, east of Jerusalem.

His hinder part the rear of this army of insects, shall be driven into the great, the west sea, here called the utmost sea, in the letter and history. The total destruction of this army of insects is here foretold, which no doubt came to pass. If Sennacherib’ s army and its dissipation were here shadowed out, it is fairly accommodable to this place, when upon his death and the rout of his army from heaven, his forces retired out of Judea on all quarters with loss of men, as is ever the fate of an invading army beaten in the heart of the invaded country.

His ill savour shall come up the stench of these locusts destroyed and lying putrefied on the face of the earth, or the corpses of the Assyrians slain and unburied.

Because he hath done great things: some refer this to the locusts, and those whom they signified; he, i.e. this army of locusts or Assyrians: others refer it to God, thus,

for he will do great things as indeed the utter destroying of this devouring army, and removal of this dreadful famine, was a great work and marvellous, and it was an answer to their fasting and praying; though it was not all done which is contained in this conditional promise, for that this people never performed the condition.

Poole: Joe 2:21

Fear not, O land In Joe 2:10 , the land is said to quake at the approach of this devouring army; now at the approach of mercy it is encouraged, and commanded not to fear; by the same figure and in the same sense, it should not fear now as before it did quake.

Be glad and rejoice: this tells us that fear not was a meosis; shout for joy, express the greatest confidence.

For the Lord who is your God whom you seek, who by me assureth you it is his gracious purpose to do great things for your good,

will do great things: either this explains that last clause, Joe 2:20 , or is antitheton to it; the locusts, God’ s messengers and servants. did great things against, but now God will recall these, and do great things for Israel.

Poole: Joe 2:22

Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field In Joe 1:18-20 , the poor beasts were represented as in greatest perplexity, for want of pasture they were like to perish; but now they are (as if capable of fears or joy from foresight of what was coming toward them) encouraged, they should find pasture, both the tamer which are under man’ s hand, and the wilder which range the mountains.

The pastures of the wilderness: see Joe 1:19 . Do spring ; begin to look green, and the grass fresh promise the food for you. The tree beareth her fruit; all sorts of trees, though they were withered, and seemed to be dead, Joe 1:12 , now they recover their strength and bring forth fruit.

The fig tree does not, as Joe 1:12 , languish.

The vine is not, as before, dried up, but with change of season hath changed its hue.

Do yield their strength both these trees do mightily bear, are full of fruit, and bring forth as much as ever they are able to stand under.

Poole: Joe 2:23

Be glad then, ye children of Zion: in the former verse the prophet, by a usual figure, and with known elegancy, called on land and beasts, though they understood him not; now he addresseth himself to them that can understand their work as well as their advantages, and the children of Zion, all the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judea, who were called to fast and weep.

Rejoice in the Lord show yourselves sensible of your mercies, thankful to that free bounty which gave your mercies; rejoice, but not only in your barns, garners, and bellies full, but in the eternal God, who hath been found of you.

Your God as such you were advised to seek him, as such own him, rejoice in him, and ascribe glory to him, who keepeth covenant to a thousand generations, and hath remembered his covenant for you in this your low estate.

He hath given you the former rain moderately the Hebrew will bear it, a teacher of , or unto , or according to, righteousness . Either some eminent prophet, or prophets, as Isaiah, or Joel himself, but as forerunners and types of the great Prophet Christ; so the words will be a promise of the Messiah, and lead these children of Zion to the Messiah, as the fountain of all the blessings they receive of God in temporals as well as spirituals: it is usual in Scripture thus to pass from temporal to spiritual, and from spiritual to temporal promises and blessings; so Isa 7:4 , &c, with Isa 7:14-16 : but since our best interpreters retain, as ours, this version, rain moderately, or in due measure. We adhere to it also: God had sent sweet, gentle, yet sufficient showers to make the earth fruitful, and these showers have made pastures and trees to spring, flourish, and be fruitful.

And he will cause to come down for you the rain as he hath already given some, so he will give more, as the earth and trees shall need.

The former rain the autumn rain, which is needful to mellow the earth, and fit it to receive the corn and fruits, and to plant and sow them, about September.

The latter rain needful to bring forward and ripen the fruits planted or sown, accounted the latter rain because these husbandmen and vine-dressers reckoned from seed time unto spring and harvest.

In the first month that is, our March; both these rains, as promised Deu 11:14 Lev 26:4 , shall be given from heaven.

Poole: Joe 2:24

The floors where they thrashed their corn, shall be full of wheat, the best and most useful grain, the bread corn for man’ s life and support.

The fats the vessels into which the liquor ran out of the press,

shall overflow with wine and oil there shall be of the grape and olive enough to fill the vessels, nay, to make them run over, though the care of good husbands will save it; for what was said, Joe 2:22 , is here fulfilled, the vine doth yield its strength.

Poole: Joe 2:25

I will restore make up to you, or compensate: the lean years of Egypt did eat up the fat, but with you now the fat years shall feed and enrich the lean ones.

The years: by this it appears that this dreadful famine by these insects was longer than of one year’ s continuance, and perhaps countenanceth the Jewish conjecture of four because four sorts of insects are mentioned. These in the late years devoured the fruit of the earth, but now God will restore the fruits.

The locust & c.; all recounted Joe 1:4 , with little variation of the order wherein named.

My great army: see Joe 2:3-11 .

Which I sent: there was somewhat extraordinary in these armies of insects by which the people then living and afflicted by them might see they were sent immediately from Heaven, though history do not report it to us.

Poole: Joe 2:26

Ye shall eat enjoy and live upon. In plenty ; not with scarcity, as when water is measured to them, and bread is given by weight, Eze 4:16 .

Be satisfied the broad they eat shall refresh them, maintain their strength, not be as that Hag 1:6 .

Praise the name ascribe the glory to the mercy and faithfulness, to the power and wisdom, of your God; ye shall speak of it to his praise, stop the months of insulting heathens.

The Lord your God: see Joe 2:13 . Dealt wondrously ; in one year giving as much as the locusts wasted in the years foregoing, whether three, or four, or more.

My people you that are my people, demeaning yourselves as becometh my people.

Shall never be ashamed neither disappointed of your hopes, nor refused when you pray, nor necessitated to seek relief among the heathen, who will reproach you and me.

Poole: Joe 2:27

And ye who repent, pray, are blessed with such answer to your prayers,

shall know by experience shall see, and acknowledge.

That I am in the midst of Israel my true Israel, obedient Israel; I am with them to bless them, defend them, guide them, and provide for them.

That I am the Lord the almighty and everlasting God.

Your God as I was the God of your father Abraham; yours in peculiar manner by covenant, and to redeem you from evil.

And none else that there is not a god beside me, that the idols you formerly doted upon were no gods, that the idols the heathen boast of are a doctrine of lies, and deceive them that trust on them.

My people shall never be ashamed: see Joe 2:26 .

PBC: Joe 2:25

When a person has wasted a portion of his life away from God or in a back-slidden condition, he is apt to view all as lost when God shows him his condition.

Satan tells him that all is lost, that since he has wasted so much of his life he may as well waste the rest of it. " What good" the Devil asks, " will a few years serving God do, seeing you have wasted such a great portion of your life?" The awakened sinner is tempted to give it all up in despair.

But, wait! See the glorious promise of God to Israel! " I will restore to you the years." Blessed promise this is. It is also good to the one who has been brought to repentance by the Holy Spirit. Paul wasn’t converted to Christ till he was a mature man. The strength of his youth had been spent in opposition to the true spiritual realities. But look at Paul after his conversion as he walked with God. He accomplished much in the power of the Spirit. The years were " restored." Take courage and serve God with all your might for the rest of your days.

245

Haydock: Joe 2:18

Zealous. Indignation is excited when a person perceives any thing contemned which he loves. So God resented the injuries done maliciously by the Gentiles towards his people; though he often punished them for their correction or greater merit. (Worthington) ---

He will resent the blasphemies uttered by infidels against his holy name, and will restore fertility to the land. (Calmet)

Haydock: Joe 2:19

Nations. This did not take place till after the seventy years captivity, nor then fully. It is verified in true believers, and after death in the glory of the saints. (Worthington)

Haydock: Joe 2:22

Strength; fruit, as formerly.

Haydock: Joe 2:23

Teacher; Joel, &c., or rather the Messias, John i. 9., and Matthew xxiii. 8. Some translate Hebrew, "rain." Septuagint, "meat," (Calmet) sufficient for the people. (Theodoret)

Haydock: Joe 2:24

Presses, or subterraneous reservoirs.

Haydock: Joe 2:25

Host. God could have hurled his thunderbolts, or mountains, to destroy all mankind; but he chooses to shew their insignificance, (Calmet) by employing the vilest insects, which they cannot withstand. (St. Jerome)

Gill: Joe 2:18

Then will the Lord be jealous for his land,.... Or "zealous" for it; for the honour of it, and the good of its inhabitants, and for the glory of his own name, it being the chief place in the world for his worship and service; and his indignation will be moved against those who have brought desolation on it:

and pity his people; as a father his children, who had suffered much, and had been reduced to great distress by the locusts, or by their enemies: this the prophet foretells would be done upon their repentance, fasting, prayers, and tears; or, as some think, this is a narrative of what had been done, and the prophet was a witness of; that the people meeting together with their princess and priests, and humbling themselves before the Lord, and crying to him, he expressed a zeal and compassion for them, and delivered them out of their troubles; for though their humiliation is not expressed, it may be understood and supposed, as doubtless, it was fact.

Gill: Joe 2:19

Yea, the Lord will answer and say unto his people,.... By his prophets, as Kimchi: or, "the Lord answered and said" ^a; while they were praying and weeping, or as soon as they cried unto him; or, however, praying to him, they might assure themselves that he heard them, and would answer them both by words and deeds:

behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil; that is, cause the earth to bring forth corn, as wheat and barley, and the vines and olive trees to bring forth grapes and olives, from which wine and oil might be made: this is, according to some interpreters, to be understood of an abundance of spiritual blessings:

and ye shall be satisfied therewith; or, "with it"; with each and every of the above things, corn, wine, and oil; they should not only have them, but have enough of them, even to satiety:

and I will no more make you a reproach among the Heathen; for want of food, and as if forsaken of God. The Targum is,

"and I will not give you any more the reproaches of famine among the people;''

see Joe 2:17.

Gill: Joe 2:20

But I will remove far off from you the northern army,.... The army of the locusts, which came from the northern corner, as Aben Ezra and Kimchi; and is the first sense Jarchi makes mention of; though he says their Rabbins ^b interpret it of the evil imagination hid in the heart of men; and the two seas, later mentioned, of the two temples, first and second, destroyed by it; so, Kimchi says, they explain this verse of the days of the Messiah, and observes, the same sense they give; but Jarchi mentions another, according to which a people coming from the north are designed, even the kings of Assyria; and with this agrees the Targum, which paraphrases it,

"and the people which come from the north I will remove far off from you;''

and indeed locusts do not usually come from the north, but from the south, or from the east; it was an east wind that brought the locusts into Egypt, Exo 10:13; though the word "northern" may be used of the locusts in the emblem, because the Assyrians or Chaldeans came from the north to Judea:

and will drive him into a land barren and desolate: where there are no green grass, herbs, plants, and trees, to live upon, and so must starve and die:

with his face towards the east sea; the front of this northern army was towards the east sea, into which it was drove and fell; that is, the sea of Chinnereth, or Gennesareth, the same with the lake of Tiberias, often mentioned in the New Testament; or the Salt sea, the same with the lake Asphaltites, or Dead sea, which was where Sodom and Gomorrah formerly stood, as is usually said; and both these were to the east of the land of Israel, as Kimchi and Ben Melech observe; and so either of them might be called the "eastern sea":

and his hinder part towards the utmost sea; the rear of this army was towards the utmost sea, or hinder sea, as it is called in Zec 14:8; the western sea, as Kimchi and Ben Melech interpret it, the same with the Mediterranean sea, which lay to the west of the land of Israel; so the Egyptian locusts were cast into the Red sea, Exo 10:19; and Pliny ^c observes, that they are sometimes taken away with a wind, and fall into seas and lakes, and adds, perhaps this comes by chance; but what is here related came not by chance, but by the will and providence of God:

and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up: that is, the stink and ill savour of the locusts shall come, up out of the seas and lakes into which they fell, and where they died and putrefied; or, being cast up from thence upon the shares, gave a most noisome stench; so Jerom on the place says,

"in our times we have seen swarms of locusts cover the land of Judea, which upon the wind rising have been driven into the first and last seas; that is, into the Dead and Mediterranean seas; and when the shores of both seas have been filled with heaps of dead locusts, which the waters have thrown up, their rottenness and stench have been so very noxious as to corrupt the air, and produce a pestilence among men and beasts;''

or this may be understood of the fall and ruin of the enemies of the Jews, signified by these locusts; and some apply it to Sennacherib's army smote by the angel, when there fell in one night a hundred and fourscore and five thousand of them in the land of Israel, and lay unburied, 2Ki 19:35; Theodoret interprets the seas of armies; the first sea of the army of the Babylonians, by which Nineveh the royal seat of the Assyrians was destroyed; and the other sea of the army of the Persians, who, under Cyrus, took Babylon, the metropolis of the Chaldean empire:

because he hath done great things; evil things, as the Targum; either the locust, which had done much mischief to the fruits of the earth; or the enemy, signified by it, who had behaved proudly, and done much hurt to the inhabitants of Judea: or, "though he hath done great things" ^d, as some render it, yet all this shall come to him. Some interpret it of God, "for he (God) hath done", or "will do, great things" ^e; in the removing of the locusts, or in the destruction of those enemies they represented, as is expressly said of him in Joe 2:21.

Gill: Joe 2:21

Fear not, O land,.... O land of Israel, as the Targum, and the inhabitants of it; neither of the locusts, who had so terrified them, and had done so much mischief, and threatened more; nor of their enemies, the Assyrians or Chaldeans, and their powerful armies, or any other; but, on the contrary,

be glad, and rejoice; at the removal of the locusts, and at the destruction of their enemies:

for the Lord will do great things; good things, in opposition to the evil things done by the locusts, as Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and Ben Melech observe; or by the destroying army of the king of Assyria, by delivering the Jews out of the Babylonish captivity; and in the times of the Maccabees, and especially in the times of Christ, which are quickly prophesied of in this chapter; and which prophecies some interpreters begin here, it not being unusual for the prophets to pass directly from things temporal to things spiritual, and especially to the great deliverance and salvation by Christ, and also by temporal blessings to design spiritual ones.

Gill: Joe 2:22

Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field,.... Which before groaned, and were perplexed for want of pasture, and cried because of the drought, Joe 1:18; perhaps the Gentiles may be here designed, in the mystic and spiritual sense, in distinction from the Jews, the children of Zion, in Joe 2:23;

for the pastures of the wilderness do spring; grass in abundance springs up in them, and covers them, so that there was plenty of food for the beasts of the field:

for the tree beareth her fruit; brings forth and bears fruit suitable to it, agreeable to its nature:

the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength; send forth their branches, put forth their buds, their leaves and fruit. This and the preceding clause cannot be understood as a reason why the beasts of the field should not be afraid, for they relate not to them, but to men; and may serve to confirm the mystic sense of the words, as they may refer to the great fruitfulness produced in the wilderness of the Gentile world, through the preaching of the Gospel in the times of the Messiah; which are more clearly pointed at in Joe 2:23; and which were introduced with great outward peace and plenty; and the Jews ^f by the tree bearing her fruit, in the preceding clause, understand barren trees bearing fruit.

Gill: Joe 2:23

Be glad then, ye children of Zion,.... The people of the Jews, and especially the spiritual and believing part of them; such as were born again, that were born of Zion, and born in Zion, and brought up by her, and in her; the children of that Zion or Jerusalem that is the mother of us all; and who were looking for the Messiah, and to whom it would be good news and glad tidings to hear of his coming, Zec 9:9;

and rejoice in the Lord your God; not in any creature or creature enjoyment, but in the Lord. The Targum is,

"in the Word of the Lord your God;''

in Christ the essential Word; see Phi 3:3; though rather Jehovah the Father, the giver and sender of Christ, is here meant, because of what follows; and who is to be rejoiced in by his people, not as an absolute God, but as in Christ, and as their covenant God and Father in him; who has chosen them for himself, and is their portion and inheritance; which are reasons sufficient why they should rejoice in him, and others follow:

for he hath given you the former rain moderately; or rather, "for he hath given you the teacher of righteousness" ^g; to which agrees the Targum,

"for he hath returned to you your teacher in righteousness;''

and so Jarchi paraphrases the words, and interprets them of the prophets in general,

"your prophets that teach you to return unto me, that I may justify you;''

and R. Japhet says that מורה signifies a prophet that should teach them in the way of righteousness; not Isaiah, as Grotius; but the King Messiah as Abarbinel interprets it; who is the teacher sent from God, and given by him, as his presence with him, and the miracles done by him, sufficiently prove, Joh 3:2; for which he was abundantly qualified, being the omniscient God, and the Son of God that lay in the bosom of his Father; is the Wisdom of God, as Mediator; had the Spirit of wisdom on him, and the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hid in him; and who is able to make his teachings effectual, and to qualify others for such work. This office he performed personally on earth, both in a doctrinal way, and by way of example; and now executes it by his Spirit, and by his ministers: and a "teacher of righteousness" he may be truly said to be; since he not only taught the Gospel, the word of righteousness in general; but in particular directed men to seek in the first place the righteousness of God, which is no other than his own; and pronounced those happy that hungered after it: he declared he came to fulfil all righteousness, even the law for righteousness; and taught men to believe in him for it, and to live righteously and godly. Aben Ezra observes, that the phrase is the same with "the sun of righteousness", Mal 4:2; which is said of Christ the author of righteousness, who is our righteousness made so by imputation, the Lord our righteousness: or, as here, "a teacher unto, or for righteousness" ^h, all which is matter of joy and gladness; see Isa 61:10;

and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month; alluding to the two seasons of the year in which rain was given to the Jews; the former rain fell in Marchesvan, which answers to our September and, October, part of each, at their seedtime; and the latter in Nisan, the first month of their ecclesiastical year, and answers to part of March and April, and fell some time before their harvest; and these former and latter rains now fall about the same time. So Dr. Shaw ⁱ observes, that

"the first rains in these countries (Syria, Phoenicia, and the Holy Land) usually fall about the beginning of November; the latter sometimes in the middle, sometimes toward the end, of April:''

and elsewhere he says ^k,

"in Barbary the first rains fall some years in September, in others a month later; the latter rains usually fall in the middle of April:''

and the same traveller relates ^l, that

"upon the coast (of Egypt) from Alexandria, all along to Damiata and Tineh, they have their former and latter rains as in Barbary and the Holy Land.''

This rain spiritually designs the doctrine of the Gospel, which is sometimes compared to rain, Deu 32:2; because as rain it comes from God, descends from heaven, is a divine gift, both as to the ministry and experience of it; it tarries not for man, neither for his desires nor deserts; falls according to divine direction, sometimes here, and sometimes there; is a great blessing, and brings many with it, revives, refreshes, and makes fruitful. Jerom interprets these two rains of the first receiving of doctrine, and of a more perfect knowledge of it; as also of the two Testaments, the Old and New: but it may be better interpreted of the preaching of the Gospel by John the Baptist, and by Christ; or by Christ, and then by his apostles; or of the first and second ministration of apostles, first to the Jews, then to the Gentiles; or of the coming of Christ in the flesh, for the same word is used here as in the former clause, and of his spiritual coming in the latter day, both which are compared to rain, Hos 6:3.

Gill: Joe 2:24

And the floors shall be full of wheat,.... The churches of Christ, which will now be in Judea, and in the Gentile world, which are his "floors", Mat 3:12; and which will be set up everywhere through the preaching of the Gospel, the descent of the former and latter rain; these will be full of precious souls gathered in, compared to wheat, and of the choice and excellent, doctrines of the Gospel, and of all spiritual provisions, Mat 13:30;

and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil; with the wine of Gospel doctrine, and the oil of true grace; there shall be a flow, an overflow, a redundancy of these, both in the ministers of the word and private Christians, in whom the grace of God shall abound and superabound; see Rom 5:20.

Gill: Joe 2:25

And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten,.... Or "I will recompense to you the years" ^m; give you fruitful ones, as a full compensation for those in which the locust ate up the fruits of the earth for some years running:

the canker worm, and the caterpillar, and the palmer worm; of which see Joe 1:4;

my great army which I sent among you; as in Joe 2:11; the Targum of the whole is,

"and I will recompense unto you good years, in the room of the years in which the people, nations, and tongues, the governors and kingdoms of vengeance, spoiled you, my great army which I sent among you;''

and Kimchi observes, that the sense of the Targumist is, that this verse is a prophecy of the days of the Messiah; as no doubt it is, in which the Lord has done for his people, as Moses prayed he would, "make them glad according to the days wherein he afflicted them, and the years wherein they had seen evil", Psa 90:15; the times of the Messiah, in which so many good things come to the people of God, are a sufficient recompence for what they endured in times past. Of the Mahometan notion of locusts being the army of God; see Gill on Joe 2:11.

Gill: Joe 2:26

And ye shall eat in plenty,.... Or, "in eating eat" ⁿ; most surely eat, and in great abundance; which Hebraism not only denotes the certainty of a thing, but the increase and abundance of it; see Gen 22:17; there is plenty of spiritual provisions held forth under the Gospel dispensation: much in God, in his goodness, grace, and love, truth and faithfulness; in his covenant, the blessings and promises of it: much in Christ, who is compared to many things eatable; is called the Lamb of God, the fatted calf, the hidden manna, the tree of life, and the bread of God; everything in him, and that belongs to him, is food for faith; his flesh is meat indeed, his blood is drink indeed; the fulness of grace in him; the righteousness wrought out by him; the salvation he is the author of; upon all which the believer lives by faith: much in the Gospel, and the doctrines of it, compared to honey for sweetness of taste; to milk for its nourishing nature, easiness of digestion, and the suitableness of it for babes; and to strong meat fit for men: and there is groat plenty also in the ordinances of the Gospel, particularly in the Lord's supper, the feast of fat things, where saints are invited to eat and drink abundantly; which eating is not a bare attendance on outward ordinances, or a superficial taste of the things in them, but a feeding upon them by faith, receiving and digesting them;

and be satisfied; eat to satiety; eat and be full, so as to be entirely contented, and desire no other sort of food; thus saints, as Naphtali, are satisfied with the favour and love of God, having a delightful sensation of it, and a full persuasion of interest in it; with Christ as the bread of life, so as not to hunger after other; with his righteousness, as not to seek any other; and with his salvation, being so suitable to them; and with the goodness and fatness of the Lord's house, his word and ordinances;

and praise the name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you; acknowledge him to be the giver of all this spiritual food, and that they are unworthy of it; ascribe it entirely to the grace of God, who has done wonders for them; in wonderfully setting them apart for himself in eternal election; in making such a well ordered covenant with them in Christ; in sending him to be their Saviour and Redeemer; in calling them out of darkness into marvellous light; in bestowing such love upon them, as to call them and make them his children, and also heirs of him and eternal glory; see Psa 22:26;

and my people shall never be ashamed; because they shall always have food to eat; shall never be disappointed, when they rightly apply for it in proper places and times; and not be like the troops of Tema, and companies of Sheba, Job 6:19; they shall not be ashamed of their faith and hope, and expectation of good things promised them; nor of the word and ordinances, and the profession they have made of Christ in this world; nor shall they be ashamed at his coming; but shall be placed at his right hand, and received into his kingdom, and shall be led by him to fountains of living water, and be satisfied with pleasures for evermore.

Gill: Joe 2:27

And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel,.... The presence of God among his people shall be so manifest, the tokens of it so clear, that it shall be easily known, by the impressions of his love upon them; the teachings of his Spirit in them; the usefulness of the word and ordinances to them; the spiritual and heavenly frame of soul they shall be favoured with, and the savouriness of their conversation; this is the blessing Christ has promised to Gospel ministers and churches, Mat 28:20;

and that I am the Lord your God, and none else; that he is their covenant God and Father, and acknowledge none else:

and my people shall never be ashamed; which is repeated for the certainty of it; see Joe 2:26.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Joe 2:18

¹ tn The time-frame entertained by the verbs of v.18 constitutes a crux interpretum in this chapter. The Hebrew verb forms used here are preterites with vav consecutive and are most naturally understood as describing a past situation. However, some modern English versions render these verbs as futures (e.g., NIV, NASV), apparently concluding that the context requires a future reference. According to Joüon 2:363 §112.h, n.1 Ibn Ezra explained the verbs of Joel 2:18 as an extension of the so-called prophetic perfect; as such, a future fulfillment was described with a past tense as a rhetorical device lending certainty to the fulfillment. But this lacks adequate precedent and is very unlikely from a syntactical standpoint. It seems better to take the verbs in the normal past sense of the preterite. This would require a vantage point for the prophet at some time after the people had responded favorably to the Lord’s call for repentance and after the Lord had shown compassion and forgiveness toward his people, but before the full realization of God’s promises to restore productivity to the land. In other words, it appears from the verbs of vv. 18-19 that at the time of Joel’s writing this book the events of successive waves of locust invasion and conditions of drought had almost run their course and the people had now begun to turn to the Lord.

NET Notes: Joe 2:19

¹ tn Heb “answered and said.”

² tn Heb “Look! I am sending grain to you.” The participle used in the Hebrew text seems to suggest imminent action.

³ tc One of the Qumran manuscripts (4QXXII^c) inserts “and you will eat” before “and you will be fully satisfied” (the reading of the MT, LXX).

NET Notes: Joe 2:20

¹ sn The allusion to the one from the north is best understood as having locusts in view. It is not correct to say that this reference to the enemy who came form the north excludes the possibility of a reference to locusts and must be understood as human armies. Although locust plagues usually approached Palestine from the east or southeast, the severe plague of 1915, for example, came from the northeast.

² tn Heb “his face to the eastern sea.” In this context the eastern sea is probably the Dead Sea.

³ tn Heb “and his rear to the western sea.” The western sea refers to the Mediterranean Sea.

⁴ sn Heb “and his foul smell will ascend.” The foul smell probably refers to the unpleasant odor of decayed masses of dead locusts. The Hebrew word for “foul smell” is found only here in the Old Testament. The Hebrew word for “stench” appears only here and in Isa 34:3 and Amos 4:10. In the latter references it refers to the stench of dead corpses on a field of battle.

⁵ tn The Hebrew text does not have “the Lord.” Two interpretations are possible. This clause may refer to the enemy described in the immediately preceding verses, in which case it would have a negative sense: “he has acted in a high-handed manner.” Or it may refer to the Lord, in which case it would have a positive sense: “the Lord has acted in a marvelous manner.” This is clearly the sense of the same expression in v. 21, where in fact “the Lord” appears as the subject of the verb. It seems best to understand the clause the same way in both verses.

NET Notes: Joe 2:22

¹ tn Heb “beasts of the field.”

² tn Heb “their strength.” The trees and vines will produce a maximum harvest, in contrast to the failed agricultural conditions previously described.

NET Notes: Joe 2:23

¹ tn Heb “sons of Zion.”

² tn Heb “be glad in the Lord your God.”

³ tn Normally the Hebrew word הַמּוֹרֶה (hammoreh) means “the teacher,” but here and in Ps 84:7 it refers to “early rains.” Elsewhere the word for “early rains” is יוֹרֶה (yoreh). The phrase here הַמּוֹרֶה לִצְדָקָה (hammoreh litsdaqah) is similar to the expression “teacher of righteousness” (Heb., מוֹרֶה הַצֶּדֶק , moreh hatsedeq) found in the Dead Sea Scrolls referring to a particular charismatic leader, although the Qumran community seems not to have invoked this text in support of that notion.

⁴ tn Heb “caused to come down.”

⁵ sn For half the year Palestine is generally dry. The rainy season begins with the early rains usually in late October to early December, followed by the latter rains in March and April. Without these rains productive farming would not be possible, as Joel’s original readers knew only too well.

NET Notes: Joe 2:25

¹ tn Heb “I will restore to you the years.”

sn The plural years suggests that the plague to which Joel refers was not limited to a single season. Apparently the locusts were a major problem over several successive years. One season of drought and locust invasion would have been bad enough. Several such years would have been devastating.

² sn The same four terms for locust are used here as in 1:4, but in a different order. This fact creates some difficulty for the notion that the four words refer to four distinct stages of locust development.

³ tn The term “your crops” does not appear in the Hebrew, but has been supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.

⁴ sn Here Joel employs military language to describe the locusts. In the prophet’s thinking this invasion was far from being a freak accident. Rather, the Lord is pictured here as a divine warrior who leads his army into the land as a punishment for past sin and as a means of bringing about spiritual renewal on the part of the people.

NET Notes: Joe 2:26

¹ tn Heb “you will surely eat and be satisfied.”

Geneva Bible: Joe 2:18

Then will the LORD be ^{( m )} jealous for his land, and pity his people.

^{( m )} If they repent he shows that God will preserve and defend them with a most fervent affection.

Geneva Bible: Joe 2:20

But I will remove far off from you the ^{( n )} northern [army], and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the ^{( o )} east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.

^{( n )} That is, the Assyrians your enemies.

^{( o )} Called the Salt Sea, or Persian Sea: meaning, that even though this army was so great that it filled all from this sea to the Mediterranean Sea, yet he would scatter them.

Geneva Bible: Joe 2:23

Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God: for he hath given you the former rain ^{( p )} moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first [month].

^{( p )} That is, such as would come by just measure, and would be sent when God was reconciled with them.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Joe 2:1-32

1 He shews unto Zion the terribleness of God's judgment.

12 He exhorts to repentance;

15 prescribes a fast;

18 promises a blessing thereon.

21 He comforts Zion with present,

28 and future blessings.

MHCC: Joe 2:15-27

The priests and rulers are to appoint a solemn fast. The sinner's supplication is, Spare us, good Lord. God is ready to succour his people; and he waits to be gracious. They prayed that God would spare them, and he answered them. His promises are real answers to the prayers of faith; with him saying and doing are not two things. Some understand these promises figuratively, as pointing to gospel grace, and as fulfilled in the abundant comforts treasured up for believers in the covenant of grace.

Matthew Henry: Joe 2:18-27

See how ready God is to succour and relieve his people, how he waits to be gracious; as soon as ever they humble themselves under this hand, and pray, and seek his face, he immediately meets them with his favours. They prayed that God would spare them, and see here with what good words and comfortable words he answered them; for God's promises are real answers to the prayers of faith, because with him saying and doing are not two things. Now observe,

I. Whence this mercy promised shall take rise (Joe 2:18): God will be jealous for his land and pity his people. He will have an eye, 1. To his own honour, and the reputation of his covenant with Israel, by which he had conveyed to them that good land and had given in the value of it very high; now he will not suffer it to be despised nor disparaged, but will be jealous for the credit of his land, and the inhabitants of it, who had been praised as a happy people and therefore must not lie open to reproach as a miserable people. 2. To their distress: He will pity his people, and, in pity to them, he will restore them their forfeited comforts. God's compassion is a great encouragement to those that come humbly to him as penitents and as petitioners.

II. What his mercy shall be, in several instances: - 1. The destroying army shall be dispersed and defeated (Joe 2:20): " I will remove far off from you the northern army, that army of locusts and caterpillars that invaded you from the north, brought in upon the wings of a north wind, an army which you could put no stop to the progress of; but, when you have made your peace with God, he will ease you of these soldiers that are quartered upon you and will drive them into a land barren and desolate, into that vast howling wilderness that Israel wandered in, where, after having surfeited upon the plenty of Canaan, they shall perish for want of sustenance. Those that have their face to the east sea (the Dead Sea, which lay east of Judea) shall perish in that, and the rear of the army shall be lost in the Great Sea,"called here the utmost sea. They had made the land barren and desolate, and now God will cast them into a land barren and desolate. Thus those whom God employs for the correction of his people come afterwards to be themselves reckoned with; and the rod is thrown into the fire. Nothing shall remain of these swarms of insects but the ill savour of them. When Egypt was eased of the plague of locusts they were carried away to the Red Sea, Exo 10:19. Note, When an affliction has done its work it shall be removed in mercy, as the locusts of Canaan were from a penitent people, not as the locusts of Egypt were removed, in wrath, from an impenitent prince, only to make room for another plague. Many interpreters, by this northern army, understand that of Sennacherib, which was dispersed when God by it had accomplished his whole work upon Mount Zion and upon Jerusalem, Isa 10:12. This enemy shall be driven away, because he has done great things, has done a great deal of mischief, and has magnified to do it, has done it in the pride of his heart; therefore it follows (Joe 2:21), The Lord will do great things for his people, as the enemy has done great things against them, to convince them that wherein they deal proudly he is, and will be, above them, that, what great things soever they did, they did no more than God commissioned them to do; and as, when he said to them, Go, they went, so, when he said to them, Come, they came, to show that they were soldiers under him. 2. The destroyed land shall be watered and made fruitful. When the army is scattered, yet what shall we do if the desolation they have made continue? It is therefore promised (Joe 2:22) that the pastures of the wilderness, the pastures which the locusts had left as bare as the wilderness, shall again spring and the trees shall again bear their fruit, particularly the fig-tree and the vine. But, when we see how the country is wasted, we are tempted to say, Can these dry bones live? If the Lord should make windows in heaven, it cannot be; but it shall be, for (Joe 2:23) the Lord has given and will give you the former rain and the latter rain, and, if he give them in mercy, he will give them moderately, so that the rain shall not turn into a judgment, and he will give them in due season, the latter rain in the first month, when it was wanted and expected. It would make it comfortable to them to see it coming from the hand of God, and ordered by his wisdom, for then we are sure it is well ordered. He has given you a teacher of righteousness, (so the margin reads it, for the same word that signifies the rain signifies a teacher. and that which we translate moderately is according to righteousness ), and this teacher of righteousness, says one of the rabbin, is the King Messias, and of him many others understand this; for he is a teacher come from God, and he shows us the way of righteousness. But others understand it of any prophet that instructs unto righteousness, and some of Hezekiah particularly, others of Isaiah. Note, It is a good sign that God has mercy in store for a people when he sends them teachers of righteousness, pastors after his own heart. 3. All their losses shall be repaired (Joe 2:25): " I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten; you shall be comforted according to the time that you have been afflicted, and shall have years of plenty to balance the years of famine."Thus does it repent the Lord concerning his servants, when they repent, and, to show how perfectly he is reconciled to them, he makes good the damage they have sustained by his judgments, and, like the jailer, washes their stripes. Though, in justice, he distrained upon them, and did them no wrong, yet, in compassion, he makes restitution; as the father of the prodigal, upon his return, made up all he had lost by his sin and folly, and took him into his family, as in his former estate. The locusts and caterpillars are here called God's great army which he sent among them, and he will repair what they had devoured because they were his army. 4. They shall have great abundance of all good things. The earth shall yield her increase, and they shall enjoy it. Look into the stores where they lay up, and you shall find the floors full of wheat, and the fats overflowing with wine and oil (Joe 2:24), whereas, in the day of their distress, the wine and oil languished and the barns were broken down, Joe 1:10, Joe 1:17. Look upon their tables, where they lay out what they have laid up, and you shall find that they eat in plenty and are satisfied, Joe 2:26. They do not eat to excess, nor are surfeited; we hope the drunkards are cured by the late affliction of their inordinate love of wine and strong drink, for, though they were brought in howling for their scarcity (Joe 1:5), they are now brought in again here singing for the plenty of it; but now all shall have enough, and shall known when they have enough, for God will make their food nourishing and give them to be content with it.

These are the mercies promised, and in these God does great things (Joe 2:21), He deals wondrously with his people, Joe 2:26. Herein he glorifies his power, and shows that he can relieve his people though their distress be ever so great, and glorifies his goodness, that he will do it upon their repentance though their provocations were ever so great. Note, When God deals graciously with poor sinners that return to him it must be acknowledged that he deals wondrously and does great things. Some expositors understand these promises figuratively, as pointing at gospel-grace, and having their accomplishment in the abundant comforts that are treasured up for believers in the covenant of grace and the satisfaction of soul they have therein. When God sends us his promises to be the matter of our comfort, his graces to be the grounds of it, and his Spirit to be the author of it, we may well own that he has sent us (according to his promise here, Joe 2:19) corn, and wine, and oil, or that which is unspeakably better, and we have reason to be satisfied therewith.

III. What use shall be made of these returns of God's mercy to them and the good account they shall turn to.

1. God shall have the glory thereof, for they shall rejoice in the Lord their God (Joe 2:23), and what is the matter of their rejoicing shall be the matter of their thanksgiving; they shall praise the name of the Lord their God (Joe 2:26) and not praise their idols, nor call their corn and wine the rewards that their lovers had given them. Note, The plenty of our creature-comforts is a mercy indeed to us when by them our hearts are enlarged in love and thankfulness to God, who gives us all things richly to enjoy, though we serve him but poorly. When God restores to us plenty after we have known scarcity, as it is doubly pleasant to us, so it should make us the more thankful to God. When Israel comes out of a wilderness into a Canaan, and there eats and is full, surely he will then bless the Lord, with a very sensible pleasure, for that good land which he has given him, Deu 8:10.

2. They shall have the credit, and comfort, and spiritual benefit, thereof. When God gives them plenty again, and gives them to be satisfied with it, (1.) Their reputation shall be retrieved; they and their God shall be no more reflected upon as unfaithful to one another when they have returned to him in a way of duty and he to them in a way of mercy (Joe 2:19): " I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen, that triumphed in your calamities and insulted over you;"and Joe 2:26, Joe 2:27, " My people shall never be ashamed, as they have been, of their good land which they used to boast of, but shall again and ever have the same occasion to boast of it."Note, It redounds much to the honour of God when he does that which saves the honour of his people; and those that are his people indeed, though they may be for a time, shall not be always, a reproach among the heathens; if we be rightly ashamed of our sins against God, we shall never be ashamed of our glorying in God. (2.) Their joys shall be revived (Joe 2:23): Be glad and rejoice, O land! and all the inhabitants of it. Times of plenty are commonly times of joy; yet the favour of God puts gladness into the heart more than those who have corn, and wine, and oil increase. But especially be glad them, you children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God, Joe 2:23. They mourned in Zion (Joe 2:15), and therefore there in a particular manner they shall rejoice; for those that sow in penitential tears shall certainly reap in thankful joys. The children of Zion, who led the rest in fasting, must lead the rest in rejoicing. But observe, They shall rejoice in the Lord their God, not so much in the good themselves that are given them as in the good hand that gives them and in the return of his favour to them, as theirs in covenant, which these good things are the tokens and pledges of. The joy of harvest and the joy of a feast must both terminate in God, whose love we should taste in all the gifts of his bounty, that we may make him our chief joy, as he is our chief good, and the fountain of all good to us. (3.) Their faith in God shall be confirmed and increased. When temporal mercies are made by the grace of God to be of spiritual advantage to us, and plenty for the body is so far from being an enemy (as with many it proves) that it becomes a friend to the prosperity of the soul, then they are mercies indeed to us. This is promised here (Joe 2:27): You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, the Holy One in the midst of thee (Hos 11:9), and that I am the Lord your God, and none else. As it proves that the Lord is God, and there is none other, because he wounds and he heals, he forms light and darkness, he does good and evil (Isa 45:7; Deu 32:39), so it proves him to be God of Israel, a God in covenant with his people and a father to them, that as a father he both corrects them when they offend and comforts them when they repent. It was the burden of the threatenings in Ezekiel's prophecy, Such and such evils I will bring upon you, and you shall know that I am the Lord; and the same is here made the crown of the promises: You shall eat, and be satisfied, and rejoice, and thus you shall know that I am the Lord. Note, We should labour to grow in our acquaintance with God by all providences, both merciful and afflictive. When God gives to his people plenty, and peace, and joy, upon their return to him, he thereby gives them to understand that he is pleased with their repentance, that he has pardoned their sins, and that he is theirs as much as ever - that they are taken into the same covenant with him, for he is the Lord their God, and into the same communion, for he is in the midst of them, nigh unto them in all that they call upon him for, and, as the sun in the centre of the worlds, so in the midst of them as to diffuse his benign influences to all the parts of his land.

3. Even the inferior creatures shall share therein and be made easy thereby: Fear not, O land! Joe 2:21. Be not afraid, you beasts of the field, Joe 2:22. They had suffered for the sin of man, and for God's quarrel with him; and now they shall fare the better for man's repentance and God's reconciliation to him. Nay, the beasts were said to cry unto God (Joe 1:20); and now that cry is answered, and they are directed not to be afraid, for they shall have plenty of all that which their nature craves. God, in sparing Nineveh, had an eye to the cattle (Jon 4:11), for the cattle had fasted, Joe 3:8. This may lead us to think of the restitution of all things, when the creature, that is now made subject to vanity and groans under it, shall be brought, though not into the glorious joy, yet into the glorious liberty, of the children of God, Rom 8:21.

Keil-Delitzsch: Joe 2:18

Joe 2:18 and Joe 2:19 contain the historical statement, that in consequence of the penitential prayer of the priests, the Lord displayed His mercy to His people, and gave them a promise, the first part of which follows in Joe 2:19-27. Joe 2:18, Joe 2:19 . "Then Jehovah was jealous for His land, and had compassion upon His people. And Jehovah answered, and said." The grammar requires that we should take the imperfects with Vav consec. in these clauses, as statements of what actually occurred. The passages in which imperfects with Vav cons. are either really or apparently used in a prophetic announcement of the future, are of a different kind; e.g., in Joe 2:23, where we find one in a subordinate clause preceded by perfects. As the verb ויּען describes the promise which follows, as an answer given by Jehovah to His people, we must assume that the priests had really offered the penitential and supplicatory prayer to which the prophet had summoned them in Joe 2:17. The circumstance that this is not expressly mentioned, neither warrants us in rendering the verbs in Joe 2:17 in the present, and taking them as statements of what the priest really did (Hitzig), nor in changing the historical tenses in Joe 2:18, Joe 2:19 into futures. We have rather simply to supply the execution of the prophet's command between Joe 2:17 and Joe 2:18. קנּא with ל , to be jealous for a person, i.e., to show the jealousy of love towards him, as in Exo 39:25; Zec 1:14 (see at Exo 20:5). חמל as in Exo 2:6; 1Sa 23:21. In the answer from Jehovah which follows, the three features in the promise are not given according to their chronological order; but in order to add force to the description, we have first of all, in Joe 2:19, a promise of the relief of the distress at which both man and beast had sighed, and then, in Joe 2:20, a promise of the destruction of the devastator; and it is not till Joe 2:21-23 that the third feature is mentioned in the further development of the promise, viz., the teacher for righteousness. Then finally, in Joe 2:23-27, the fertilizing fall of rain, and the plentiful supply of the fruits of the ground that had been destroyed by the locusts, are more elaborately described, as the first blessing bestowed upon the people.

Keil-Delitzsch: Joe 2:19-20

The promise runs as follows. Joe 2:19 . " Behold, I send you the corn, and the new wine, and the oil, that ye may become satisfied therewith; and will no more make you a reproach among the nations. Joe 2:20. And I will remove the northern one far away from you, and drive him into the land of drought and desert; its van into the front sea, and its rear into the hinder sea: and its stink will ascend, and its corruption ascend, for it has done great things." The Lord promises, first of all, a compensation for the injury done by the devastation, and then the destruction of the devastation itself, so that it may do no further damage. Joe 2:19 stands related to Joe 1:11. Shâlach , to send: the corn is said to be sent instead of given (Hos 2:10), because God sends the rain which causes the corn to grow. Israel shall no longer be a reproach among the nations, "as a poor people, whose God is unable to assist it, or has evidently forsaken it"(Ros.). Marck and Schmieder have already observed that this promise is related to the prayer, that He would not give up His inheritance to the reproach of the scoffings of the heathen (Joe 1:17 : see the comm. on this verse). הצּפוני , the northern one, as an epithet applied to the swarm of locusts, furnishes no decisive argument in favour of the allegorical interpretation of the plague of locusts. For even if locusts generally come to Palestine from the south, out of the Arabian desert, the remark out of the Arabian desert, the remark made by Jerome, to the effect that "the swarms of locusts are more generally brought by the south wind than by the north,"shows that the rule is not without its exceptions. "Locusts come and go with all winds"(Oedmann, ii. p. 97). In Arabia, Niebuhr ( Beschreib. p. 169) saw swarms of locusts come from south, west, north, and east. Their home is not confined to the desert of Arabia, but they are found in all the sandy deserts, which form the southern boundaries of the lands that were, and to some extent still are, the seat of cultivation, viz., in the Sahara, the Libyan desert, Arabia, and Irak (Credner, p. 285); and Niebuhr ( l.c. ) saw a large tract of land, on the road from Mosul to Nisibis, completely covered with young locusts. They are also met with in the Syrian desert, from which swarms could easily be driven to Palestine by a north-east wind, without having to fly across the mountains of Lebanon. Such a swarm as this might be called the ts^e phōnı̄ , i.e., the northern one, or northerner, even if the north was not its true home. For it cannot be philologically proved that ts^e phōnı̄ can only denote one whose home is in the north. Such explanations as the Typhonian, the barbarian, and others, which we meet with in Hitzig, Ewald, and Meier, and which are obtained by alterations of the text or far-fetched etymologies, must be rejected as arbitrary. That which came from the north shall also be driven away by the north wind, viz., the great mass into the dry and desert land, i.e., the desert of Arabia, the van into the front (or eastern) sea, i.e., the Dead Sea (Eze 47:18; Zec 14:8), the rear into the hinder (or western) sea, i.e., the Mediterranean (cf. Deu 11:24). This is, of course, not to be understood as signifying that the dispersion was to take place in all these three directions at one and the same moment, in which case three different winds would blow at the same time; but it is a rhetorical picture of rapid and total destruction, which is founded upon the idea that the wind rises in the north-west, then turns to the north, and finally to the north-east, so that the van of the swarm is driven into the eastern sea, the great mass into the southern desert, and the rear into the western sea. The explanation given by Hitzig and others - namely, that pânı̄m signifies the eastern border, and sōph the western border of the swarm, which covered the entire breadth of the land, and was driven from north to south - cannot be sustained. Joel mentions both the van and the rear after the main body, simply because they both meet with the same fate, both falling into the sea and perishing there; whereupon the dead bodies are thrown up by the waves upon the shore, where their putrefaction fills the air with stench. The perishing of locusts in seas and lakes is attested by many authorities.

(Note: Even Pliny says (h. n. xi. 29), Gregatim sublato vento in maria aut stagna decidunt; and Jerome has the following remarks on this verse: "Even in our own times we have seen the land of Judaea covered by swarms of locusts, which, as soon as the wind rose, were precipitated into the first and latest seas, i.e., the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean. And when the shores of both seas were filled with heaps of dead locusts, which the waters had thrown up, their corruption and stench became so noxious, that even the atmosphere was corrupted, and both man and beasts suffered from the consequent pestilence.")

For עלה באשׁו , compare Isa 34:3 and Amo 4:10. צחנה is ἁπ. λεγ. ; but the meaning corruption is sustained partly by the parallelism, and partly by the Syriac verb, which means to be dirty. The army of locusts had deserved this destruction, because it had done great things. הגדּיל לעשׂות , to do great things, is affirmed of men or other creatures, with the subordinate idea of haughtiness; so that it not only means he has done a mighty thing, accomplished a mighty devastation, but is used in the same sense as the German grosstun , via. to brag or be proud of one strength. It does not follow from this, however, that the locusts are simply figurative, and represent hostile nations. For however true it may be that sin and punishment presuppose accountability (Hengst., Hävernick), and conclusion drawn from this - namely, that they cannot be imputed to irrational creatures - is incorrect. The very opposite is taught by the Mosaic law, according to which God will punish every act of violence done by beasts upon man (Gen 9:5), whilst the ox which killed a man was commanded to be stoned (Exo 21:28-32).

Keil-Delitzsch: Joe 2:21-23

This promise is carried out still further in what follows; and Joel summons the earth (Joe 2:21), the beasts of the field (Joe 2:22), and the sons of Zion (Joe 2:23) to joy and exultation at this mighty act of the Lord, by which they have been delivered from the threatening destruction. Joe 2:21. "Fear not, O earth! exult and rejoice: for Jehovah doeth great things! Joe 2:22. Fear ye not, O beasts of the field! for the pastures of the desert become green, for the tree bears its fruit; fig-tree and vine yield their strength. Joe 2:23. And ye sons of Zion, exult and rejoice in the Lord your God; for He giveth you the teacher for righteousness, and causes to come down to you a rain-fall, early rain and latter rain, first of all." The soil had suffered from the drought connected with the swarms of locusts (Joe 1:9); the beasts of the field had groaned on account of the destruction of all the plants and vegetation of every kind (Joe 1:18); the men had sighed over the unparalleled calamity that had befallen both land and people. The prophet here calls to all of them not to fear, but to exult and rejoice, and gives in every case an appropriate reason for the call. In that of the earth, he introduces the thought that Jehovah had done great things - had destroyed the foe that did great things; in that of the beasts, he points to the fresh verdure of the pastures, and the growth of the fruit upon the trees; in that of men, he lays stress upon a double fact, viz., the gift of a teacher for righteousness, and the pouring out of a plentiful rain. In this description we have to notice the rhetorical individualizing, which forms its peculiar characteristic, and serves to explain not only the distinction between the earth, the beasts of the field, and the sons of Zion, but the distribution of the divine blessings among the different members of the creation that are mentioned here. For, so far as the fact itself is concerned, the threefold blessing from God benefits all three classes of the earthly creation: the rain does good not only to the sons of Zion, or to men, but also to animals and to the soil; and so again do the green of the pastures and the fruits of the trees; and lastly, even the הגדּיל יי לעשׂות not only blesses the earth, but also the beasts and men upon it. It is only through overlooking this rhetorico-poetical distribution, that any one could infer from Joe 2:22 , that because the fruits are mentioned here as the ordinary food of animals, in direct contrast to Gen 1:28-29, where the fruit of the trees is assigned to men for food, the beasts of the field signify the heathen. The perfects in the explanatory clauses of these three verses are all to be taken alike, and not to be rendered in the preterite in Joe 2:21, and in the present in Joe 2:22 and Joe 2:23. The perfect is not only applied to actions, which the speaker looks upon from his own standpoint as actually completed, as having taken place, or as things belonging to the past, but to actions which the will or the lively fancy of the speaker regards as being as good as completed, in other words, assumes as altogether unconditional and certain, and to which in modern languages we should apply the present (Ewald, §135, a , etc.). The latter is the sense in which it is used here, since the prophet sets forth the divine promise as a fact, which is unquestionably certain and complete, even though its historical realization has only just begun, and extends into the nearer or more remote future. The divine act over which the prophet calls upon them to rejoice, is not to be restricted to the destruction of those swarms of locusts that had at that time invaded Judah, and the revivification of drying nature, but is an act of God that is being constantly repeated whenever the same circumstances occur, or whose influence continues as long as this earth lasts; since it is a tangible pledge, that to all eternity, as is stated in Joe 2:26, Joe 2:27, the people of the Lord will not be put to shame. The "sons of Zion"are not merely the inhabitants of Zion itself, but the dwellers in the capital are simply mentioned as the representatives of the kingdom of Judah. As the plague of locusts fell not upon Jerusalem only, but upon the whole land, the call to rejoicing must refer to all the inhabitants of the land (Joe 1:2, Joe 1:14). They are to rejoice in Jehovah, who has proved Himself to be their God by the removal of the judgment and the bestowal of a fresh blessing.

This blessing is twofold in its nature. He gives them את־המּורה לצדקה . From time immemorial there has been a diversity of opinion as to the meaning of these words. Most of the Rabbins and earlier commentators have followed the Chaldee and Vulgate, and taken mōreh in the sense of "teacher;"but others, in no small number, have taken it in the sense of "early rain,"e.g., Ab. Ezra, Kimchi, Tanch., Calvin, and most of the Calvinistic and modern commentators. But although mōreh is unquestionably used in the last clause of this verse in the sense of early rain; in every other instance this is called yōreh (Deu 11:14; Jer 5:24); for Psa 84:7 cannot be brought into the account since the meaning is disputed. Consequently the conjecture is a very natural one, that in the last clause of the verse Joel selected the form mōreh , instead of yōreh , to signify early rain, simply on account of the previous occurrence of hammōreh in the sense of "teacher,"and for the sake of the unison. This rendering of hammōreh is not only favoured by thee article placed before it, since neither mōreh = yōreh (early rain), nor the corresponding and tolerably frequent malqōsh (latter rain), ever has the article, and no reason can be discovered why mōreh should be defined by the article here if it signified early rain; but it is decisively confirmed by the following word לצדקה , which is quite inapplicable to early rain, since it cannot mean either "in just measure,"or "at the proper time,"or "in becoming manner,"as ts^e dâqâh is only used in the ethical sense of righteousness, and is never met with sensu physico , neither in 2Sa 19:29; Neh 2:20, nor in Psa 23:3 and Lev 19:36, where moreover צדק occurs. For מעגּלי צדק (in the Psalm) are not straight or right ways, but ways of righteousness (spiritual ways); and although מאזני צדק , אבני צדק , are no doubt really correct scales and weight-stones, this is simply because they correspond to what is ethically right, so that we cannot deduce from this the idea of correct measure in the case of the rain. Ewald and Umbreit, who both of them recognise the impossibility of proving that ts^e dâqâh is used in the physical sense of correctness or correct measure, have therefore adopted the rendering "rain for justification,"or "for righteousness;"Ewald regarding the rain as a sign that they are adopted again into the righteousness of God, whilst Umbreit takes it as a manifestation of eternal righteousness in the flowing stream of fertilizing grace. But apart from the question, whether these thoughts are in accordance with the doctrine of Scripture, they are by no means applicable here, where the people have neither doubted the revelation of the righteousness of God, nor prayed to God for justification, but have rather appealed to the compassion and grace of God in the consciousness of their sin and guilt, and prayed to be spared and rescued from destruction (Joe 2:13, Joe 2:17). By the "teacher for righteousness,"we are to understand neither the prophet Joel only (v. Hofmann), nor the Messiah directly (Abarbanel), nor the idea teacher or collective body of messengers from God (Hengstenberg), although there is some truth at the foundation of all these suppositions. The direct or exclusive reference to the Messiah is at variance wit the context, since all the explanatory clauses in vv. 21-23 treat of blessings or gifts of God, which were bestowed at any rate partially at that particular time. Moreover, in v. 23, the sending of the rain-fall is represented by ויּורד (imperf. c. Vav cons. ), if not as the consequence of the sending of the teacher for righteousness, at any rate as a contemporaneous event. These circumstances apparently favour the application of the expression to the prophet Joel. Nevertheless, it is by no means probable that Joel describes himself directly as the teacher for righteousness, or speaks of his being sent to the people as the object of exultation. No doubt he had induced the people to turn to the Lord, and to offer penitential supplication for His mercy through his call to repentance, and thereby effected the consequent return of rain and fruitful seasons; but his address and summons would not have had this result, if the people had not been already instructed by Moses, by the priests, and by other prophets before himself, concerning the ways of the Lord. All of these were teachers for righteousness, and are included under hammōreh . Still we must not stop at them. As the blessings of grace, at the reception of which the people were to rejoice, did not merely consist, as we have just observed, in the blessings which came to it at that time, or in Joel's days, but also embraced those which were continually bestowed upon it by the Lord; we must not exclude the reference to the Messiah, to whom Moses had already pointed as the prophet whom the Lord would raise up unto them, and to whom they were to hearken (Deu 18:18-19), but must rather regard the sending of the Messiah as the final fulfilment of this promise. This view answers to the context, if we simply notice that Joel mentions here both the spiritual and material blessings which the Lord is conveying to His people, and then in what follows expounds the material blessings still further in Joe 2:23-27, and the spiritual blessings in Joe 2:28-32 and ch. 3. They are both of them consequences of the gift of the teacher for righteousness.

Hence the expansion of the earthly saving gifts is attached by ויּורד with Vav cons. Joel mentions first of all geshem , a rain-fall, or plentiful rain for the fertilizing of the soil and then defines it more exactly as early rain, which fell in the autumn at the sowing time and promoted the germination and growth of the seed, and latter rain, which occurred in the spring shortly before the time of harvest and brought the crops to maturity (see at Lev 26:3). בּראשׁון , in the beginning, i.e., first (= ראשׂנה in Gen 33:2, just as כּראשׁון is used in Lev 9:15 for בּראשׂנה in Num 10:13), not in the first month (Chald., etc.), or in the place of כּבראשׂנה , as before (lxx, Vulg., and others). For בּראשׁון corresponds to אחרי־כן in Joe 2:28 (Heb 3:1), as Ewald, Meier, and Hengstenberg admit. First of all the pouring out of a plentiful rain (an individualizing expression for all kinds of earthly blessings, chosen here with reference to the opposite of blessing occasioned by the drought); and after that , the pouring out of the spiritual blessing (Joel 2:28-3:21).

Keil-Delitzsch: Joe 2:24-25

Effects of the rain. Joe 2:24. "And the barns become full of corn, and the vats flow over with new wine and oil. Joe 2:25. And I repay to you the years which the locust has eaten, the licker, and the devourer, and the gnawer, my great army which I sent among you. Joe 2:26. And ye will eat, eat and be satisfied, and praise the name of Jehovah your God, who hath done wondrously with you; and my people shall not be put to shame to all eternity. Joe 2:27. And ye will know that I am in the midst of Israel, and I (am) Jehovah your God, and none else, and my people shall not be put to shame to all eternity." Joe 2:24 is practically the same as Joe 2:19 , and the counterpart to Joe 1:10-12. השׁיק from שׁוּק , to run, hiphil only here and Joe 3:13, to run over, to overflow; pilel , Psa 65:10, shōqēq , to cause to overflow. יקבים , the vats of the wine-presses, into which the wine flows when trodden out; here it also applies to the vats of the oil-presses, into which the oil ran as it was pressed out. Through these bountiful harvests God would repay to the people the years, i.e., the produce of the years, which the locusts ate. The plural, shânı̄m , furnishes no certain proof that Joel referred in ch. 1 to swarms of locusts of several successive years; but is used either with indefinite generality, as in Gen 21:7, or with a distinct significance, viz., as a poetical expression denoting the greatness and violence of the devastation. On the different names of the locusts, see at Joe 1:4. It is to be observed here that the copula stands before the last two names, but not before yeleq , so that the last three names belong to one another as co-ordinates (Hitzig), i.e., they are merely different epithets used for 'arbeh , the locusts.

Keil-Delitzsch: Joe 2:26

On the reception of these benefits the people will praise the Lord, who has shown it such wondrous grace, lit., has acted towards it even to the doing of wonders.

Keil-Delitzsch: Joe 2:27

They will learn thereby that Jehovah is present among His people, and the only true God, who does not suffer His people to be put to shame. The repetition of ולא יבשׁוּ וגו , by which the promised grace is guaranteed to the people for all ages, serves as a rhetorical rounding off of the section (see at Joe 2:20).

Constable: Joe 2:1-27

III. A near future day of the Lord: A human invasion 2:1-27

Joel had spoken briefly of a coming day of the Lord in 1:15, but now he said more about it.

The term "the day of the Lord" seems to have arisen from the popular concept, in the ancient Near East, that a really great warrior king could consummate an entire military campaign is one single day.¹⁶ Thus, as the Israelites used the term in relation to Yahweh, it reflected His greatness and pointed to His swift and effective dispatch of His enemies on a given occasion. Sometimes the term refers to such a judgment in the near past or future, and sometimes it refers to one in the distant future (eschaton).¹⁷

Constable: Joe 2:18-27

C The possibility of forgiveness and restoration 2:18-27

Joel next revealed the Lord's response and comforting words in view of the people's private and public repentance. It is unclear whether he meant that the Lord had responded or would respond. The problem is the Hebrew perfect verbs, which can be rendered in English with either past for future verbs. Several English translations (NASB, NIV, AV) interpreted the Lord's response as being conditioned on the people's repentance and translated the verbs in the future tense. It is equally possible that Joel meant that God had already responded positively because the people had repented, which the prophet did not record. I prefer to view this section as what God promised to do if the people responded to Joel's call to repentance.

"Laments in the OT are sometimes followed by a divine oracle in which Yahweh, through a prophet, assures his people that their prayers will be answered (or sometimes rejected)."²³

Constable: Joe 2:18

1. The Lord's gracious response 2:18

If the Israelites repented sincerely, Yahweh would be zealous to protect His chosen land from foreign invaders and have pity on His chosen people. This was His essential response.

"Beginning in Joel 2:18, Israel ceases to be the object of God's judgment and becomes instead the object of His blessing. In a similar reversal the hordes (locust and human) cease to be the instruments of God's judgment on Israel and become instead the objects of God's judgment. This reversal was originally foretold by God through Moses in Deuteronomy 30:1-9."²⁴

Constable: Joe 2:19-27

2. The Lord's promise of blessing 2:19-27

Having given His essential response to the people's repentance, the Lord now explained what He would do in more detail. This section is chiastic with the focus of emphasis on verses 21-24. Verses 19 and 26-27 promise a restoration of crops and a cessation of shame. Verses 20 and 25 promise the elimination of enemies, and verses 21-24 urge courage and encourage rejoicing.

2:19 Having interpreted the Lord's response (v. 18), Joel now relayed His instructions (vv. 19-27). Yahweh would restore all that the locusts had eaten: grain, wine, and oil (cf. 1:10). The people would enjoy plenty of these products in the future (cf. Deut. 6:10-11; 8:7-10; 11:13-15). Yahweh would also never again allow the nations to disparage His people, assuming that they would not apostatize again (cf. vv. 26-27). Another view, less acceptable from my viewpoint, is that this promise is unconditional and refers to Israel's eschatological future. The problem with this view is that the Jews will experience some antagonism at the very end of the Millennium (Rev. 20:7-10).

2:20 The prophet now revealed that this invader would come from the North. Both Assyria and Babylon, as well as all other eastern invaders, entered Israel from the north because of the impassability of the Arabian Desert to Israel's east.

"If the northerner' is yet future (eschatological), the army is possibly the army in Joel 3:9, 12; Daniel 11:40; and Zechariah 14:2."²⁵

Instead of leading this army against Jerusalem (v. 11), the Lord would drive it from Judah. He would drive its soldiers into a parched and desolate land (Arabia?) and into the eastern (Dead) sea and the western (Mediterranean) sea (cf. Dan. 11:45). In other words, He would turn against them rather than leading them and scatter them rather than uniting them against Jerusalem. The dead carcasses of the many soldiers would fill the air because they had done many great things. In short, they had tried to overthrow God's people (cf. the Egyptians drowning in the Red Sea). Masses of dead locusts also smell terrible, especially after dying in the sea and then being washed ashore.²⁶

2:21-24 Joel called on the land, personified to represent its people, to rejoice because the Lord had done great things (in contrast to the enemy army, v. 20).²⁷ Specifically, he had delivered His people from a much larger and more powerful enemy invasion, assuming the Judahites' repentance. The animals too could stop fearing because God's blessing had returned to the land. Green pastures had replace brown, and trees and vines had again become abundantly fruitful rather than dry and lifeless (cf. 1:7, 10-12, 19). Fall and spring rains, signs of divine blessing (cf. Deut. 11:14), had replaced drought, so the Lord's people could again rejoice rather than grieving (cf. 1:5, 8, 11, 13, 20).²⁸ The threshing floors would be full of grain and the vats would overflow with new wine and oil (cf. 1:17).

2:25 The Lord further promised that He would make up to His people for what they had suffered because of the locust invasion (cf. 1:4; Exod. 22:1; 2 Kings 4:7). Sin had resulted in covenant curses, but repentance would result in covenant blessings (cf. Deut. 28-29).

2:26-27 The people would have plenty to eat and would feel satisfied physically. They would also be full spiritually and praise Yahweh their God for working wonders for them (cf. Exod. 3:15; 15:11; 34:10; Josh. 3:5; Jud. 6:13; Ps. 77:14). They would never be put to shame, again assuming that they continued in their attitude of humble trust and obedience (cf. v. 19). God's blessings would evidence His presence among them and the intimacy of their fellowship with Him (cf. Num. 11:20; 14:14; Deut. 7:21). They would realize in their experience that He is the only true God (cf. Exod. 6:7; 16:12; Deut. 4:35, 39), and they would abide in that shameless condition (as long as they remained faithful to Him).

Guzik: Joe 2:1-32

Joel 2 - The Day of the Lord and the Restoration of the Lord

A. A mighty army to invade Judah.

1. (1-5) What the mighty army looks like.

Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; for the day of the LORD is coming, for it is at hand: A day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like the morning clouds spread over the mountains. A people come, great and strong, the like of whom has never been; nor will there ever be any such after them, even for many successive generations. A fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns; the land is like the Garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; surely nothing shall escape them. Their appearance is like the appearance of horses; and like swift steeds, so they run. With a noise like chariots over mountaintops they leap, like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble, like a strong people set in battle array.

a. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; for the day of the LORD is coming, for it is at hand: In Joel 1, the prophet spoke of the judgment that had arrived in Judah (a plague of locusts and drought). In Joel 2, he begins by describing judgment that will come - a mighty army set against Judah. Since this is all part of "God's day" not "man's day," it is described as the day of the LORD.

i. When we are right with God, we want the day of the LORD. We long for Him to show His strength because we know that we abide in Him. When we are not right with God, we dread the day of the LORD, because when God shows Himself strong, His strength may work against us. In Joel's day Judah was not right with God, so the day of the LORD would be nothing but darkness and gloominess to them.

b. A people come, great and strong: It's hard to know what invasion Joel predicts. Probably Joel predicted an invasion that never happened because Judah responded to the invitation to repent and God held back this army. The 40-year godly reign of King Joash in Judah began right after the time of Joel's prophecy.

i. There are some commentators who believe that Joel is referring back to the army of locusts, and describing them poetically. This is possible, but it seems best on balance to say that he writes of a literal human army that will come against an unrepentant Judah.

c. A fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns: The urgent nature of this prophecy probably spurred Jehoiada to depose the wicked Queen Athaliah and set Joash on the throne, even though he was only seven years-old (2 Kings 11:4-21). Perhaps he would have waited until Joash was older, but Joel's prophecy showed him that it had to be done immediately.

2. (6-11) What the mighty army will do.

Before them the people writhe in pain; all faces are drained of color. They run like mighty men, they climb the wall like men of war; every one marches in formation, and they do not break ranks. They do not push one another; every one marches in his own column. Though they lunge between the weapons, they are not cut down. They run to and fro in the city, they run on the wall; they climb into the houses, they enter at the windows like a thief. The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble; the sun and moon grow dark, and the stars diminish their brightness. The LORD gives voice before His army, for His camp is very great; for strong is the One who executes His word. For the day of the LORD is great and very terrible; who can endure it?

a. They do not break ranks . . . everyone marches in his own column: With a chilling poetic flair, Joel describes the discipline and effectiveness of this army. Because they keep ranks and work with energy (they run to and fro in the city) they bring a devastating attack on Judah.

i. If we consider the people of God to be like an army - perhaps based on the military images Paul sprinkled through his letters - then this passage shows us two things that can make God's people more effective. First they must keep order, with every soldier keeping ranks. Second they must work hard, with every soldier serving with energy.

b. The LORD gives voice before His army: As impressive as this army is, Joel does not want Judah to forget that it's real power lies in that God has sent them. They will be His tool of judgment against Judah - unless they repent.

i. When the plague of locusts and the drought devastated Judah, you might have thought that Joel would encourage the people. He might have said, "Hang in there! Things are bad, but they will get better. Tough times don't last, but tough people do." Instead Joel said, "You think that was bad? Worse is to come if we don't repent."

B. A promise of help to a repentant Judah.

1. (12-17) The prophet calls God's people to repent.

"Now, therefore," says the LORD, "Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning." So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm. Who knows if He will turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him; a grain offering and a drink offering for the LORD your God? Blow the trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly; gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and nursing babes; let the bridegroom go out from his chamber, and the bride from her dressing room. Let the priests, who minister to the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar; let them say, "Spare Your people, O LORD, and do not give Your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, 'Where is their God?'"

a. Now, therefore . . . Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning: Because they heard the warning of judgment, God's people should repent. It's doesn't make their repentance less valid because they had to be "scared" into it. The important thing is that they turn back to the LORD in sincerity, and God tells them how.

i. Sincere repentance is to turn to God, and therefore away from our sin.

ii. Sincere repentance is done with all your heart, giving everything you can in surrender to God.

iii. Sincere repentance is marked by action (with fasting) and emotion (with weeping . . . mourning). Not every act of repentance will include fasting and weeping, but if action and emotion are absent, it isn't real repentance.

b. Rend your heart, and not your garments: One expression of mourning in Jewish culture is tearing the clothes. It was a way to say, "I am so overcome with grief that don't care if my clothes are ruined and I look bad." Joel knew that one could tear their garments without tearing their heart, and he describes the kind of heart-repentance that really pleases God.

i. Spurgeon tells the story of a woman who came seeming to be in great sorrow, saying what a great sinner she was, but Spurgeon suspected her repentance wasn't sincere. He said, "Well, if you are a sinner of course you have broken God's laws. Let's read the Ten Commandments and see which ones you have broken." They started at the first: "You shall have no other gods before Me," and Spurgeon asked her if she ever broke that commandment. "Oh no," she said, "not that I know of." "'You shall not make any graven image' - did you ever break that one?" "Never, sir," she answered. As you might suppose, Spurgeon went through all Ten Commandments and she could not find a single one that she had broken, and what he suspected was true. She didn't really consider herself a sinner, and she was making a show of repentance because she thought it was expected of her.

c. Return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm: Knowing the goodness and mercy of God is another motive for true repentance. We come to Him confident that He will heal and forgive, and that He may relent from the judgment He announced.

i. We don't repent with the idea "God is so mean that if I don't return to Him, He will squash me." Instead the idea is "God is so gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness that He will spare me from what I deserve if turn back to Him." Ultimately, it is His goodness that leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4).

d. Let the bridegroom go out from his chamber, and the bride from her dressing room: In addition to the same pattern of repentance he presented in Joel 1:14, Joel adds the ideas relevant to the bridegroom and the bride. The idea with these images is that in a time of repentance God's people cannot carry on "as usual." Usually the bridegroom belongs in his chamber and the bride belongs in her dressing room, but not now - it is time to repent. True repentance does not carry on with business as usual.

e. Let the priests, who minister to the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar: Leaders among God's people must especially lead in repentance. They can't come with the attitude that "the people" must repent. They must regard themselves as the people and the people as themselves and lead in repentance.

f. Spare Your people, O LORD, and do not give Your heritage to reproach: Joel puts a rich prayer of repentance into the mouths of God's priests. It as if the priests should pray with the thought, "How can we persuade God to have mercy on us?"

i. Spare: This implies that God's people deserve judgment, but they plead for mercy.

ii. Your people: This reminds God that they belong to Him, and provides another motivation for mercy.

iii. Do not give Your heritage to reproach: This tells God that mercy unto His people will bring Him glory among the nations and that judgment may bring His name into discredit.

2. (18-20) God promises to defend His repentant people against the mighty army.

Then the LORD will be zealous for His land, and pity His people. The LORD will answer and say to His people, "Behold, I will send you grain and new wine and oil, and you will be satisfied by them; I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations. But I will remove far from you the northern army, and will drive him away into a barren and desolate land, with his face toward the eastern sea and his back toward the western sea; his stench will come up, and his foul odor will rise, because he has done monstrous things."

a. Then the LORD will be zealous for His land, and pity His people: Judah could know that when God's people sincerely repent, He notices from heaven. His zeal and pity are then turned for His people.

b. I will send you grain and new wine and oil . . . I will remove far from you the northern army: God promised to restore material prosperity to a repentant Judah, and to defeat the mighty army from the north. Because this mighty army had done monstrous things, God would turn the attention of His judgment away from His people and now against this mighty army.

3. (21-27) Confidence in God's promise of restoration.

Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice, for the LORD has done marvelous things! Do not be afraid, you beasts of the field; for the open pastures are springing up, and the tree bears its fruit; the fig tree and the vine yield their strength. Be glad then, you children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God; for He has given you the former rain faithfully, and He will cause the rain to come down for you; the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month. The threshing floors shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil. "So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust, My great army which I sent among you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; and My people shall never be put to shame. Then you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel: I am the LORD your God and there is no other. My people shall never be put to shame."

a. Be glad and rejoice, for the LORD has done marvelous things! Joel looks forward to the restoration that God has promised, and he tells Judah to look forward in faith, and to praise God for the restoration He promises - even before they see it with their own eyes.

b. The open pastures are springing up, and the tree bears its fruit: With the eye of faith, Joel can already see it happening. All around him are the lush, fruitful pastures and trees that God has restored after the destruction of the locusts.

c. He has given you the former rain faithfully . . . and the latter rain in the first month: At the end of Joel 1, the prophet saw the destruction drought brought. Now with the eye of faith he sees God restoring both the former and latter rain to Israel.

i. Ancient Israel had no irrigation system, and relied on rain to water their crops. In a time of drought, nothing grew. God promises to restore both the former rain (falling in autumn) and the latter rain (falling in spring). When God restores these rains, Judah will have full threshing floors and wine vats.

ii. This passage along with others (Deuteronomy 11:14, Hosea 6:3) were taken to give the name of the "Latter Rain Movement" starting in 1948 by William Branham. Branham influenced a generation of Pentecostal preachers, including a young protégé named Oral Roberts. Marked by strange and aberrant doctrine and practices, the movement eventually faded from prominence and Branham himself died in a traffic collision with a drunk driver in 1965. He died on Christmas Eve, and his faithful followers believed that he would rise from the dead, so they delayed his burial for several days. But the influence of the Latter Rain movement lived on. The Latter Rain popularized many attitudes and doctrines popular in revival movements today:

· The "five-fold ministry" and "restoration of apostle and prophets"

· The "foundational truths" of Hebrews 6:1-2

· An emphasis on signs and wonders as marks of true revival

· A strong emphasis on unity

· Replacement theology, replacing Israel with the church

· Dominion theology, saying the church will conquer and rule the world

· An elitist attitude, promoting the idea of a group of "superchristians"

iii. Many researchers - and many within these modern groups today - believe that many modern "revival" movements are really just a continuation of the Latter Rain movement. Movements such as "Joel's Army," the Manifest Sons of God, the Dominion Movement, the Kansas City Prophets, the Toronto Blessing, the Pensacola Revival are connected in some way to the Latter Rain movement. For example, Paul Cain - later to re-emerge as head of the Kansas City Prophets in 1989 - traveled with William Branham and called him "the greatest prophet that ever lived."

d. I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten: God promises to restore what was taken away in chastisement. When the locusts did their work, it looked complete and final, but God promises that He can even restore the years that the swarming locusts has eaten.

i. "It will strike you at once that the locusts did not eat the years: the locusts ate the fruits of the years' labor, the harvests of the fields; so that the meaning of the restoration of the years must be the restoration of those fruits and of those harvests which the locusts consumed. You cannot have back your time; but there is a strange and wonderful way in which God can give back to you the wasted blessings, the unripened fruits of years over which you mourned. The fruits of wasted years may yet be yours." (Spurgeon)

4. (28-32) The ultimate restoration and the ultimate day of the LORD.

"And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days. And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD. And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, as the LORD has said, among the remnant whom the LORD calls."

a. It shall come to pass afterward: After the restoration Joel spoke of previously in the chapter, there will come a time of ultimate restoration and blessing. This latter time will be marked by an outpouring of God's Spirit on all flesh - not only selected men at selected times for selected duties.

i. The Old Testament has a rich record of the work of the Spirit, but He was not poured out on all flesh under the Old Covenant. Instead, certain men were filled with the Spirit at certain times and only for certain duties. It was rather selective:

· Joseph was filled with the Spirit of God (Genesis 41:38)

· The craftsmen who built the tabernacle were filled with the Spirit of God (Exodus 31:3)

· Joshua was filled with the Spirit of God (Numbers 27:18)

· The judge Othniel was filled with the Spirit of God (Judges 3:10)

· The judge Gideon was filled with the Spirit of God (Judges 6:34)

· The judge Jephthah was filled with the Spirit of God (Judges 11:29)

· The judge Samson was filled with the Spirit of God (Judges 13:5, 14:6, 14:19, 15:14)

· Saul was filled with the Spirit of God (1 Samuel 10:9-10)

· David was filled with the Spirit of God (1 Samuel 16:13)

ii. Here, Joel looks forward to the glorious New Covenant, when the Spirit of God would be poured out on all flesh. Why, even your sons and daughters, your old men, and your young men would be filled with the Spirit of God.

iii. This was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost when the disciples gathered in the upper room, waiting in Jerusalem for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised would come (Acts 1:4-5). When the outpouring of the Spirit came, the 120 followers of Jesus were all filled with the Spirit and began to praise God in other tongues. Jerusalem was crowded at that time, because of the feast of Pentecost - so a crowd quickly gathered because of the commotion. Those who heard the disciples praise God in these miraculous languages began to mock them, claiming they were drunk. Peter stood up and boldly set the record straight: the disciples were not drunk at all, but this was a fulfillment of Joel's great prophecy of the outpouring of the Spirit.

iv. At first, any Jew would scoff at the idea of 120 followers of a crucified man being filled with the Holy Spirit. Based on their understanding of the Old Testament they would think, "These 120 people are not kings or prophets or priests; God only pours out His Spirit on special people for special duties. These are common folk, and God doesn't pour out His Spirit on them." Peter uses the prophecy of Joel to show them that things are different now, just as God said they would be. Now, the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all who believe and receive, even the common folk. Now God offered a New Covenant relationship, and part of the New Covenant was the outpouring of the Spirit for all who receive in faith.

v. Peter's sermon of the Day of Pentecost also shows us that there is never any disparity between the work of the Spirit and the work of the Word. When Peter was filled with the Spirit of God in the midst of miraculous signs and wonders as he had never experience before, what did he do? He said, "Let's open up our Bibles to the book of Joel." He had a Bible study, one that both taught the 120 disciples (they better understood their experience according to the Scriptures) and called the lost to salvation.

vi. We also notice that Peter's application was exactly the same as the application made by the Prophet Joel: repent. Joel said, "Now, therefore," says the LORD, "Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning." So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the LORD your God (Joel 2:12-13) Peter said, Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:38)

b. And also on My menservants and on My maidservants: In this latter time, all the servants of the LORD will be filled with His Spirit in this unique and powerful way. Under the New Covenant, every believer can receive the full measure of the Spirit, and be used in a special and wonderful way.

i. Sometimes the common churchgoer simply wants a building to worship in, a nice service that isn't too offensive, and a good sermon - after that he thinks, leave me alone. That isn't New Covenant Christianity, which sees the work of the ministry as belonging to the people, not the "clergy."

ii. Some people have taken this idea and run too far with it saying, "Therefore we don't need ministers or clergy. We believe in the priesthood of all believers, so there is no room for offices of any kind in the church." This ignores the clear teaching of Scripture, which says that the work of the ministry belongs to all the people of God, but the work of equipping the saints belongs to God-appointed offices and ministries (Ephesians 4:7-16). It is because the ministry belongs to all Christians that God has appointed offices and ministries to equip every saint to fulfill their role. Acts 2:42-47 describes a wonderful fulfillment of this ideal.

c. I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: This time of great outpouring of the Spirit of God will culminate with cataclysmic signs in the heavens and the great and awesome day of the LORD.

i. On the Day of Pentecost, the prophecy of Joel was fulfilled, but not consummated. Peter rightly saw that this was a remarkable outpouring of the Spirit of God, given freely upon all who believe and receive as was promised in the New Covenant (Ezekiel 11:19, 36:24-28). The prophecy of Joel was also especially appropriate, because the Day of Pentecost ushered in the last days - with history now moving along the edge of the consummation of all things, not rushing towards it as a distant point.

d. Whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved: This is another glorious promise associated with the time Joel said shall come to pass afterward. In this time of the poured-out Spirit of God, salvation will no longer be a matter of association with national Israel. Instead, whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved - no matter what nation they come from.

i. This is a broad call - whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. "'Ah!' you say, 'I wish my name was written down in the Bible.' Would it comfort you at all? If it were written in the Scripture, 'Charles Haddon Spurgeon shall be saved,' I am afraid I should not get much comfort out of the promise, for I should go home, and fetch out the London Directory, and see if there was not another person of that name, or very like it. How much worse would it be for the Smiths and the Browns! No, my brethren, do not ask to see your name in the inspired volume; but be content with what you do see, namely, your character! When the Scripture says, 'Whosoever,' you cannot shut yourself out of that." (Spurgeon)

ii. This is a call to prayer - whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. "You cannot perish praying; no one has ever done so. If you could perish praying, you would be a new wonder in the universe. A praying soul in hell is an utter impossibility. A man calling on God and rejected of God! - the supposition is not to be endured. 'Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.' God himself must lie, he must quit his nature, forfeit his claim to mercy, destroy his character of love, if he were to let a poor sinner call upon his name, and yet refuse to hear him." (Spurgeon)

iii. This is a call to come to the true God - whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. Coming to a false god, a god of your own imagination will do you no good. The god of your opinion does not exist and cannot save you. You must come to the God of the Bible. "The pity of it is that the most of people in these days worship a god of their own invention. They do not make an image of clay, or of gold, but they construct a deity in their minds according to their own thoughts. They proudly judge as to what God ought to be, and they will not receive God as he really is. What is this but a god-making as gross as that which is performed by the heathen? What can be more wicked than to attempt to imagine a better god than the one true and living God? As the deity of your fancy has no existence, I would not recommend you to trust in him." (Spurgeon)

iv. This is a call to come to God intelligently - whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. "Now, by the word 'name' we understand the person, the character of the Lord. The more, then, you know about the Lord, and the better you know his name, the more intelligently will you call upon that name. If you know his power, you will call upon that power to help you. If you know his mercy, you will call upon him in his grace to save you. If you know his wisdom, you feel that he knows your difficulties, and can help you through them." (Spurgeon)

v. This is a certain promise - whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. It is a profound mystery why all do not receive this great invitation, but the text itself tells us that only a remnant receives it (among the remnant whom the LORD calls). Yet all who do come are certainly saved. "Suppose we, who trust alone in Jesus, should perish, what then? Why, it would be to the everlasting dishonor of the Lord in whom we trusted. We should lose our souls certainly, but he would lose his honor. Think of one of us being able to say in hell, 'I trusted in the boasted Savior's aid, and rested myself on God, and yet I am lost.' Sirs, heaven itself would be darkened, and the crown jewels of God would lose their lustre, if that could once be the case! But it cannot be. If you trust in the Lord God Almighty, he will save you as surely as he is God." (Spurgeon)

© 2001 David Guzik - No distribution beyond personal use without permission

Introduction / Outline

JFB: Joel (Book Introduction)

JOEL (meaning "one to whom Jehovah is God," that is, worshipper of Jehovah) seems to have belonged to Judah, as no reference occurs to Israel; whereas he speaks of Jerusalem, the temple, the priests, and the ceremonies, as if he were intimately familiar with them (compare Joe 1:14; Joe 2:1, Joe 2:15, Joe 2:32; Joe 3:1-2, Joe 3:6, Joe 3:16-17, Joe 3:20-21). His predictions were probably delivered in the early days of Joash 870-865 B.C.; for no reference is made in them to the Babylonian, Assyrian, or even the Syrian invasion; and the only enemies mentioned are the Philistines, Phœnicians, Edomites, and Egyptians (Joe 3:4, Joe 3:19). Had he lived after Joash, he would doubtless have mentioned the Syrians among the enemies whom he enumerates since they took Jerusalem and carried off immense spoil to Damascus (2Ch 24:23-24). No idolatry is mentioned; and the temple services, the priesthood, and other institutions of the theocracy, are represented as flourishing. This all answers to the state of things under the high priesthood of Jehoiada, through whom Joash had been placed on the throne and who lived in the early years of Joash (2Ki 11:17-18; 2Ki 12:2-16; 2Ch 24:4-14). He was the son of Pethuel.

The first chapter describes the desolation caused by an inroad of locusts--one of the instruments of divine judgment mentioned by Moses (Deu 28:38-39) and by Solomon (1Ki 8:37). The second chapter (Joe 2:1-11): the appearance of them, under images of a hostile army suggesting that the locusts were symbols and forerunners of a more terrible scourge, namely, foreign enemies who would consume all before them. (The absence of mention of personal injury to the inhabitants is not a just objection to the figurative interpretation; for the figure is consistent throughout in attributing to the locusts only injury to vegetation, thereby injuring indirectly man and beast). Joe 2:12-17 : exhortation to repentance, the result of which will be: God will deliver His people, the former and latter rains shall return to fertilize their desolated lands, and these shall be the pledge of the spiritual outpouring of grace beginning with Judah, and thence extending to "all flesh." Joel 2:18-3:21 : God's judgments on Judah's enemies, whereas Judah shall be established for ever.

Joel's style is pre-eminently pure. It is characterized by smoothness and fluency in the rhythms, roundness in the sentences, and regularity in the parallelisms. With the strength of Micah it combines the tenderness of Jeremiah, the vividness of Nahum, and the sublimity of Isaiah. As a specimen of his style take the second chapter wherein the terrible aspect of the locusts, their rapidity, irresistible progress, noisy din, and instinct-taught power of marshalling their forces for their career of devastation, are painted with graphic reality.

JFB: Joel (Outline)

• THE DESOLATE ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY THROUGH THE PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS; THE PEOPLE ADMONISHED TO OFFER SOLEMN PRAYERS IN THE TEMPLE; FOR THIS CALAMITY IS THE EARNEST OF A STILL HEAVIER ONE. (Joel 1:1-20)
• THE COMING JUDGMENT A MOTIVE TO REPENTANCE. PROMISE OF BLESSINGS IN THE LAST DAYS. (Joel 2:1-32) A more terrific judgment than that of the locusts is foretold, under imagery drawn from that of the calamity then engrossing the afflicted nation. He therefore exhorts to repentance, assuring the Jews of Jehovah's pity if they would repent. Promise of the Holy Spirit in the last days under Messiah, and the deliverance of all believers in Him.
• GOD'S VENGEANCE ON ISRAEL'S FOES IN THE VALLEY OF JEHOSHAPHAT. HIS BLESSING ON THE CHURCH. (Joel 3:1-21)

TSK: Joel (Book Introduction)

It is generally supposed, that the prophet Joel blends two subjects of affliction in one general consideration, or beautiful allegory; and that, under the devastation to be produced by locusts in the vegetable world, he portrays the more distant calamities to be inflicted by the armies of the Chaldeans in their invasion of Judea. These predictions are followed by a more general denunciation of God’s vengeance, delivered in such language as to be in some measure descriptive of the final judgment of mankind. The prophet intermingles these declarations with earnest exhortations to repentance, and with promises of returning prosperity productive of Gospel blessings; foretelling, in the clearest terms, the general effusion of the Holy Spirit under the Christian dispensation, and the awful consequences of obstinately rejecting the sacred influence, especially to the Jews. The state of this nation at the present day, fully attests the Divine inspiration of the prophecy.

TSK: Joel 2 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Joe 2:1, He shews unto Zion the terribleness of God’s judgment; Joe 2:12, He exhorts to repentance; Joe 2:15, prescribes a fast; Joe 2:18, promises a blessing thereon; Joe 2:21, He comforts Zion with present, Joe 2:28. and future blessings.

Poole: Joel (Book Introduction)

THE ARGUMENT

Since so many undeterminable points of less moment occur in our prophet, as of what tribe he was, whether his father were a prophet, whether he prophesied in Jeroboam’ s or Hezekiah’ s time, whether contemporary with Hosea, Amos, and Isaiah; whether he preached to the ten tribes, or to the two tribes, or to both; whether the locusts are literal only, or typical and significative of enemies, or how many years they continued, what nations they did prefigure, when the execution began, when it ended; or when he began, or how long he continued to prophesy; — we may well rest ourselves contented in the undisputable things of greater moment, such as are, the Divine authority with which he came, attested by himself, Joe 1:1 , and confirmed to us by the apostle, Act 2:17 Rom 10:13 , and by Christ himself, Mat 24:29 Mar 13:24 Luk 21:25 : all he spake is the word of God. The pernicious consequences of national sins, such as were visible on God’ s own people at this very time in parching droughts, devouring locusts, and famine; the only method for removing these judgments, fasting, prayer, and amendment of our life; the successive sufferings of the church under the several monarchies till the coming of the Messiah, with the wonderful preservation of the good during those times; the just and final decisions God will make for his against their oppressors in those kingdoms, doing it by raising the succeeding empire to punish and overthrow the precedent; the conversion of the Jews, the calling of the Gentiles; the advancement of the kingdom of the Messiah and communications of gifts and graces to his church; the final and universal decision of all things that concern God and his church on the one side, and their enemies on the other; the general judgment of quick and dead, — are the great subjects he doth in plainer or darker terms set before us. In unfolding of the whole, whose excludes the letter and historical reference will fail on one hand, and whose excludes the typical and mystical reference will err as much on the other hand. In a due and just application of both lieth the true mean, which hath been aimed at in this enterprise, and how far attained is submitted to the judgment of those that read the ensuing annotations.

Poole: Joel 2 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 2

The prophet describeth the locusts as a mighty ar led by God to destroy the land, Joe 2:1-11 . He exhorteth to repentance, Joe 2:12-14 ; prescribeth a general fast and humiliation, Joe 2:15-17 ; and promiseth mercy from God, Joe 2:18-20 . He comforteth Zion with present blessings, Joe 2:21-27 ; and prophesieth the effusion of the Holy Spirit, and other blessings of the gospel, Joe 2:28-32 .

MHCC: Joel (Book Introduction)

From the desolations about to come upon the land of Judah, by the ravages of locusts and other insects, the prophet Joel exhorts the Jews to repentance, fasting, and prayer. He notices the blessings of the gospel, with the final glorious state of the church.

MHCC: Joel 2 (Chapter Introduction)

(Joe 2:1-14) God's judgments.

(Joe 2:15-27) Exhortations to fasting and prayer; blessings promised.

(Joe 2:28-32) A promise of the Holy Spirit, and of future mercies.

Matthew Henry: Joel (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Book of the Prophet Joel

We are altogether uncertain concerning the time when this prophet prophesied; it is probable that it was about the same time Amos prophesied, not for the reason that the rabbin give, " Because Amos begins his prophecy with that wherewith Joel concludes his, The Lord shall roar out of Zion, " but for the reason Dr. Lightfoot gives, " Because he speaks of the same judgments of locusts, and drought, and fire, that Amos laments, which is an intimation that they appeared about the same time, Amos in Israel and Joel in Judah. Hosea and Obadiah prophesied about the same time; and it appears that Amos prophesied in the says of Jeroboam, the second king of Israel, Amo 7:10. God sent a variety of prophets, that they might strengthen the hands one of another, and that out of the mouth of two or three witnesses every word might be established. In this prophecy, I. The desolations made by hosts of noxious insects is described, ch. 1 and part of ch. 2. II. The people are hereupon called to repentance, ch. 2. III. Promises are made of the return of mercy upon their repentance (ch. 2), and promises of the pouring out of the Spirit in the latter days. IV. The cause of God's people is pleaded against their enemies, whom God would in due time reckon with (ch. 3); and glorious things are spoken of the gospel - Jerusalem and of the prosperity and perpetuity of it.

Matthew Henry: Joel 2 (Chapter Introduction)

In this chapter we have, I. A further description of that terrible desolation which should be made in the land of Judah by the locusts and caterpillars (Joe 2:1-11). II. A serious call to the people, when they are under this sore judgment, to return and repent, to fast and pray, and to seek unto God for mercy, with directions how to do this aright (Joe 2:12-17). III. A promise that, upon their repentance, God would remove the judgment, would repair the breaches made upon them by it, and restore unto them plenty of all good things (Joe 2:18-27). IV. A prediction of the setting up of the kingdom of the Messiah in the world, by the pouring out of the Spirit in the latter days (Joe 2:28-32). Thus the beginning of this chapter is made terrible with the tokens of God's wrath, but the latter end of it made comfortable with the assurances of his favour, and it is in the way of repentance that this blessed change is made; so that, though it is only the last paragraph of the chapter that points directly at gospel-times, yet the whole may be improved as a type and figure, representing the curses of the law invading men for their sins, and the comforts of the gospel flowing in to them upon their repentance.

Constable: Joel (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Title and Writer

The title of this book is the name of its writer, as is true of all the prophetical books of the Old Testament.

We know little about Joel, whose name means "Yahweh is God." He was the son of Pethuel, who does not appear to have been a specially significant person. Eleven other individuals in the Old Testament bore the name Joel (1 Sam. 8:2; 1 Chron. 4:35; 5:4; 7:3; 11:38; 15:7; 26:22; 27:20; 2 Chron. 29:12; Ezra 10:43; Neh. 11:9).

Unity

All the extant Hebrew manuscripts and the ancient versions of Joel attest to the unity of the book. Critics who deny its unity and argue for two different writers do so on the basis of supposed literary and conceptual differences, usually between the first two chapters and the third. Specifically they assign the historical passages to Joel and the apocalyptic ones to another writer. However there is a consistent theme that ties the whole book together, so most conservative interpreters believe that Joel wrote all three chapters.

Date

The date of Joel is its largest introductory problem. There are four most likely possibilities. First, some scholars advocate an early pre-exilic date during the reign of King Jehoshaphat (872-848 B.C.) or possibly his grandson, King Joash (835-796 B.C.). Arguments in favor of this period include the position of Joel in the Hebrew canon. It appears among other prophetic writings of this period. Also the enemies of Israel that Joel named (Tyre, Sidon, Philistia [cf. 2 Chron. 21:16-17], Egypt [cf. 1 Kings 14:15-16], and Edom [cf. 2 Kings 8:20-22]; 3:2-7, 19) were enemies of Israel during this time. The prominence Joel gave to Judah's priests and elders rather than to her king--Joash was a boy king under the influence of Jehoiada, the high priest, early in his reign--is a further argument for this view. However, all these conclusions are open to other interpretations.¹

Second, some authorities believe a mid-pre-exilic date of composition, probably during the reign of Joash's grandson, King Uzziah (792-740 B.C.), fits the evidence best. Supporters of this view also claim the first two arguments cited in favor of the early pre-exilic view above. They argue, also, that the absence of references to Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia make a later date, when these nations were the major ancient Near Eastern superpowers, unlikely. Joel's reference to Greece in 3:6 may fit this period since the Ionian Greeks were at this time expanding their commercial influence in Asia Minor. Joel's reference to the Sabeans in 3:8 is appropriate for this period as well. Internal references and linguistic characteristics may also reflect Uzziah's times and are similar to the writings of the other eighth-century prophets (i.e., Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah). However, again, much of the same evidence can fit other periods of Judah's history.²

Third, some interpreters opt for a late pre-exilic date. Statements in Joel could fit this period, and some of his statements are similar to those of Jeremiah and Ezekiel and may reflect pre-captivity conditions, perhaps between 597 and 587 B.C. If true, Joel would have been a contemporary of Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. Yet Joel 2:18-19 seems to imply that God had been merciful to Joel's generation, suggesting that the people had repented, but there is no record of this happening during this period.³

The fourth view is that Joel wrote at a postexilic date, perhaps 515-500 B.C. or even as late as sometime in the 400s B.C. Interpreters who see Joel 3:1-2 and 17 as references to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian captivity take the references to the temple in 1:9, 13 and 2:17 as applying to the second temple (completed in 515 B.C.). Yet all these texts could apply to earlier periods.⁴

As should be obvious from this brief review, the dating of the book rests on interpretations of various verses that are not clear. No other Old Testament book mentions Joel either. Consequently dating the book amounts to guesswork, though some writers were quite dogmatic about their convictions. I prefer an early or mid-pre-exilic date mainly because of Joel's position in the Hebrew text among other writers of this period. I think he was probably one of the earliest writing prophets.

Place of Composition and Audience

Joel's frequent references to Judah and Jerusalem suggest that he lived and ministered in the Southern Kingdom (cf. 1:2, 9, 13-14, 16, 23, 32; 2:1, 14-15, 17, 23; 3:1-8, 12, 14, 17-21).

"Joel was a man of vitality and spiritual maturity. A keen discerner of the times, he delivered God's message to the people of Judah in a vivid and impassioned style, with a precision and originality of thought that served as a veritable quarry out of which many subsequent prophetic building stones were to be hewn."⁵

Purpose

Joel wrote to warn his audience about a coming day in which God would judge His people. He compared this devastating judgment to a terrible locust invasion that had fairly recently swept through the land. What he said about this coming judgment has only seen partial fulfillment; some of it still lies in the eschatological future. God would send blessing as well as judgment, however, and this too has only come partially on the Israelites so far. The prophet warned his hearers that unless they repented of their empty formalism in worship and turned back to Yahweh wholeheartedly, devastating judgment would overtake them. If they repented, God would pardon them and restore His blessings to them abundantly.

Theology

The sovereignty of God and the inevitability of divine punishment for covenant unfaithfulness are dominant themes in Joel. Thus the administration of God is a strong motif--how God exercises His sovereignty when His people sin.

Another important theological contribution of Joel is his prediction of God pouring out the Holy Spirit on all humanity (2:28-32).

Message⁶

The Book of Joel contains a threefold vision.

The first part of Joel's vision concerned a locust plague that had recently swept over the Promised Land. Joel prophesied about this plague because of the desolation that it had produced. The second part of his vision concerned a coming invasion from a foreign army in the fairly near future. He used the recent locust plague to illustrate the devastating effect of the coming military invasion. The third part of his vision concerned another coming invasion in the far distant future that would also be like the recent locust invasion, only worse.

Joel described each of these devastations as "the day of the Lord." The term itself refers to a time when God had been or would be controlling events for Israel in an unusually direct way. It was "His day" in the sense that at those times Yahweh was and would be especially prominent in what happened. Thus this term referred to a past "day," a near future "day," and a far distant "day" from the prophet's perspective. "The day of the Lord" was the burden of his prophecy.

The Book of Joel has two preeminent timeless values. It illustrates the basic principles by which Yahweh governs, and it reveals the basic plan of Yahweh through the ages. It is important for us to grasp these basic principles and this basic plan because the other prophets reveal more about them. They expound them giving more detail. Again, as we saw with Obadiah (how God feels about pride and those who mistreat the Jews), God gave His people the simple, general lessons first. Then He gave more detailed information through the prophets that followed.

First, Joel illustrates the principles by which Yahweh governs. This book does not reveal them in the sense of explaining them fully. Isaiah explains them more fully. Joel illustrates these principles briefly.

Joel viewed Yahweh as enthroned in heaven controlling affairs on earth. Joel saw Him presiding patiently over all the situations through which His people pass. He saw Him pressing into His service all the processes of nature and human activity. He also saw Him achieving ultimate victory in "His day," "the day of the Lord." He had accomplished victory by judging His people with a locust invasion recently. He would accomplish victory by disciplining His people with an invasion from a foreign foe in the near future. And He would accomplish victory by restoring His people through a fresh outpouring of His Spirit in the distant future. So one major lesson of this book is that God is enthroned in heaven and that He is ruling over the affairs of humanity.

A second illustration of the principles by which Yahweh governs is Joel's emphasis on grace. Grace is at the heart of God's government. Grace is the inspiration of His government. We see this in God's appeal to the Israelites through Joel to repent, to "rend your hearts rather than your garments" (2:13a). The locust plague was a wake up call to repent. The Israelites' repentance would affect the imminent invasion they faced. God promised judgment, but He offered mercy if the people would repent (2:13b-14). Grace is also evident in the promise of a far distant future outpouring of God's Spirit in spite of the unfaithfulness of His people. God rules with grace. He is gracious to humanity in the way He governs people.

When the locust invasion swept through the land, the people bemoaned the tragedy. The locusts had so stripped the grapevines that even the drunkards could not find grapes to make wine. The people had so little grain that they could not bring offerings to the temple. They could hardly make bread for themselves to eat. They viewed the devastation as a natural disaster. Joel reminded them that the locust invasion had come by the will and hand of God. The people had forgotten God, but God wanted to get their attention, so He sent the plague. He had allowed this to happen so the people would think of Him and return to Him. When the invasion happened it was His "day." It was God who had done this (1:1-14).

Joel went on to remind the people that because they had forgotten about Him God was going to bring a worse devastation on them that would make the recent locust plague seem tame by comparison. If they turned back to Him, they could avoid this worse fate because God would be gracious to them (2:12-13). The coming invasion by humans rather than by locusts would also be a day in which the Lord acted prominently. Joel even said the Lord would lead this army of invaders (2:11).

Yet in spite of future devastating judgment, God would act again dramatically and definitely for His people (3:28-32). He would bring restoration and blessing to them even when they had suffered His chastening discipline. He would just as surely and personally do this for them as He would punish them. This, too, would be one of His "days." And it would be the ultimate illustration of His grace.

A second great timeless value of this book is its revelation of God's plan for His people Israel's future.

First, there would be coming judgment that the people could affect by their repentance (2:14). Had the Israelites repented the Captivities would not have overtaken them. When the Assyrians attacked Judah, the people did repent and the Lord delivered them. But when the Babylonians attacked Judah, they failed to repent and suffered defeat and deportation. Joel could honestly say for God, "Return to me with all your heart" (2:12). When the people failed to repent, judgment befell them.

Second, there would be even worse judgment in the distant future because the prophet foresaw that the people would continue to apostatize (3:1-17). This refers to the judgments on Israel during the Tribulation. Yet after that the Lord promised to restore and bless His people (2:18-32). These are millennial blessings. It is in this context of millennial blessings that the promise of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit appears (3:28-29). That outpouring is still future from our position in history.

But what about what Peter said on the day of Pentecost? He said that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit then was what Joel prophesied (Acts 2:17-18). This has led many Bible students to conclude that God fulfilled His promises to Israel in the church. This is the viewpoint of amillennial and postmillennial interpreters. Others see a double or partial fulfillment on the day of Pentecost with the church, and a future fulfillment with Israel in the Millennium. This is the viewpoint of many premillennialists. A third view is that fulfillment will only be in the Millennium and that what Peter meant was that what happened on the day of Pentecost was similar to or like what Joel prophesied. I favor this interpretation, as do many other premillennialists. Peter did not say that what was happening fulfilled Joel's prophecy. What he said could just as easily mean that what happened then was in harmony with or analygous to what Joel had predicted would happen in the Millennium. The two events were similar but not identical. It should be clear that they were not the same because in the middle of the section of Joel's prophecy that Peter quoted (3:28-32a), Joel mentioned the sun turning into darkness and the moon to blood (Acts 2:20). That did not happen on the day of Pentecost. It will happen in the Tribulation just before God pours out His Spirit on all flesh in the Millennium. The New Testament writers frequently spoke of fulfillment in an analogical sense (e.g., Matt. 2:15; Hos. 11:1).

Joel gave revelation about important aspects of God's plan for the future. He referred to the upcoming invasion by a foreign power, which took place shortly after he prophesied. He also talked about a far distant future time of judgment on Israel, the Tribulation. Then he revealed great blessing for all types of Israelites, from the most lowly to the most exalted, including the restoration of Israel during the Millennium. Sin, judgment, and restoration to privilege and power are what would mark Israel's future.

I would summarize the message of Joel this way. Though God will judge Israel for her apostasy with locust invasion-like devastation in the future, He will also later restore her to blessings greater than she has ever experienced illustrating that He governs the world graciously. Remember that "Israel" is not synonymous with the modern State of Israel.

When Joel wrote, it was man's day, not the day of the Lord. The Lord had acted in the locust invasion, and He would act in judgment and in blessing in the future. These would be His days. But when Joel prophesied, the people failed to see God at work because He was not active as He was and will be on these great days when His presence was and will be manifest. We too live in man's day. Most people, including many Christians, conclude that God either does not exist or takes no active role in human affairs because He is not obviously working. At least His working is not apparent to them because what is happening can be explained as natural or chance phenomena. Thus we live in a day very similar to Joel's day.

Whether people recognize it or not, God is executing His plan for the world. He will break into human experience again in the future. Thus it is imperative that we sound the same warning that Joel did. Judgment is coming, but people can avoid His judgment by repenting. "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered" (2:32; Acts 2:21). Humanity as a whole will fail to repent, just as the Israelites failed to repent (cf. 1 Tim. 4; 2 Tim. 3). Then a far worse fate will befall them. Yet God's plans for His people include incredible blessing, even though we fail Him. This evidence of God's grace should motivate God's people to repent and remain faithful to Him now. Thus God's government of Israel and His plan for Israel serve as a paradigm for His dealings with all humanity.

Constable: Joel (Outline)

Outline

I. Introduction 1:1

II. A past day of the Lord: a locust invasion 1:2-20

A. An initial appeal 1:2-4

B. A call to mourn 1:5-13

C. A call to repent 1:14

D. The significance of the plague 1:15-20

III. A near future day of the Lord: a human invasion 2:1-27

A. The invading army 2:1-11

1. The nearness of the army 2:1-2

2. The destructive power of the army 2:3-5

3. The relentlessness of the army 2:6-9

4. The invincibility of the army 2:10-11

B. A call to repentance 2:12-17

1. An appeal for private repentance 2:12-14

2. An appeal for public repentance 2:15-17

C. The possibility of forgiveness and restoration 2:18-27

1. The Lord's gracious response 2:18

2. The Lord's promise of blessing 2:19-27

IV. A far future day of the Lord: another human invasion and deliverance 2:28-3:21

A. Israel's spiritual renewal and deliverance 2:28-32

B. God's judgment on Israel's enemy nations 3:1-17

1. The announcement of judgment 3:1-8

2. The description of judgment 3:9-17

C. Israel's ultimate restoration 3:18-21

Constable: Joel

Joel

Bibliography

Allen, Leslie C. The Books of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah. The New International Commentary on the Old Testament series. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1976.

Archer, Gleason L., Jr. A Survey of Old Testament Introduction. Revised ed. Chicago: Moody Press, 1974.

Chisholm, Robert B., Jr. "Joel." In The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old Testament, pp. 1409-24. Edited by John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck. Wheaton: Scripture Press Publications, Victor Books, 1985.

_____. "A Theology of the Minor Prophets." In A Biblical Theology of the Old Testament, pp. 397-433. Edited by Roy B. Zuck. Chicago: Moody Press, 1991.

Constable, Thomas L. Talking to God: What the Bible Teaches about Prayer. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1995.

Driver, S. R. The Books of Joel and Amos. The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges series. Cambridge, Eng.: University Press, 1915.

Dyer, Charles H., and Eugene H. Merrill. The Old Testament Explorer. Nashville: Word Publishing, 2001.

Freeman, Hobart E. An Introduction to the Old Testament Prophets. Chicago: Moody Press, 1968.

Keil, Carl Friedrich. The Twelve Minor Prophets. 2 vols. Translated by James Martin. Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament. Reprint ed. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1949.

Kapelrud, Arvid S. Joel Studies. Uppsala, Sweden: A. B. Lundequistska Bokhandeln, 1948.

Patterson, Richard D. "Joel." In Daniel-Minor Prophets. Vol. 7 of The Expositor's Bible Commentary. 12 vols. Edited by Frank E. Gaebelein and Richard P. Polcyn. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1985.

Rudolph, Wilhelm. Joel-Amos-Obadja-Jona. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1971.

Smith, George Adam. The Book of the Twelve Prophets. 2 vols. Revised ed. New York: Harper & Brothers, n.d.

Stuart, Douglas. "The Sovereign's Day of Conquest." Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 220/21 (December 1975, February 1976):159-64.

Thompson, J. A. "Joel's Locusts in the Light of Near Eastern Parallels." Journal of Near Eastern Studies 14 (1955):52-55.

_____. "Translation of the Words for Locust." Bible Translator 25 (October 1974):405-11.

von Rad, Gerhard. "The Origin of the Concept of the Day of the Lord." Journal of Semitic Studies 4 (1959):97-108.

Whiting, John D. "Jerusalem's Locust Plague." National Geographic, December 1915, pp. 511-50.

Wolff, Hans Walter. Joel and Amos. Translated by Waldemar Janzen, S. Dean McBride Jr., and Charles A. Muenchow. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977.

Young, Edward J. An Introduction to the Old Testament. Revised ed. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1960.

Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

Haydock: Joel (Book Introduction)

THE PROPHECY OF JOEL.

INTRODUCTION.

Joel , whose name, according to St. Jerome, signifies the Lord God, (or, as others say, the coming down of God ) prophesied about the same time in the kingdom of Juda as Osee did in the kingdom of Israel. He foretells, under figures, the great evils that were coming upon the people for their sins; earnestly exhorts them to repentance, and comforts them with the promise of a teacher of justice, viz., Christ Jesus, our Lord, and of the coming down of his Holy Spirit (Challoner) upon the hundred and twenty faithful assembled in Sion. He describes the land of the twelve tribes made desolate, and the people cast off. (St. Jerome ad Paulin.) --- Yet he speaks chiefly of the kingdom of Juda, and mentions the house of God, sacrifices, &c. (Worthington) --- St. Jerome infers from his being placed after Osee, without any fresh title, (Calmet) that he lived in that order of time. (Worthington) --- But this rule is not general, as Jonas lived before Amos; and [the] Septuagint observe not the same disposition of the prophets as we do. The exact time of the famine, when Joel prophesied, cannot be ascertained. It seems he addressed the people in autumn, when a second year's famine was apprehended. He paints every thing with great force and beauty of style. (Calmet)

Gill: Joel (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO JOEL

In some Hebrew Bibles this prophecy is called "Sepher Joel", the Book of Joel; in the Vulgate Latin version, the Prophecy of Joel; and in the Syriac version, the Prophecy of the Prophet Joel; and the Arabic version, the Prophet Joel; and so the Apostle Peter quotes him, Act 2:16. His name, according to Hillerus ^a, signifies "the Lord is God"; but others derive it from lay, which in "Hiphil" is lyawh, and signifies "he willed, acquiesced, or is well pleased, so Abarbinei; and hence Schmidt thinks it answers to Desiderius or Erasmus. According to Isidorus ^b, he was born at Bethoron, in the tribe of Reuben, and died and was buried there; and so says Pseudo-Epiphanius ^c. In what age he lived is not easy to say. Aben Ezra expressly affirms there is no way to know it; and so R. David Ganz ^d says, his time we know not; and likewise Abarbinel. Some think he prophesied about the same time Hoses did, after whom he is next placed; and so Mr. Whiston ^e and, Mr. Bedford ^f make him to prophesy much about the same time with Isaiah and Hoses, about eight hundred years before Christ; but, in the Septuagint version, this book is in the fourth order, and not Hoses, but Amos and Micah, are placed before him; and so the author of Juchasin ^g puts the prophets in this order, first Hoses, then Amos, next Isaiah, then Micah, and after him Joel. Some of the Jewish writers, as Jarchi, Kimchi, and Abendana relate, make Joel contemporary with Elisha, and say he prophesied in the, lays of Jehoram the son of Ahab, when the seven years' famine called for came upon the land, 2Ki 8:1. Both in Seder Olam Rabba and Zuta ^h he is placed in the reign of Manasseh; and so in Hilchot Gedolot, as Jarchi observes. And it seems indeed as if he prophesied after the ten tribes were carried captive, which was in the sixth year of Hezekiah's reign, since no mention is made of Israel but with respect to future times, only of Judah and Jerusalem, But, be it when it will that he prophesied, there is no doubt to be made of the authenticity of this book, which is confirmed by the quotations of two apostles out of two: Peter and Paul, Act 2:16.

Gill: Joel 2 (Chapter Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO JOEL 2

In this chapter a further account is given of the judgment of the locusts and caterpillars, or of those who are designed by them, Joe 2:1; the people of the Jews are called to repentance, humiliation, and fasting, urged from the grace and goodness of God, his jealousy and pity for his people, and the answer of prayer that might he expected from him upon this, even to the removal of the calamity, Joe 2:12; a prophecy of good things, both temporal and spiritual, in the times of the Messiah, is delivered out as matter and occasion of great joy, Joe 2:21; and another concerning the effusion of the Spirit, which was fulfilled an the day of Pentecost, Joe 2:28; and the chapter is concluded with the judgments and desolations that should come upon the land of Judea after this, for their rejection of Christ, though the remnant according to the election of grace should be delivered and saved from the general destruction, Joe 2:30.