When I shall by Cyrus bring Judah out of Babylon.

As the type of the whole remnant that are saved.

For beside what refers to the two tribes restored by Cyrus, the bringing back the captivity of the whole Israel of God by Christ is to be considered all along through this chapter.

In the type it is all those nations that have oppressed Judah, in the anti - type, all nations that have been enemies to Christ and the church.

I will debate my people's cause, and do them right in the midst of my church, signified by the valley of Jehoshaphat.

Such is the injustice of the persecutors of the church now, and so God will judge them in due time.

It was customary with conquerors to divide the captives by lot, and so did these enemies of the Jews.

Have I done you any wrong, which you avenge upon my people? Or do you begin to violate the laws of neighbourhood and friendship, and think to escape? Do ye think you have to do with a poor opprest people, my people, and I nothing concerned at it? Palestine - On which were towns of trade, and merchants that bought and sold these captives.

Have I or my people so dealt with you? And if - If you will deal thus, I will speedily avenge myself and my people of you.

Either as part of the spoil, or as part of your pay.

Silver and gold vessels dedicated to my service.

That there might be no hope of their return to their country.

This was fulfilled when Alexander, and his successors dismissed all the Jews that were slaves in Greece, and gave them leave to return to their own country.

Give them up into the hands of the Jews.

These things which I will do to the enemies of God's people.

The Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Grecians successively.

Make ready for wars against the enemies of my people.

Put on strength and valour; let none be absent from this war.

All round about Judah.

Toward Jerusalem; the church and heritage of God.

All those mighty warriors whom thou wilt make use of successively to punish the oppressors of thy church.

The several nations in their appointed time, perhaps the Assyrians first under Salmaneser, next under Sennacherib, both of whom came up to the valley of Jehoshaphat.

In the midst of my people to plead with, condemn and punish the heathen round about Judea.

Ye executioners of divine vengeance: begin to reap, cut down sinners ripe for judgment; let Tiglath Pilneser and his soldiers cut down Syria and its king, for their violence against my people. Let Cyaxares and his armies cut down Assyria. Let Nebuchadnezzar cut down Moab, Ammon, mount Seir, Egypt, Tyre, Zidon and the Philistines; after this let Cyrus reap down the ripened Babylonians, and Alexander the Medes and Persians. And let the divided Grecian captains cut down one another, 'till the Romans cut them down. And when this is done God will have mighty ones still to cut down his enemies, 'till the final judgment wherein they all shall for ever be destroyed.

In another metaphor the prophet declares the cutting off the church's enemies.

As the grapes in the press are trod, so the enemies of God's people, are to be trodden in the wine - press of God's displeasure.

The blood of slaughtered men runs as wine prest out, in greater abundance than the vats can hold.

The violence and all manner of sins of these kingdoms is grown exceeding great.

Where God having gathered them, decided their quarrels, and by the conqueror punish the conquered for their sins against God and his people.

The day of vengeance.

He will strike the enemy with astonishment as the roaring of the lion astonishes the weaker beasts of the forest.

Very graciously present with you, and ever watching over you, and delighting to save you.

After her enemies are destroyed and the remnant is saved, and the Messiah is come; for to him and his days these things ultimately refer.

The church of Christ.

No profane or unclean person shall pass through it, or be found in it any more for ever.

The vines planted upon the mountains.

So fruitful shall the hills be, that milk shall abound every where.

The prophet alludes to those waters which were conveyed from some spring through conduit pipes towards the altar. This no doubt is a shadow of the purifying blood of Christ, and his sanctifying spirit and word. And in that it is said to come from the house of the Lord, it intimates that this saving grace shall be first preached from Jerusalem, and by the church, which is the house of God, shall be published to others.

Was a place in the plains of Moab. These spiritual waters shall flow down to the dry and thirsty, the barren and fruitless Gentiles, and make them fruitful.

By Egypt we may understand all the enemies of the church who carry it toward the church, as Egypt carried it toward Israel.

Edom was an implacable enemy to Judah in his greatest distress. And all who come under Edom's character are here threatened under this name.

The people of God.

The redeemed of the Lord, his church.

Purge away both by the spirit of sanctification and by free pardon in the blood of the redeemer.

Their sinfulness, which before I had not taken away.

That is, reverse it. The Jews restrict this to the return from Babylon. Christians refer it to the coming of Christ. But the prophet comprises the whole redemption, beginning from the return out of Babylon, then continued from the first advent of Christ down to the last day (His second advent), when God will restore His Church to perfect felicity [CALVIN].

Parallel to Zec 14:2-4, where the "Mount of Olives" answers to the "Valley of Jehoshaphat" here. The latter is called "the valley of blessing" (Berachah) (2Ch 20:26). It lies between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives and has the Kedron flowing through it. As Jehoshaphat overthrew the confederate foes of Judah, namely, Ammon, Moab, &c. (Psa 83:6-8), in this valley, so God was to overthrow the Tyrians, Zidonians, Philistines, Edom, and Egypt, with a similar utter overthrow (Joe 3:4, Joe 3:19). This has been long ago fulfilled; but the ultimate event shadowed forth herein is still future, when God shall specially interpose to destroy Jerusalem's last foes, of whom Tyre, Zidon, Edom, Egypt, and Philistia are the types. As "Jehoshaphat" means "the judgment of Jehovah," the valley of Jehoshaphat may be used as a general term for the theater of God's final judgments on Israel's foes, with an allusion to the judgment inflicted on them by Jehoshaphat. The definite mention of the Mount of Olives in Zec 14:4, and the fact that this was the scene of the ascension, makes it likely the same shall be the scene of Christ's coming again: compare "this same Jesus . . . shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven" (Act 1:11).

Namely, which have maltreated Judah.

(Isa 66:16; Eze 38:22).

(Deu 32:9; Jer 10:16). Implying that the source of Judah's redemption is God's free love, wherewith He chose Israel as His peculiar heritage, and at the same time assuring them, when desponding because of trials, that He would plead their cause as His own, and as if He were injured in their person.

That is, divided among themselves My people as their captives by lot. Compare as to the distribution of captives by lot (Oba 1:11; Nah 3:10).

Instead of paying a harlot for her prostitution in money, they gave her a Jewish captive boy as a slave.

So valueless did they regard a Jewish girl that they would sell her for a draught of wine.

Ye have no connection with Me (that is, with My people: God identifying Himself with Israel); I (that is, My people) have given you no cause of quarrel, why then do ye trouble Me (that is, My people)? (Compare the same phrase, Jos 22:24; Jdg 11:12; 2Sa 16:10; Mat 8:29).

(Amo 1:6, Amo 1:9).

If ye injure Me (My people), in revenge for fancied wrongs (Eze 25:15-17), I will requite you in your own coin swiftly and speedily.

That is, the gold and silver of My people. The Philistines and Arabians had carried off all the treasures of King Jehoram's house (2Ch 21:16-17). Compare also 1Ki 15:18; 2Ki 12:18; 2Ki 14:14, for the spoiling of the treasures of the temple and the king's palace in Judah by Syria. It was customary among the heathen to hang up in the idol temples some of the spoils of war as presents to their gods.

Literally, "Javanites," that is, the Ionians, a Greek colony on the coast of Asia Minor who were the first Greeks known to the Jews. The Greeks themselves, however, in their original descent came from Javan (Gen 10:2, Gen 10:4). Probably the germ of Greek civilization in part came through the Jewish slaves imported into Greece from Phœnicia by traffickers. Eze 27:13 mentions Javan and Tyre as trading in the persons of men.

Far from Judea; so that the captive Jews were cut off from all hope of return.

That is, I will rouse them. Neither sea nor distance will prevent My bringing them back. Alexander, and his successors, restored to liberty many Jews in bondage in Greece [JOSEPHUS, Antiquities, 13.5; Wars of the Jews, 9,2].

The Persian Artaxerxes Mnemon and Darius Ochus, and chiefly the Greek Alexander, reduced the Phœnician and Philistine powers. Thirty thousand Tyrians after the capture of Tyre by the last conqueror, and multitudes of Philistines on the taking of Gaza, were sold as slaves. The Jews are here said to do that which the God of Judah does in vindication of their wrong, namely, sell the Phœnicians who sold them, to a people "far off," as was Greece, whither the Jews had been sold. The Sabeans at the most remote extremity of Arabia Felix are referred to (compare Jer 6:20; Mat 12:42).

The nations hostile to Israel are summoned by Jehovah to "come up" (this phrase is used because Jerusalem was on a hill) against Jerusalem, not that they may destroy it, but to be destroyed by the Lord (Eze. 38:7-23; Zec 12:2-9; Zec 14:2-3).

Literally, sanctify war: because the heathen always began war with religious ceremonies. The very phrase used of Babylon's preparations against Jerusalem (Jer 6:4) is now used of the final foes of Jerusalem. As Babylon was then desired by God to advance against her for her destruction, so now all her foes, of whom Babylon was the type, are desired to advance against her for their own destruction.

As the foes are desired to "beat their ploughshares into swords, and their pruning hooks into spears," that so they may perish in their unhallowed attack on Judah and Jerusalem, so these latter, and the nations converted to God by them, after the overthrow of the antichristian confederacy, shall, on the contrary, "beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks," when under Messiah's coming reign there shall be war no more (Isa 2:4; Hos 2:18; Mic 4:3).

So universal shall be the rage of Israel's foes for invading her, that even the weak among them will fancy themselves strong enough to join the invading forces. Age and infirmity were ordinarily made valid excuses for exemption from service, but so mad shall be the fury of the world against God's people, that even the feeble will not desire to be exempted (compare Psa 2:1-3).

"Hasten" [MAURER].

To the valley of Jehoshaphat.

The warriors who fancy themselves "mighty ones," but who are on that very spot to be overthrown by Jehovah [MAURER]. Compare "the mighty men" (Joe 3:9). Rather, Joel speaks of God's really "mighty ones" in contrast to the self-styled "mighty men" (Joe 3:9; Psa 103:20; Isa 13:3; compare Dan 10:13). AUBERLEN remarks: One prophet supplements the other, for they all prophesied only "in part." What was obscure to one was revealed to the other; what is briefly described by one is more fully so by another. Daniel calls Antichrist a king, and dwells on his worldly conquests; John looks more to his spiritual tyranny, for which reason he adds a second beast, wearing the semblance of spirituality. Antichrist himself is described by Daniel. Isaiah (Isa. 29:1-24), Joel (Joel 3:1-21) describe his army of heathen followers coming up against Jerusalem, but not Antichrist himself.

See Joe 3:2.

That is, all the nations from all parts of the earth which have maltreated Israel; not merely, as HENDERSON supposes, the nations round about Jerusalem (compare Psa 110:6; Isa 2:4; Mic 4:3, Mic 4:11-13; Zep 3:15-19; Zec 12:9; Zec 14:3-11; Mal 4:1-3).

Direction to the ministers of vengeance to execute God's wrath, as the enemy's wickedness is come to its full maturity. God does not cut off the wicked at once, but waits till their guilt is at its full (so as to the Amorites iniquity, Gen 15:16), to show forth His own long-suffering, and the justice of their doom who have so long abused it (Mat 13:27-30, Mat 13:38, Mat 13:40; Rev 14:15-19). For the image of a harvest to be threshed, compare Jer 51:33; and a wine-press, Isa 63:3 and Lam 1:15.

The prophet in vision seeing the immense array of nations congregating, exclaims, "Multitudes, multitudes!" a Hebraism for immense multitudes.

That is, the valley in which they are to meet their "determined doom." The same as "the valley of Jehoshaphat," that is, "the valley of judgment" (see on Joe 3:2). Compare Joe 3:12, "there will I sit to judge," which confirms English Version rather than Margin, "threshing." The repetition of "valley of decision" heightens the effect and pronounces the awful certainty of their doom.

(See on Joe 2:10; Joe 2:30).

(Compare Eze 38:18-22). The victories of the Jews over their cruel foe Antiochus, under the Maccabees, may be a reference of this prophecy; but the ultimate reference is to the last Antichrist, of whom Antiochus was the type. Jerusalem being the central seat of the theocracy (Psa 132:13), it is from thence that Jehovah discomfits the foe.

As a lion (Jer 25:30; Amo 1:2; Amo 3:8). Compare as to Jehovah's voice thundering, Psa 18:13; Hab 3:10-11.

Or, "their refuge" (Psa 46:1).

Experimentally by the proofs of favors which I shall vouchsafe to you. So "know" (Isa 60:16; Hos 2:20).

As peculiarly your God.

To attack, or to defile, the holy city (Isa 35:8; Isa 52:1; Zec 14:21). Strangers, or Gentiles, shall come to Jerusalem, but it shall be in order to worship Jehovah there (Zec 14:16).

Figurative for abundance of vines, which were cultivated in terraces of earth between the rocks on the sides of the hills of Palestine (Amo 9:13).

That is, they shall abound in flocks and herds yielding milk plentifully, through the richness of the pastures.

The great desideratum for fertility in the parched East (Isa 30:25).

The blessings, temporal and spiritual, issuing from Jehovah's house at Jerusalem, shall extend even to Shittim, on the border between Moab and Israel, beyond Jordan (Num 25:1; Num 33:49; Jos 2:1; Mic 6:5). "Shittim" means "acacias," which grow only in arid regions: implying that even the arid desert shall be fertilized by the blessing from Jerusalem. So Eze 47:1-12 describes the waters issuing from the threshold of the house as flowing into the Dead Sea, and purifying it. Also in Zec 14:8 the waters flow on one side into the Mediterranean, on the other side into the Dead Sea, near which latter Shittim was situated (compare Psa 46:4; Rev 22:1).

It was subjugated by David, but revolted under Jehoram (2Ch 21:8-10); and at every subsequent opportunity tried to injure Judah. Egypt under Shishak spoiled Jerusalem under Rehoboam of the treasures of the temple and the king's house; subsequently to the captivity, it inflicted under the Ptolemies various injuries on Judea. Antiochus spoiled Egypt (Dan 11:40-43). Edom was made "desolate" under the Maccabees [JOSEPHUS, Antiquities, 12.11,12]. The low condition of the two countries for centuries proves the truth of the prediction (compare Isa 19:1, &c.; Jer 49:17; Oba 1:10). So shall fare all the foes of Israel, typified by these two (Isa 63:1, &c.).

(Amo 9:15), that is, be established as a flourishing state.

I will purge away from Judah the extreme guilt (represented by "blood," the shedding of which was the climax of her sin, Isa 1:15) which was for long not purged away, but visited with judgments (Isa 4:4). Messiah saves from guilt, in order to save from punishment (Mat 1:21).

For, behold, in those days - According to the preceding prophecy, these days should refer to Gospel times, or to such as should immediately precede them. But this is a part of the prophecy which is difficult to be understood. All interpreters are at variance upon it; some applying its principal parts to Cambyses; his unfortunate expedition to Egypt; the destruction of fifty thousand of his troops (by the moving pillars of sand) whom he had sent across the desert to plunder the rich temple of Jupiter Ammon; his return to Judea, and dying of a wound which he received from his own sword, in mounting his horse, which happened at Ecbatane, at the foot of Mount Carmel. On which his army, composed of different nations, seeing themselves without a head, fell out, and fought against each other, till the whole were destroyed. And this is supposed to be what Ezekiel means by Gog and Magog, and the destruction of the former. See Ezekiel 38 and 39

Others apply this to the victories gained by the Maccabees, and to the destruction brought upon the enemies of their country; while several consider the whole as a figurative prediction of the success of the Gospel among the nations of the earth. It may refer to those times in which the Jews shall be brought in with the fullness of the Gentiles, and be re-established in their own land. Or there may be portions in this prophecy that refer to all the events; and to others that have not fallen yet within the range of human conjecture, and will be only known when the time of fulfillment shall take place. In this painful uncertainty, rendered still more so by the discordant opinions of many wise and learned men, it appears to be my province, as I have nothing in the form of a new conjecture to offer, to confine myself to an explanation of the phraseology of the chapter; and then leave the reader to apply it as may seem best to his own judgment

I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem - This may refer to the return from the Babylonish captivity; extending also to the restoration of Israel, or the ten tribes.

The valley of Jehoshaphat - There is no such valley in the land of Judea; and hence the word must be symbolical. It signifies the judgment of God, or Jehovah judgeth; and may mean some place (as Bp. Newcome imagines) where Nebuchadnezzar should gain a great battle, which would utterly discomfit the ancient enemies of the Jews, and resemble the victory which Jehoshaphat gained over the Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites, 2Ch 20:22-26

And parted my land - The above nations had frequently entered into the territories of Israel; and divided among themselves the lands they had thus overrun

While the Jews were in captivity, much of the land of Israel was seized on, and occupied by the Philistines, and other nations that bordered on Judea.

Have given a boy for a harlot - To such wretched circumstances were the poor Jews reduced in their captivity, that their children were sold by their oppressors; and both males and females used for the basest purposes. And they were often bartered for the necessaries or luxuries of life. Or this may refer to the issue of the Chaldean war in Judea, where the captives were divided among the victors. And being set in companies, they cast lots for them: and those to whom they fell sold them for various purposes; the boys to be slaves and catamites, the girls to be prostitutes; and in return for them they got wine and such things. I think this is the meaning of the text.

What have ye to do with me - Why have the Syrians and Sidonians joined their other enemies to oppress my people? for they who touch my people touch me

Will ye render me a recompense? - Do you think by this to avenge yourselves upon the Almighty? to retaliate upon God! Proceed, and speedily will I return your recompense; I will retaliate.

Ye have taken my silver and my gold - The Chaldeans had spoiled the temple, and carried away the sacred vessels, and put them in the temple of their own god in Babylon.

Sold unto the Grecians - These were the descendants of Javan, Gen 10:2-5. And with them the Tyrians trafficked, Eze 27:19

That ye might remove them far from their border - Intending to send them as far off as possible, that it might be impossible for them to get back to reclaim the land of which you had dispossessed them.

I will raise them - I shall find means to bring them back from the place whither ye have sold them, and they shall retaliate upon you the injuries they have sustained. It is said that Alexander and his successors set at liberty many Jews that had been sold into Greece. And it is likely that many returned from different lands, on the publication of the edict of Cyrus. - Newcome.

I will sell your sons - When Alexander took Tyre, he reduced into slavery all the lower people, and the women. Arrian, lib. ii., says that thirty thousand of them were sold. Artaxerxes Ochus destroyed Sidon, and subdued the other cities of Phoenicia. In all these wars, says Calmet, the Jews, who obeyed the Persians, did not neglect to purchase Phoenician slaves, whom they sold again to the Sabeans, or Arabs.

Prepare war - Let all the enemies of God and of his people join together; let them even call all the tillers of the ground to their assistance, instead of laboring in the field; let every peasant become a soldier. Let them turn their agricultural implements into offensive weapons, so that the weak, being well armed, may confidently say, I am strong: yet, when thus collected and armed, Jehovah will bring down thy mighty ones; for so the clause in Joe 3:11 should be rendered.

Let the heathen be wakened - The heathen shall be wakened

The valley of Jehoshaphat - Any place where God may choose to display his judgments against his enemies.

Put ye in the sickle - The destruction of his enemies is represented here under the metaphor of reaping down the harvest; and of gathering the grapes, and treading them in the wine-presses.

Multitudes, multitudes - המנים המנים hamonim , hamonim , crowds upon crowds, in the valley of decision, or excision: the same as the valley of Jehoshaphat, the place where God is to execute judgment on his enemies.

The sun and the moon shall be darkened - High and mighty states shall be eclipsed, and brought to ruin, and the stars - petty states, princes, and governors - shall withdraw their shining; withhold their influence and tribute from the kingdoms to which they have belonged, and set up themselves as independent governors.

The Lord also shall roar out of Zion - His temple and worship shall be reestablished there, and he will thence denounce his judgments against the nations. "The heavens and the earth shall shake."There shall be great commotions in powerful empires and their dependencies; but in all these things his own people shall be unmoved, for God shall be their hope and strength.

So shall ye know - By the judgments I execute on your enemies, and the support I give to yourselves, that I am the all-conquering Jehovah; and that I have again taken up my residence in Jerusalem. All this may refer, ultimately, to the restoration of the Jews to their own land; when holiness to the Lord shall be their motto; and no strange god, or impure people, shall be permitted to enter the city, or even pass through it; they shall have neither civil nor religious connections with any who do not worship the true God in spirit and in truth. This, I think, must refer to Gospel times. It is a promise not ye fulfilled.

In that day - After their return from their captivities

The mountains shall drop down new wine - A poetic expression for great fertility. Happy times: peace and plenty. The vines shall grow luxuriantly on the sides of the mountains; and the hills shall produce such rich pastures that the flocks shall yield abundance of milk

And all the rivers of Judah - Far from being generally dry in the summer, shall have their channels always full of water

And a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord - See the account of the typical waters in Ezekiel 47, to which this seems to have a reference; at least the subject is the same, and seems to point out the grace of the Gospel, the waters of salvation, that shall flow from Jerusalem, and water the valley of Shittim. Shittim was in the plains of Moab beyond Jordan; Num 33:49; Jos 3:1; but as no stream of water could flow from the temple, pass across Jordan, or reach this plain, the valley of Shittim must be considered symbolical, as the valley of Jehoshaphat. But as Shittim may signify thorns, it may figuratively represent the most uncultivated and ferocious inhabitants of the earth receiving the Gospel of Christ, and being civilized and saved by it. We know that briers and thorns are emblems of bad men; see Eze 2:6. Thus all the figures in this verse will point out the happy times of the Gospel: the mountains shall drop down new wine; the hills flow with milk; the thorny valleys become fertile, etc. Similar to those almost parallel words of the prince of poets: -

Virg. Ed. 4:20

Unbidden earth shall wreathing ivy bring

And fragrant herbs the promises of spring

The goats with streaming dugs shall homeward speed

And lowing herds, secure from lions, feed

Unlabour’ d harvests shall the fields adorn

And cluster’ d grapes shall grow on every thorn

The knotted oaks shall showers of honey weep

Dryden.

Egypt shall be a desolation - While peace, plenty, and prosperity of every kind, shall crown my people, all their enemies shall be as a wilderness; and those who have used violence against the saints of God, and shed the blood of innocents (of the holy Martyrs) in their land, when they had political power; these and all such shall fall under the just judgments of God.

But Judah shall dwell for ever - The true Church of Christ shall be supported, while all false and persecuting Churches shall be annihilated. The promise may also belong to the full and final restoration of the Jews, when they shall dwell at Jerusalem as a distinct people professing the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For I will cleanse their blood - נקיתי nikkeythi , I will avenge the slaughter and martyrdom of my people, which I have not yet avenged

Persecuting nations and persecuting Churches shall all come, sooner or later, under the stroke of vindictive justice

For the Lord dwelleth in Zion - He shall be the life, soul, spirit, and defense of his Church for ever. This prophet, who has many things similar to Ezekiel, ends his prophecy nearly in the same way

Ezekiel says of the glory of the Church, יהוה שמה Yehovah shammah , The Lord Is There

Joel says, יהוה שכן בציון Yehovah shochen betsiyon , The Lord Dwelleth in Zion

Both point out the continued indwelling of Christ among his people

The Prophet confirms in these words what he had before taught respecting the restoration of the Church; for it was a thing difficult to be believed: when the body of the people was so mutilated, when their name was obliterated, when all power was abolished, when the worship of God also, together with the temple, was subverted, when there was no more any form of a kingdom, or even of any civil government, who could have thought that God had any concern for a people in such a wretched condition? It is then no wonder that the Prophet speaks so much at large of the restoration of the Church; he did so, that he might more fully confirm what would have otherwise been incredible.

He therefore says, Behold, in those days, and at that time, in which I shall restore the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I shall then make all Gentiles to come down into the valley of Jehoshaphat. And the Prophet says this, because the Jews were then hated by all people, and were the execration and the dregs of the whole world. As many nations as were under heaven, so many were the enemies of the Jews. A fall then inter despair was easy, when they saw the whole world incensed against them: “Though God may wish to redeem us, there are yet so many obstacles, that we must necessarily perish; not only the Assyrians are enraged against us, but we have found even greater hatred in our own neighbors.” We, indeed, know that the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Syrians, the Sidonians, the Idumeans, the Philistines, and, in short, all in the surrounding countries, were very hostile to the Jews. Seeing then every access to their land was closed up to the Jews, it was difficult to entertain any hope of deliverance, though God encouraged them. For this reason the Prophet now says, that God would be the judge of the whole world, and that it was in his purpose and power to call together all the Gentiles, as though he said, “Let not the number and variety of enemies frighten you: the Assyrians alone, I know, are not your enemies, but also all your neighbors; but when I undertake the defense of your cause, I shall be alone sufficient to protect you; and however much all people may oppose, they shall not prevail. Then believe that I shall be a sufficient defender, and shall deliver you from the hand of all the nations ” We now perceive the Prophet’s design when he declares, that God would come to the valley of Jehoshaphat, and there call together all nations.

But the Prophet says, In those days, and at that time, when the Lord shall restore the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, etc. This time the Jews limit to their return: they therefore think, that when liberty to return was granted them by Cyrus and Darius, what the Prophet declares here was then fulfilled; Christian doctors apply this prediction to the coming of Christ; but both interpret the words of the Prophet otherwise than the drift of the passage requires. The Prophet, no doubt, speaks here of the deliverance we have just noticed, and at the same time includes the kingdom of Christ; and this, as we have seen in other parts, is very commonly done. While then the prophets testify that God would be the redeemer of his people, and promise deliverance from Babylonian exile, they lead the faithful, as it were, by a continuous train or course, to the kingdom of Christ. For what else was the Jewish restoration, but a prelude of that true and real redemptions afterwards effected by Christ? The Prophet then does not speak only of the coming of Christ, or of the return of the Jews, but includes the whole of redemption, which was only begun when the Lord restored his people from the Babylonian exile; it will then go on from the first coming of Christ to the last day; as though he said, “When God will redeem his people, it will not be a short or momentary benefit, but he will continue his favor until he shall visit with punishment all the enemies of his Church.” In a word, the Prophet here shows, that God will not be a half Redeemer, but will continue to work until he completes everything necessary for the happy state of his Church, and makes it in every respect perfect. This is the import of the whole.

We also see that the Prophet Haggai speaks in the same manner of the second temple, — that the glory of the second temple shall be greater than that of the first, (Hag 2:3) He, however referred, no doubt, to the prophecy of Ezekiel; and Ezekiel speaks of the second temple, which was to be built after the return of the people from exile. Be it so, yet Ezekiel did not confine to four or five ages what he said of the second temple: on the contrary he meant that the favor of God would be continued to the coming of Christ: so also Joel means here, when he says, When God shall restore the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, he will then call together all the nations; as though he said, “God will pour out not a small portion of grace, but will become the complete Redeemer of his people; and when the whole world shall rise against him, he will yet prevail; he will undertake the cause of his Church, and will secure the salvation of his people. Whosoever then will attempt to delay or hinder the restoration of the Church, shall by no means succeed; for the Lord, the defender of his people, will judge all nations.”

Let us now see why the Prophet particularly mentions the valley of Jehoshaphat. Many think that valley to be intended, which was called the Valley of Blessing, where Jehoshaphat obtained a signal and a memorable victory, when yet he was not provided with large forces, and when many nations conspired against him. Though Jehoshaphat fought against a large army with a few people, he yet wonderfully succeeded; and the people there presented thanks to God, and gave a name to the place. Hence, many think that this valley is mentioned, that the Prophet might remind the Jews how wonderfully they were saved; for their enemies had come for the very purpose of destroying the whole of God’s people, and thought that this was wholly in their power. The memory then of this history must have animated the minds of the godly with a good hope; for God then undertook the cause of a small number against a vast multitude; yea, against many and powerful nations. And this view seems to me probable. Some place this valley of Jehoshaphat half way between the Mount of Olives and the city; but how probable their conjecture is I know not.

Unquestionably, with regard to this passage, their opinion, in my judgment, is the most correct, who think that there is here a recalling to mind of God’s favor, which may in all ages encourage the faithful to entertain hope of their salvation. Some, however, prefer to take the word as an appellative; and no doubt יהושפט ieushaphath means the judgment of God; and so they render it, “The valley of the judgment of God.” If this is approved I do not oppose. And, doubtless, though it be a proper name, and the Prophet speak here of that holy King, to encourage the Jews to follow his example, he yet alludes, no doubt, to the judgment of God, or to the contest which he would undertake for the sake of his people: for it immediately follows וכ שפטתי עמם שם uneshaphathti omem shim, “And I will contend with them there:” and this verb is derived from שפט shephath. Hence also, if it be the proper name of a place, and taken from that of the King, the Prophet here meant, that its etymology should be considered; as though he said, “God will call all nations to judgment, and for this end, that he may dwell in the midst of his people, and really testify and prove this.”

Some apply this passage to the last judgment, but in too strained a manner. Hence also has arisen the figment, that the whole world shall be assembled in the valley of Jehoshaphat: but the world, we know, became infected with such delirious things, when the light of sound doctrine was extinguished; and no wonder, that the world should be fascinated with such gross comments, after it had so profaned the worship of God. ¹³

But with respect to the intention of the Prophets he, no doubt, mentions here the valley of Jehoshaphat, that the Jews might entertain the hope that God would be the guardian of their safety; for he says everywhere that he would dwell among them, as we have also seen in the last chapter, “And God will dwell in the midst of you.” So also now he means the same, I will assemble all nations, and make them to come down to the valley of Jehoshaphat; that is, though the land shall for a time be uncultivated and waste, yet the Lord will gather his people, and show that he is the judge of the whole world; he will raise a trophy in the land of Judah, which will be nobler than if the people had ever been safe and entire: for how much soever all nations may strive to destroy the remnant, as we know they did, though few remained; yet God will sit in the valley of Jehoshaphat, he will have there his own tribunal, that he may keep his people, and defend them from all injuries. At the same time, what I have before noticed must be borne in mind; for he names here the valley of Jehoshaphat rather than Jerusalem, because of the memorable deliverance they had there, when God discomfited so many people, when great armies were in an instant destroyed and without the aid of men. Since God then delivered his people at that time in an especial manner through his incredible power, it is no wonder that he records here the name of the valley of Jehoshaphat.

I will contend, he says, with them there for my people, and for my heritage, Israel. By these words the Prophet shows how precious to God is the salvation of his chosen people; for it is no ordinary thing for God to condescend to undertake their cause, as though he himself were offended and wronged; and God contends, because he would have all things in common with us. We now then, see the reason of this contention, — even because God so regards the salvation of his people, that he deems himself wronged in their person; as it is said in another place, “He who toucheth you toucheth the apple of mine eye”. And to confirm his doctrine still more, the Prophet adds, For mine heritage, Israel. God calls Israel here his heritage, to strengthen distressed minds, and also to comfort them; for if the Jews had only fixed their minds on their own state, they could not but think themselves unworthy of being regarded by God; for they were deemed abominable by all nations; and we also know that they were severely chastised for having departed from all godliness and for having, as it were, wholly alienated themselves from God. Since, then, they were like a corrupted body, they could not but despond in their adversity: but the Prophet here comes to their assistance, and brings forward the word heritage, as though he said, “God will execute judgment for you, not that ye are worthy, but because he has chosen you: for he will never forget the covenant which he made with your father Abraham ” We see, then, the reason he mentions heritage: it was, that the Jews might not despair on account of their sins; and at the same time he commends, as before, the gratuitous mercy of God, as though he had said, “The reason for your redemption is no other, but that God has allotted to himself the posterity of Abraham and designed them to be his peculiar people ” What remains we must defer until to-morrow.

There follows now another indignity still greater; for they cast lot on God’s people, — On my people they have cast lot, and prostituted a boy for a harlot, and a girl have they sold for wine, that they might drink. By these words the Prophet enhances the injury done them; for the Jews had been reproachfully treated. Some measure of humanity is mostly shown when men are sold; but the Prophet here complains in the person of God, that the Jews had been exposed to sale, as though they were the off scourings of mankind, and of no account. They have cast lots he says; and this was to show contempt; and the Prophet expresses more clearly what he meant, and says, that a boy had been given for a harlot, and a girl for wine. Some consider the Prophet as saying, that boys were prostituted to base and scandalous purposes; but I prefer another view, — that the enemies sold them for a mean price to gratify their gluttony, or their lust; as though the Prophet had said, that the Jews had to endure a grievous reproach by being set to sale, as they say, and that at the lowest price. He farther adds another kind of contempt; for whatever price the enemies procured by selling, they spent it either on harlot or on feasting. We hence see that a twofold injury is here mentioned, — the Jews had been so despised as not to be regarded as men, and had been sold not for the usual prices, but had been disposed of in contempt by their enemies almost for nothing; — and the other reproach was, that the price obtained for them was afterwards spent on gluttony and whoredom: yet this people was sacred to God. Now this contumelious treatment, the Prophet says, God would not endure, but would avenge such a wrong as if done to himself. This is then the meaning.

But the reason which induces me thus to interpret the Prophet is because he says that a girl was sold for wine, as the boy for a harlot; and the construction of the Prophet’s words is the same. It is indeed certain that in the latter clause the Prophet meant nothing else but that the price was wickedly spent for vile and shameful purposes; then the former clause must be understood in the same way. Let us proceed —

God expostulates here with Tyre and Sidon, and other neighboring nations, and shows that they vexed his people without cause Had they been provoked some excuse might have been made; but since they made war of their own accord, the wrong was doubled. This is what God means these words. What have ye to do with me, O Tyre and Sidon? He indeed continues the subject before explained: but he speaks of the concern here as hid own; he seems not now to undertake the protection of his own people, but detents his own cause. “What have ye to do with me?” he says. God then interposes himself; as though he said, that the Syrians and Sidonians were not only called by him to judgment because they had unjustly wronged his people, and brought many troubles on men deserving no such things; but he says also, that he stood up in his own defense. “What have I to do with you, O Syrians and Sidonians?” as we say in French, Qu’avons-nous a desmeller ? (what have we to decide?) Now the Prophet had this in view, that the Syrians and Sidonians became voluntary enemies to the Jews, when they had no dispute with them; and this, as we have said, was less to be borne. “What then have ye to do with me, O Syrians and Sidonians? Do I owe anything to you? Am I under any obligation to you? Do ye repay me my recompense?” that is, “Can you boast of any reason or just pretense for making, war on my people?” He then means, that there had been no wrong done to the Syrians and Sidonians, which they could now retaliate, but that they made an attack through their own wickedness, and were only impelled by avarice or cruelty thus to harass the miserable Jews: “Ye repay not,” he says, “a recompense to me; for ye cannot pretend that any wrong has been done to you by me.”

But if ye repay this to me, he says, I will swiftly return the recompense on your head גמל gimel means not only to repay, as the Hebrew scholars ever render it, but also to confer, to bestow, ( conferre, ut loquuntur Latine ) as it has been stated in another place. ‘What shall I repay to the Lord for all the things which he has recompensed to me?’ This is the common version; but it is an improper and inconsistent mode of speaking. David no doubt refers to God’s benefits; then it is, ‘What shall I repay for all the benefits which the Lord has bestowed on me?’ Then he who first does wrong, or bestows good, is said to recompense; and this is the sense in this place. ‘If ye,’ he says, ‘thus deal with me, “ swiftly ”, מהרה mere suddenly (for the word is to be taken as an adverb,) will I return recompense on your head;’ that is, “Ye shall not be unpunished, since ye have acted so unjustly with me and my people.” We now perceive the whole meaning of the Prophet: He enhances the crime of the Syrians and Sidonians, because they willfully distressed the Jews, and joined themselves to their foreign enemies, for the purpose of seizing on a part of the spoil. As, then, vicinity softened not their minds, their inhumanity was on this account more fully proved. But, as I have said, the Lord here places himself between the two parties, to intimate, that he performs his own proper office when he takes care of the safety of his Church.

He afterwards shows that this wickedness should not be unpunished — If ye deal thus with me, he says, I shall swiftly (suddenly) return the recompense on your heads. This passage contains a singular consolation; for God declares that whatever evils the faithful endure belong to him, and also that he will not suffer those under his protection and defense to be distressed with impunity, but will quickly return recompense on the heads of those who unjustly injure his heritage. We now understand the Prophet’s design: he doubtless intended to support the minds of the godly with this thought, — that their afflictions are objects of concern with God and that he will shortly be the avenger of them, however necessary it may be that they should for a time be thus violently and reproachfully treated by wicked men.

Let us now proceed: He says that their silver and their gold had been taken away by the Syrians and the Sidonians. All who were the neighbors of that people, no doubt, derived gain from their calamity, as is usually the case. They were at first ill disposed towards them; there was then a new temptation; they gaped after booty: and they showed themselves openly their enemies, when they saw that there was hope of gain. Such was the case with the Syrians and Sidonians. There is no doubt, but that they sedulously courted the favor of the Assyrians, that they helped them with provisions and other things, that they might partake of the spoil. It was, therefore, no wonder that gold and silver was taken away by them, for the carriage of them to Assyria would have been tedious: and, as I have just hinted, it is usually the case, that conquerors gratify those by whom they have been assisted. Many extend this plunder generally to the whole wealth of the people; that is, that the enemies plundered what gold and silver there was in Judea, and that the Sidonians got a portion of it for themselves. But there seems to have been a special complaint, that the sacred vessels of the temple were taken away by the Syrians and Sidonians: I therefore prefer to render the word, temples, rather than palaces. Some say, ‘Ye have carried away my silver and my gold to your palaces.’ Though the word is capable of two meanings, yet the Prophet, I have no doubt, refers here to the temples. The Syrians, then, and the Sidonians profaned the silver and the gold of the temple by dedicating them to their idols; they adorned their idols with spoils taken from the only true God. This was the reason why God was so exceedingly displeased. There was, indeed, a cause why God, as we have said, contended for the whole nation of Israel: but it was a far more heinous wrong to spoil the temple, and to strip it of its ornaments, and then to adorn idols with its sacred vessels; for God was thus treated with scorn; and in contempt of him, the Syrians and Sidonians built, as it were, a trophy of victory in their own dens, where they performed sacrilegious acts in worshipping fictitious gods.

Ye have taken away, he says, my gold and silver, and my desirable good things. God speaks here after the manner of men; for it is certain that even under the law he stood in no need of gold or silver, or of other precious things; he wished the temple to be adorned with vessels and other valuable furniture for the sake of the ignorant ( rudis — rude) people; for the Jews could not have been preserved in pure and right worship, had not God assisted their weak faith by these helps. ( adminiculis — props, aids) But yet, as obedience is acceptable to him, he says that whatever was an ornament in the temple was a desirable thing to him; while, at the same time, by speaking thus, he put on, as I have said, a character not his own, as he has no need of such things, nor is he delighted with them. We ought not, indeed, to imagine God to be like a child, who takes delight in gold and silver and such things; but what is said here was intended for the benefit of the people, that they might know that God approved of that worship, for it was according to his command. He therefore calls every thing that was in the temple desirable, Ye have, he says, carried away into your temples my desirable good things.

It follows, And the children of Judah, and the children of Jerusalem, have ye sold to the children of the Grecians ¹⁴. There is here another complaint subjoined, — that the Syrians and Sidonians had been sacrilegious towards God, that they had cruelly treated God’s afflicted people. In the last verse, God inveighed against the Syrians, and Sidonians for having prostituted to their idols gold and silver stolen from him; he now again returns to the Jews themselves, who, he says, had been sold to the children of the Grecians; that is, to people beyond the sea: for as Javan passed into Europe, he includes under that name the nations beyond the sea. And he says, that they sold the Jews to the Greeks that they might drive them far from their own borders, so that there might be no hope of return. Here the cruelty of the Syrians and Sidonians becomes more evident; for they took care to drive those wretched men far away, that no return to their country might be open to them, but that they might be wholly expatriated.

We now perceive what the Prophet had in view: He intended that the faithful though trodden under foot by the nations, should yet have allayed their grief by some consolation, and know that they were not neglected by God; and that though he connived at their evils for a time, he would yet be their defender, and would contend for them as for his own heritage, because they had been so unjustly treated. He afterwards adds —

The Prophet declares here more fully and expressly, that God had not so deserted the Jews, but that he intended, in course of time, to stretch forth his hand to them again. It was indeed a temporary desertion: but it behaved the faithful in the meantime to rely on this assurance, — that God purposed again to restore his people: and of this the Prophet now speaks, Behold, he says, I will raise them from the place unto which ye have sold them; as though he said “ Neither distance of place, nor the intervening sea, will hinder me from restoring my people. ” As then the Syrians and Sidonians thought that the Jews were precluded a return to their country, because they were taken away into distant parts of the world, God says that this would be no obstacle in his way to collect again his Church.

But it may he asked, When has this prediction been fulfilled? as we indeed know that the Jews have never returned to their own country: for shortly after their return from exile, they were in various ways diminished; and at length the most grievous calamities followed, which consumed the greatest part of the people. Since this then has been the condition of that nation, we ought to inquire whether Christ has collected the Jews, who had been far dispersed. We indeed know that they were then especially scattered; for the land of Judea never ceased to be distressed by continual wars until Jerusalem was destroyed, and the people were almost wholly consumed. Since then it has been so, when can we say that this prediction has been fulfilled? Many explain the words allegorically, and say, that the Prophet speaks of apostles and martyrs, who, through various persecutions, were driven into different parts; but this is a strained view. I therefore do not doubt, but that here he refers to a spiritual gathering: and it is certain that God, since the appearance of Christ, has joined together his Church by the bond of faith; for not only that people have united together in one, but also the Gentiles, who were before alienated from the Church, and had no intercourse with it, have been collected into one body. We hence see, that what the Prophet says has been spiritually fulfilled; even the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have been redeemed by the Lord, and restored again, not on foot or by sea; for Jerusalem has been built everywhere as it is said in Zechariah.

I will therefore gather them, he says; and he adds, I will return recompense on your head He again confirms what he said before, — that though the ungodly should exult, while ruling over the children of God, their cruelty would not be unpunished; for they shall find that the Church is never neglected by God; though he may subject it to various troubles, and exercise its patience, and even chastise it, he will yet be ever its defender. It follows —

The Prophet describes here a wonderful change: the Syrians and Sidonians did sell the Jews; but who is to be the seller now? God himself will take this office, — I, he says, will sell your children, as though he said, “The Jews shall subdue you and reduce you to bondage,” — by whose authority? “It shall be, as if they bought you at my hands.” He means that this servitude would be legitimate; and thus he makes the Jews to be different from the Syrians and Sidonians, who had been violent robbers, and unjustly seized on what was not their own: and hence the manner of the sale is thus described, — “I myself shall be the author of this change, and the thing shall be done by my authority, as if I had interposed my own name;” and the Jews themselves shall sell, he says, your sons and your daughters to the Sabeans, a distant nation; that is, the people of the East: for the Prophet, I doubt not, by mentioning a part for the whole, meant here to designate Eastern nations, such as the Persians and Medes; but he says, that the Tyrians and Sidonians shall be driven to the meet distant countries; for the Sabeans were very far distant from the Phoenician Sea, and were known as being very nigh the Indians. ¹⁵

But it may be asked here, When has God executed this judgment? for the Jews never possessed such power as to be able to subdue neighboring nations, and to sell them at pleasure to unknown merchants. It would indeed be foolish and puerile to insist here on a literal fulfillment: at the same time, I do not say, that the Prophet speaks allegorically; for I am disposed to keep from allegories, as there is in them nothing sound nor solid: but I must yet say that there is a figurative language used here, when it is said, that the Syrians and Sidonians shall be sold and driven here and there into distant countries, and that this shall be done for the sake of God’s chosen people and his Church, as though the Jews were to be the sellers. When God says, “I will sell,” it is not meant that he is to descend from heaven for the purpose of selling, but that he will execute judgment on them; and then the second clause, — that they shall be sold by the Jews, derives its meaning from the first; and this cannot be a common sake, as if the Jews were to receive a price and make a merchandise of them. But God declares that the Jews would be the sellers, because in this manner he signifies his vengeance for the wrong done to them; that is, by selling them to the Sabeans, a distant nation. We further know, that the changes which then followed were such that God turned upside down nearly the whole world; for he drove the Syrian and the Sidonians to the most distant countries. No one could have thought that this was done for the sake of the Jews, who were hated and abominated by all. But yet God declares, that he would do this from regard to his Church even sell the Syrians and the Sidonians, though it was commonly unknown to men; for it was the hidden judgment of God. But the faithful who had been already taught that God would do this, were reminded by the event how precious to God is his heritage, since he avenges those wrongs, the memory of which had long before been buried. This then is the import of the whole. The Prophet now subjoins —

Some think these words were announced lest the people, being terrified by their evils, should become wholly dejected; and they elicit this meaning, — that God placed this dreadful spectacle of evils before their eyes, that the Jews might prepare and strengthen themselves for enduring them; that though nations should everywhere rise up, they might yet abide arm in the hope, that God would be the defender of his own Church. But the Prophet, I doubt not, continues the same discourse, and denounces war on the heathen nations, who had molested the Church with so many troubles; Publish this, he says, among the nations, proclaim war, rouse the strong; let them come, let them ascend: and we know how necessary it was by such means to confirm what he had previously said: for the ungodly are moved by no threats, nay, they laugh to scorn all God’s judgments; while the faithful yielding to their evils, can hardly raise up their minds, even though God promises to be a helper to them. Except, then, the matter had been set forth as painted before their eyes they would not have experienced the power of consolation. Hence the lively representation we see here was intended for this end, — that the people, being led to view the whole event, might entertain hope of their future salvation, while they now saw God collecting his army, and mustering his forces to punish the enemies of his Church. The faithful, then not only hearing by mere words that this would be, but also seeing, as it were, with their eyes what the Lord sets forth by a figure, and a lively representation, were more effectually impressed and felt more assured that God would become at length their deliverer.

We now then see why the Prophet here bids war to be everywhere announced and proclaimed, and also why he bids the strong to assemble, and all warlike men to ascend; as though he said, “The Lord will not disappoint you with empty words, but will come provided with an army to save you. When ye hear, then, that he will be the author of your salvation, think also that all nations are in his power, and that the whole world can in a moment be roused up by his rod, so that all its forces may from all quarters come together, and all the power of the world meet in obedience to him. Know, then, that being provided with his forces, he comes not to you naked, nor feeds you with mere words, as they are wont to do who have no help to give but words only: this is not what God does; for he can even to-day execute what he has denounced; but he stays for the ripened time. In the meanwhile, give him his honor, and know that there is not wanting the means to protect you, if he wished; but he would have you for a time to be subject to the cross and to tribulations that he may at length avenge the wrongs done to you.”

It may be now asked who are the nations meant by the Prophet? for he said before, that God would visit all nations with punishment, whereas, there was then no nation in the world friendly to the Jews. But in this there is nothing inconsistent; for God caused all the enemies of the Church to assail one another on every side, and to destroy themselves with mutual slaughters. Hence, when he designed to take vengeance on the Tyrians and Sidonians, he roused up the Persian and Medes; and when he purposed to punish the Persian and Medes, he called the Greeks into Asia; and he had before brought low the Assyrians. Thus he armed all nations, but each in its turn; and one after the other underwent the punishment they deserved. And so the expression of the Prophet must not be taken in a too restricted sense, as though the Lord would at the same time collect an army from the whole world, to punish the enemies of his Church; but that he rouses the whole world, so that some suffer punishment from others; and yet no enemy of the Church remains unpunished. We now perceive the Prophet’s objects in saying, Publish this among the nations; that is, God will move dreadful tumults through the whole world, and will do this for the sake of his Church: for though he exposes his people to many miseries, he will yet have the remnant, as we have before seen, to be saved.

He afterwards adds, Beat your plowshares into swords. When Isaiah and Micah prophesied of the kingdom of Christ, they said, ‘Beat your swords into pruninghooks, and your spears into plowshares’, (Isa 2:4.) This sentence is now inverted by Joel. The words of Isaiah and Micah were intended figuratively to show that the world would be at peace when Christ reconciled men to God, and taught them to cultivate brotherly kindness. But the Prophet says here, that there would be turbulent commotions everywhere, so that there would be no use made of the plough or of the pruninghook; husbandmen would cease from their labor, the land would remain waste; for this is the case when a whole country is exposed to violence; no one dares go out, all desert their fields, cultivation is neglected. Hence the Prophet says, ‘Turn your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears;’ that is, field labor will cease, and all will strenuously apply themselves to war. And let the weak say, I am strong, for there will then be no exemption from war. Excuses, we know, availed formerly on the ground of age or disease, when soldiers were collected; and if any one could have pleaded disease, he was dismissed; but the Prophet says, that there will be no exemption then; “God”, he says, “will excuse none, he will compel all to become warriors, he will even draw out all the sick from their beds; all will be constrained to put on arms”. It hence appears how ardently the Lord loves his Church, since he spares no nations and no people, and exempts none from punishment; for all who have vexed the Church must necessarily receive their recompense. Since then God so severely punishes the enemies of his Church, he thereby gives a singular evidence of his paternal love to us.

At length he concludes, There will Jehovah overthrow thy mighty ones. Though the Prophet uses the singular number, “ thy ”, he no doubt refers to the whole earth; as though he said, “Whatever enemies there may be to my people, I will cut them down, however strong they may be.” We now perceive that everything the Prophet has hitherto said has been for this end — to show, that God takes care of the safety of his Church, even in its heaviest afflictions, and that he will be the avenger of wrongs, after having for a time tried the patience of his people and chastised their faults — that there will be a turn in the state of things, so that the condition of the Church will be ever more desirable, even under its greatest evils, than of those whom the Lord bears with and indulges, and on whom he does not so quickly take vengeance.

The Prophet proceeds with the same subject, — that God will at length become an avenger of the wrongs of his people, when they shall be unjustly harassed by profane men. We indeed know that God does not immediately succor his servants but rests as though he did not regard their troubles; but this he does to try their patience; and then at a suitable time he declares that he had not been indifferent, but had noticed the evils done to them, and deferred punishment until the wickedness of his enemies had been completed. So he says now, that God will at length be the defender of his people against all the nations assembled from every quarter in the valley of Jehoshaphat. Of this valley we have said enough already. But the chief thing is, that the afflictions of the Church shall not go unpunished; for God at the right time will ascend his tribunal, and cause all nations from every part of the earth to assemble and to be there judged. Now it follows —

As God defers his judgments when miserable men groan under their burdens, the Prophet uses a form of speech, which represents God as not delaying, but, on the contrary, as hastening to judgment, though this be not perceived by carnal minds; for these two things well agree together — God waiting his opportunity as to the ungodly and suspending the punishment they deserve — and yet quickly accelerating their destruction; for he is said to defer with respect to men, because one day with us is like a hundred years; and he is said to hasten, because he knows the exact points of time. So he says in this place, Put forth the sickle, for the harvest has ripened. He uses metaphorical words, but he afterwards expresses without a figure what he means and says, that their wickedness had multiplied

But there are here two metaphors, the one taken from the harvest, and the other from the vintage. The Prophet calls those reapers who have been destined to execute his judgment; for God makes use as it were of the hired work of men, and employs their hands here and there as he wills. He afterwards adds another metaphor, taken from the vintage, Full, he says, are the presses and the vats overflow; and at last he expresses what they mean, — that their wickedness had multiplied, that is, that it was overflowing. God said to Abraham, that the wickedness of the Canaanites was not then completed; and long was the space which he mentioned for he said that after four hundred years he would take vengeance on the enemies of his people: that was a long time; and Abraham might have objected and said “Why should God rest for so long a time?” The answer was this, — that their wickedness was not as yet completed. But the Prophet says here, that their wickedness had multiplied; he therefore gives to God’s servants the hope of near vengeance, as when the harvest approaches and the vintage is nigh at hand; for then all have their minds refreshed with joy. Such is the Prophet’s design; to encourage the faithful in their hope and expectation of a near deliverance, he declares that the iniquities of their enemies had now reached their full measure, so that God was now ready to execute on them his vengeance. This is the purport of the whole. It follows —

The Prophet confirms the same truth; but he multiplies words, because the devastation of the Church might have taken away all hope from God’s servants; for who could have said that the Church could be restored when it was so miserably wasted, yea, almost reduced to nothing? For the people were so scattered that the name of Israel was of no account. The people then had ceased to exist, for they had lost their name; in short, the constitution of the Church was dissolved, and all might have said, that the people were given up to thousand modes of destruction, as all execrated the name of Israel. Since it was so, whatever the Prophets said of the restoration of the people might certainly have seemed incredible. The repetition then is not superfluous, when the Prophet in various forms of words testifies and affirms that God would abide faithful, and that, though Israel should perish according to what men could see, yet God had power enough to vivify the people when dead: hence the Prophet speaks emphatically, Nations! Nations! for he assumes here the character of a herald, as indeed this office had been committed to him, and shows that his predictions would not be fruitless, that he declared not words which would vanish into air, but that whatever he declared in God’s name was full of power and energy. It might indeed have appeared ridiculous in the Prophet to summon all nations since his doctrine was laughed to scorn, even at Jerusalem. How could his voice penetrate to the utmost borders of the world and be there heard? Though hidden then was the power of this prediction, it yet showed itself at last, and it was really made evident that the Prophet spoke not in vain.

Besides, he addresses the nations as though they could hear; but he raises thus his voice, and nobly triumphs over all the wicked for the sake of the godly, though the wicked then proudly ruled and with high disdain: “They shall come,” he says, “at length before God’s tribunal, though they now tread the Church under foot; yea, the nations, the nations.” He does not now mention the valley of Jehoshaphat, but of concision. חרוף cheruts some take for a fixed decree; but the word means a sledge or an instrument for threshing. We know not the mode of threshing used by the Jews, but it is evident from several passages that חרוף cheruts was an instrument with which they were wont to thresh; and I am inclined to adopt this sense; for the Prophet had first called God’s judgment a harvest, then he compared it to presses. But if the word “concision” is more approved, I object not; at the same time, I do not doubt but that the Prophet alludes to threshing, as he ascribes to God his own office, that of scattering nations, who seem now to have conspired for the destruction of the Church. If any one considers it to mean a fixed decree, or a cutting off, as it means in Isaiah, I make no objection; for many give this interpretation. I have, however, explained what I most approve.

As to the drift of the subject, there is no ambiguity; the meaning of the Prophet is, — that God will so punish all the ungodly, that he will cut down and scatter them all, as when the corn is threshed on the floor.

At last he adds, that nigh was the day of Jehovah in the valley of the sledge. He intimates, that though God as yet connived at their wickedness, yet the day was coming on, unknown indeed to men, and that he would come at length to that valley, that is, that he would inflict such punishment as would prove that he was the protector of his people. Of this valley we have spoken already; and no doubt he has throughout a reference to it, otherwise he would not have used a suitable language, when he said, Ascend into the valley. But what is to ascend into the valley? for, on the contrary, he ought to have spoken of descending. But he compares Judea with other parts of the world; and it is, as it is well known elevated in its situation. Then the higher situation of Judea well agrees with the ascent of which the Prophet speaks. But he ever means that God would so punish the nations as to make it evident that he did this in favor of his Church, as we shall soon see more clearly. But he says —

I have already explained this verse in chapter 2 : the Prophet, as we then stated, describes in these words the terrible judgment of God, in order to shake off the indifference of men, who carelessly hear and despise all threatening, except the Lord storms their hearts. These figurative expressions then are intended to awaken the ungodly, and to make them know that it is a serious matter when the Lord proclaims his judgment. Let us now go on with the passage —

The Prophet explains here more clearly his object, or the end for which he had hitherto spoken of God’s judgment; for what we have heard served only to spread terror: but now the Prophet shows that his purpose was to console the faithful, and to give some relief to their troubles and sorrows. This is the reason why he introduces God as roaring from Zion and crying from Jerusalem. Roaring is ascribed to God, inasmuch as he compares himself in another place to a lion, when representing himself as the faithful protector of the salvation of his people: “I will be,” he says, “like the lion, who suffers not the prey to be taken from him, but boldly defends it with all the fierceness he possesses: so also will I do, I will not suffer my people to be taken from me.” In this sense does the Prophet now say, that God will roar from Zion. God had been for a time despised; for the nations had prevailed against his chosen people, and plundered them at their pleasure; and God then exercised not his power. Since God had been for a time still, the Prophet says now, that he will not always conceal himself, but that he will undertake the defense of his people, and be like a lion; for he will rise up in dreadful violence against all his enemies.

And tremble, he says, shall the heaven and the earth. As almost the whole world was opposed to his elect people, the Prophet carefully dwells on this point, that nothing might hinder the faithful from looking for the redemption promised to them: “Though the heaven and the earth,” he says, “raise oppositions God will yet prevail by his wonderful power. Tremble, he says, shall all the elements; what, then, will men do? Though they muster all their forces, and try all means, can they close up the way against the Lord, that he may not deliver his people?” We now understand the Prophet’s design in speaking of the shaking of heaven and earth.

He at last adds, God will be a hope to his people, and strength to the children of Israel. In this part he gives a sufficient proof of what I have stated, — that he denounces extreme vengeance on the nations for the sake of his Church; for the Lord will at length pity his people, though they may seem to have perished before he succors them. However past hope then the people may be in their own estimation and in that of all others, yet God will again raise up the expectation of all the godly, who shall remain, and will inspire them with new courage. He speaks in general of the children of Israel; but what he says belongs only to the remnant, of which the Prophet had lately spoken; for not all, we know, who derive their origin from the fathers according to the flesh, were true Israelites. The Prophet refers here to the true Church; and hence Israel ought to be taken for the genuine and legitimate children of Abraham; as Christ, in the person of Nathanael, calls those true Israelites who imitated the faith of their father Abraham. I shall to-day finish this Prophet; I do not therefore dwell much on every sentence. It now follows —

This is a confirmation of the preceding doctrine, ye shall know, he says, that I am your God. The Prophet intimates that the favor of God had been so hidden during the afflictions of the people, that they could not but think that they were forsaken by God. His word ought indeed to be sufficient for us in the greatest evils; for though God may cast us into the deepest gulfs, yet when he shines upon us by his word, it ought to be a consolation abundantly available to sustain our souls. But yet, unless God really appears, we are confounded, and ask where is his power. For this reason the Prophet now says, that the faithful shall at length know, that is, really know him as their God.

There is a twofold knowledge, — the knowledge of faith, received from his word, — and the knowledge of experience, as we say, derived from actual enjoyment. The faithful ever acknowledge that salvation is laid up for them in God; but sometimes they stagger and suffer grievous torments in their minds, and are tossed here and there. However it may be with them, they certainly do not by actual enjoyment know God to be their Father. The Prophet therefore now treats of real knowledge, when he says, that they shall know that they have a God, — how are they to know this? By experience. Now this passage teaches us, that though God should not put forth his hand manifestly to help us, we ought yet to entertain good hope of his favor; for the Prophet spoke for this end, — that the godly might, before the event or the accomplishment of the prophecy should come, look to God and cast on him all their cares. Then the faithful, before they had real knowledge, knew God to be their Father, and hence hesitated not to flee to him though what the Prophet testified had not yet been visibly accomplished.

Dwelling in Zion, the mountain of my holiness: This has been designedly added, that the faithful might know, that God made not a covenant in vain with Abraham, that mount Zion had not in vain been chosen, that they might there call on God; for we must have our attention called to the promises, otherwise all doctrine will become frigid. Now we know that all the promises have been founded on a covenant, that is, because God had adopted the people, and afterwards deposited his covenant in the hand of David, and then he designated mount Zion as his sanctuary. Since, then, all the promises flow from this fountain, it was necessary to call the attention of the Jews to the covenant: and this is the reason why the Prophet says now that God dwells in Zion; for otherwise this doctrine would no doubt only lead to superstition. God, indeed, we know, cannot be included within the circumference of any place, much less could he be confined to the narrow limits of the temple; but he dwelt on mount Zion on account of his own law, because he made a covenant with Abraham, and afterwards with David.

It then follows, And Jerusalem shall be holy, and aliens shall not pass through it any more. While he declares that Jerusalem shall be holy, he exempts it at the same time from profanation. We know that it is a common mode of speaking in Scripture, and what often occurs, that God’s heritage is holy, and also, that they profaned it. Hence, when the people were exposed as a prey to the pleasure of their enemies, the heritage of God became forsaken and polluted, profane men trod Jerusalem as it were under foot. But now the Prophet exempts the holy city from this pollution, as though he said, “The Lord will not allow his people to be thus miserably harassed, and will show that this city has been chosen by him, and that he has in it his dwelling. Aliens then shall no more pass through it — Why? For it is first the holy city of God, and then, of his Church.

But as this promise extends to the whole kingdom of Christ, God doubtless makes here a general promise, that he will be the protector of his Church, that it may not be subject to the will of enemies; and yet we see that it often happens otherwise. But this ought to be imputed to our sins, for we make the breaches. God would, indeed be a wall and a rampart to us, as it is said elsewhere, (Isa 26:1;) but we betray his Church by our sins. Hence aliens occupy a place in it: Ye we see at this day; for Antichrist, as it has been foretold, has now for ages exercised dominion in God’s sanctuary. Since it is so, we ought to mourn at seeing God’s holy Church profaned. Let us yet know, that God will take care to gather his elect, and to cleanse them from every pollution and defilement. It follows —

The Prophet here declares that God will be so bountiful to his people, that no good things will be wanting to them either in abundance or variety. When God then shall restore his Church, it will abound, he says, in every kind of blessing: for this is the meaning of this language, Distill new wine shall the mountains, and the hills shall make milk to run down; and all rivers also shall have abundant waters, and a fountain shall arise from the house of Judah to irrigate the valley of Shittim. We now perceive the design of Joel. But we must remember that when the Prophets so splendidly extol the blessings of God, they intend not to fill the minds of the godly with thoughts about eating and drinking; but profane men lay hold on such passages as though the Lord intended to gratify their appetite. We know, indeed, that God’s children differ much from swine: hence God fills not the faithful with earthly things, for this would not be useful for their salvation. At the same time, he thus enlarges on his blessings, that we may know that no happiness shall in any way be wanting to us, when God shall be propitious to us. We hence see that our Prophet so speaks of God’s earthly blessings, that he fills not the minds of the godly with these things but desires to raise them above, as though he said, that the Israelites would in every way be happy, after having in the first place been reconciled to God. For whence came their miseries and distresses of every kind, but from their sins? Since, then, all troubles, all evils, are signs of God’s wrath and alienation, it is no wonder that the Lord, when he declares that he will be propitious to them, adds also the proofs of his paternal love, as he does here: and we know that it was necessary for that rude people, while under the elements of the Law, to be thus instructed; for they could not as yet take solid food, as we know that the ancients under the Law were like children. But it is enough for us to understand the design of the Holy Spirit, namely, that God will satisfy his people with the abundance of all good things, as far as it will be for their benefit. Since God now calls us directly to heaven, and raises our minds to the spiritual life, what Paul says ought to be sufficient, — that to godliness is given the hope, not only of future life, but also of that which is present, (1Ti 4:8;) for God will bless us on the earth, but it will be, as we have already observed, according to the measure of our infirmity.

The valley of Shittim was nigh the borders of the Moabites, as we learn from Num 25:1, and Jos 2:1. Now when the Prophet says, that waters, flowing from the holy fountains would irrigate the valley of Shittim, it is the same as though he said, that the blessing of God in Judea would be so abundant, as to diffuse itself far and wide, even to desert valleys.

But he afterwards joins, that the Egyptians and Idumeans would be sterile and dry in the midst of this great abundance of blessings, for they were professed enemies to the Church. Hence God in this verse declares that they shall not be partakers of his bounty; that though all Judea would be irrigated, though it would abound in honeys milk, and wine, yet these would remain barren and empty; Mizraim, then, shall be a solitude, Edom shall be a desert of solitude. Why? Because of the troubles, he says, brought on the children of Judah. God again confirms this truth, that he has such a concern for his Church, that he will avenge wrongs done to it. God, then, does not always come to our help when we are unjustly oppressed, though he has taken us under his protection; but he suffers us for a time to endure our evils; and yet the end will show, that we have been ever dear to him and precious in his sight. So he says now, that for the harassments which the Egyptians and Idumeans occasioned to the children of Judah, they shall be destitute, notwithstanding the abundance of all good things.

Because they shed, he says, innocent blood in their ( or, in their own) land. If we refer this to Egypt and Idumea, the sense will be, that they had not protected fugitives, but, on the contrary, cruelly slew them, as though they had been sworn enemies. Many, we know, during times of distress, fled to Egypt and Idumea, to seek refuge there. As, then, the Egyptians had been so inhuman towards the distressed, the Prophet threatens them with vengeance. But I prefer to view what is said as having been done in Judea; they have then shed innocent Blood, that is, in Judea itself. As God had consecrated this land to himself to pollute it with unjust slaughters was a more atrocious crime. Forasmuch then as the Egyptians and Idumeans thus treated the Jews, and slew them in their own country in a base manner, though they were abiding quietly at home, it is no wonder that God declares, that he would be the avenger of these wrongs. It follows —

God here testifies that his redemption would not be for a short time, but that its fruit would be for a long, period, yea, perpetual: for it would be but a small thing for the Church to be redeemed, except God kept it safe under his own power. This second thing the Prophet now adds, — that Judah shall always remain safe, and that Jerusalem shall be for a continued succession of ages. The ungodly, we know, sometimes flourish for a time, though before God they are already doomed to destruction. But the Prophet here declares, that the fruit of the redemption he promises will be eternal: for God is not led to deliver his Church only for a moment, but he will follow it with perpetual favor, and remain constant in his purpose and ever like himself; he is therefore the eternal and faithful protector of his people. The last verse follows —

The beginning of the verse is in various ways explained. Some make a stop after cleanse thus, “I will cleanse, yet their blood I will not cleanse;” as though God had said, that he would forgive heathen nations all their other wrongs, but could not forgive them the great cruelty they had exercised against his elect. So the sense would be, “Avarice may be borne, I could pass by robberies; but, since they slew my people, I am in this case wholly unforgiving.” Hence, according to this view, God shows how precious to him is the life of his saints, inasmuch as he says, that he will not be pacified towards those ungodly men who have shed innocent blood. But this sense seems rather too forced. Others render thus, “Their blood will I cleanse, and will not cleanse,” that is, “I will cleanse the Jews from their defilements, but I will not use extreme severity;” as he says also in Isa 48:10, ‘I will not refine thee as gold or silver, for thou wouldest turn all into dross.’ They hence think that God promises here such a cleansing of the Church, as that he would not use extreme rigor, but moderate his cleansing, as it is needful with regard to our defilements, of which we are all so full.

But this sense seems to me more simple, — that God would cleanse the blood which he had not cleansed; as though he said, “I have not hitherto cleansed the pollutions of my people; they are then become, as it were, putrid in their sins; but now I will begin to purify all their wickedness, that they may shine pure before me.” There is a relative understood as is often the case in Hebrew. But נקה neke is taken in Jer 30:11, in another sense, that God will exterminate his Church: but we cannot in this place elicit any other meaning than that God will cleanse his Church from pollutions; for the Prophet, no doubt, means the defilements of which the people were full. They will not, then, be able to enjoy the favor of God while lying in their filth. Now God, in promising to be a Redeemer, comes to the very fountain and the first thing, — that he will wash away their filth; for how could God be the Redeemer of the people, except he blotted out their sins? For as long as he imputes sins to us, he must necessarily be angry with us, we must be necessarily altogether alienated from him and deprived of his blessing. He then does not say in vain that he will be a purifier; for when pollutions are cleansed, there follows another thing, which we have already noticed as to this, future redemption, and with this —

He at last concludes and says And Jehovah shall dwell in Zion. The Prophet recalls again the attention of the people to the covenant; as though he said, “God has willingly and bountifully promised all that has been mentioned, not because the people have deserved this, but because God has deigned long ago to adopt the children of Abraham, and has chosen mount Zion as his habitation.” He shows then this to be the reason why God was now inclined to mercy, and would save a people, who had a hundred times destroyed themselves by their sins.

The valley of Jehoshaphat is probably where the confederation of Ammon, Moab and Edom were miraculously defeated, when they came against Judah and King Jehoshaphat in the general region between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. It has also been suggested as the valley between Mount Zion and Mount Olivet. The exact location is unknown, but evidently the whole region will be filled with armies when God gathers all nations there, probably on their way to Armageddon (2 Chronicles 20). It may be centered around the valley of Berachah (2Ch 20:26).

The land promised to Abraham, from the Nile to the Euphrates, has been "parted" by many nations in the four thousand years since. Most recently, the land was divided between Israel and Jordan by the United Nations in 1948, and has been in contention ever since."

There is ample evidence, that the Greek nation was well established and the Greek peoples widely known by the time of Joel. The prophet here looks beyond the Babylonian captivity to the subsequent Persian rule and then that of the Greek empire."

This exhortation is for the nations to prepare to fight the returning Savior (Rev 16:13, Rev 16:14). Note its reversal when the battle of Armageddon is over and Christ's kingdom begins (Isa 2:4)."

These "mighty ones" must be the armies of the saints with Christ in heaven, as they "come down" with Him to smite and judge the rebellious nations at Armageddon (Rev 19:11-21)."

Compare Rev 14:18 : "Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.""

"Decision" here means "judicial verdict." The multitudes of the rebelling nations are about to be sentenced and executed!"

It is at this time that the full promise normally associated with Pentecost will be completely fulfilled. (Compare Joe 2:30, Joe 2:31; Act 2:19, Act 2:20)."

The Lord is "the Lion of the tribe of Judah" (Rev 5:5), and His powerful coming will be to the nations like the triumphant roar of a mighty lion, shaking the very heavens."

God's promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David will surely be fulfilled, as they were unconditional and eternal."

God Himself, in the person of His Son, will reign from the earthly Jerusalem for a thousand years (Rev 20:6), then in the New Jerusalem for ever (Rev 22:3-5)."

in those : Joe 2:29; Dan 12:1; Zep 3:19, Zep 3:20

when : Deu 30:3; 2Ch 6:37, 2Ch 6:38; Psa 14:7, Psa 85:1; Isa 11:11-16; Jer 16:15, Jer 23:3-8; Jer 29:14, Jer 30:3, Jer 30:18; Eze 16:53, Eze 37:21, Eze 37:22, Eze 38:14-18, Eze 39:25, Eze 39:28, Eze 39:29; Amo 9:14

also : Zep 3:8; Zec 14:2-4; Rev 16:14, Rev 16:16, Rev 19:19-21, Rev 20:8

the valley : Joe 3:12; 2Ch 20:26; Eze 39:11; Zec 14:4

will plead : Isa 66:16; Eze 38:22; Amo 1:11; Oba 1:10-16; Zec 12:3, Zec 12:4; Rev 11:18, Rev 16:6; Rev 18:20,Rev 18:21

and parted : Jer 12:14, Jer 49:1; Eze 25:8, Eze 35:10; Zep 2:8-10

2Ch 28:8, 2Ch 28:9; Amo 2:6; Oba 1:11; Nah 3:10; Rev 18:13

and what : Jdg 11:12; 2Ch 21:16, 2Ch 28:17, 2Ch 28:18; Act 9:4

O Tyre : Amo 1:6-10,Amo 1:12-14; Zec 9:2-8

will ye : Eze 25:12-17

swiftly : Deu 32:35; Isa 34:8, Isa 59:18; Jer 51:6; Luk 18:7; 2Th 1:6

ye : 2Ki 12:18, 2Ki 16:8, 2Ki 18:15, 2Ki 18:16, 2Ki 24:13, 2Ki 25:13-17; Jer 50:28, Jer 51:11; Dan 5:2, Dan 5:3

into : 1Sa 5:2-5

pleasant : Heb. desirable, Dan 11:38

have ye : Joe 3:3, Joe 3:8; Deu 28:32, Deu 28:68; Eze 27:13

Grecians : Heb. sons of the Grecians

I will : Isa 11:12, Isa 43:5, Isa 43:6, Isa 49:12; Jer 23:8, Jer 30:10,Jer 30:16, Jer 31:8, Jer 32:37; Eze 34:12, Eze 34:13, Eze 36:24, Eze 38:8; Zec 10:6-10

and will : Joe 3:4; Jdg 1:7; 1Sa 15:33; Est 7:10; Mat 7:2; 2Th 1:6; Jam 2:13; Rev 13:10; Rev 16:6, Rev 19:2

I will : Deu 32:30; Jdg 2:14, Jdg 4:2, Jdg 4:9

your sons : Isa 14:1, Isa 14:2, Isa 60:14

Sabeans : Job 1:15; Eze 23:42

far off : Jer 6:20

Proclaim : Psa 96:10; Isa 34:1; Jer 31:10, Jer 50:2

Prepare : Heb. sanctify, Eze 21:21, Eze 21:22

wake : Isa 8:9, Isa 8:10; Jer 46:3, Jer 46:4; Eze 38:7

your plowshares : Isa 2:4; Mic 4:3; Luk 22:36

pruninghooks : or, scythes

let : 2Ch 25:8; Zec 12:8

Assemble : Joe 3:2; Eze 38:9-18; Mic 4:12; Zep 3:8; Zec 14:2, Zec 14:3; Rev 16:14-16, Rev 19:19, Rev 19:20; Rev 20:8, Rev 20:9

cause : etc. or, the Lord shall bring down thy mighty ones, mighty. Psa 103:20; Isa 10:34, Isa 13:3, Isa 37:36; 2Th 1:7; Rev 19:14

valley : Joe 3:2, Joe 3:14; 2Ch 20:26; Eze 39:11; Zec 14:4

for : Psa 2:8, Psa 2:9, Psa 7:6, Psa 76:8, Psa 76:9, Psa 96:13, Psa 98:9, Psa 110:5, Psa 110:6; Isa 2:4, Isa 3:13; Eze 30:3; Mic 4:3; Rev 19:11

the sickle : Deu 16:9; Mar 4:29; Rev 14:15, Rev 14:16

the harvest : Jer 51:33; Hos 6:11; Mat 13:39

for the press : Isa 63:3; Lam 1:15; Rev 14:17-20

for their : Gen 13:13, Gen 15:16, Gen 18:20

multitudes : Joe 3:2; Isa 34:2-8, Isa 63:1-7; Ezek. 38:8-23, Eze 39:8-20; Rev 16:14-16, Rev 19:19-21

decision : or, concision, Phi 3:2, or, threshing

for : Joe 2:1; Psa 37:13; 2Pe 3:7

Joe 2:10,Joe 2:31; Isa 13:10; Mat 24:29; Luk 21:25, Luk 21:26; Rev 6:12, Rev 6:13

roar : Joe 2:11; Isa 42:13; Jer 25:30,Jer 25:31; Hos 11:10; Amo 1:2, Amo 3:8

and the heavens : Joe 2:10; Eze 38:19; Hag 2:6; Heb 12:26; Rev 11:13, Rev 11:19, Rev 16:18

hope : Heb. place of repair, or, harbour, Psa 18:2, Psa 46:1-11, Psa 61:3, Psa 91:1, Psa 91:2; Pro 18:10; Isa 33:16, Isa 33:21, Isa 51:5, Isa 51:6, Isa 51:16

and the strength : 1Sa 15:29; Psa 29:11; Zec 10:6, Zec 10:12, Zec 12:5-8

shall ye : Joe 3:21, Joe 2:27; Psa 9:11, Psa 76:2; Isa 12:6; Eze 48:35; Mic 4:7; Zep 3:14-16

my : Dan 11:45; Oba 1:16; Zec 8:3

Jerusalem : Isa 4:3; Jer 31:23; Eze 43:12; Oba 1:17; Zec 14:20

holy : Heb. holiness

there : Isa 35:8, Isa 52:1; Nah 1:15; Zec 14:21; Rev 21:27

the mountains : Job 29:6; Isa 55:12, Isa 55:13; Amo 9:13, Amo 9:14

and all : Isa 30:25, Isa 35:6, Isa 41:17, Isa 41:18

flow : Heb. go

and a : Psa 46:4; Eze 47:1-12; Zec 14:8; Rev 22:1, Rev 22:2

the valley : Num 25:1; Mic 6:5

Egypt : Isa 11:15, Isa 19:1-15; Zec 10:10, Zec 14:18, Zec 14:19

Edom : Isa. 34:1-17, Isa 63:1-6; Jer 49:17; Lam 4:21; Ezek. 25:1-17, Eze 35:1-15; Amo 1:11, Amo 1:12; Oba 1:1, Oba 1:10-14; Mal 1:3, Mal 1:4

for : Psa 137:7; Jer 51:35; Oba 1:10-16; 2Th 1:6

Judah : Isa 33:20; Eze 37:25; Amo 9:15

dwell : or, abide

will : Isa 4:4; Eze 36:25, Eze 36:29; Mat 27:25

for the Lord : or, even I the Lord that, Joe 3:17; Eze 48:35; Rev 21:3

For, behold - The prophet by the word, "for,"shows that he is about to explain in detail, what he had before spoken of, in sum. By the word, "behold,"he stirs up our minds for something great, which he is to set before our eyes, and which we should not be prepared to expect or believe, unless he solemnly told us, "Behold."As the detail, then, of what goes before, the prophecy contains all times of future judgment on those who should oppose God, oppress His Church and people, and sin against Him in them and all times of His blessing upon His own people, until the Last Day. And this it gives in imagery, partly describing nearer events of the same sort, as in the punishments of Tyre and Sidon, such as they endured from the kings of Assyria, from Nebuchadnezzar, from Alexander; partly using these, His earlier judgments, as representatives of the like punishments against the like sins unto the end.

In those days and in that time - The whole period of which the prophet had been speaking, was the time from which God called His people to repentance, to the Day of Judgment. The last division of that time was from the beginning of the Gospel unto that Day. He fixes the occasion of which he speaks by the words, "when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem."This form was used, before there was any general dispersion of the nation. For all captivity of single members of the Jewish people had this sore calamity, that it severed them from the public worship of God, and exposed them to idolatry. So David complains, "they have driven me out this day from abiding in the inheritance of the Lord, saying, go serve other gods"1Sa 26:19. The restoration then of single members, or of smaller bodies of captives, was, at that time, an unspeakable mercy. It was the restoration of those shut out from the worship of God; and so was an image "of the deliverance from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God"Rom 8:21, or of any "return"of those who had gone astray, "to the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls 1Pe 2:25. The grievous captivity of the Jews, now, is to Satan, whose servants they made themselves, when they said, "we have no king but Caesar; His Blood be upon us and upon our children."Their blessed deliverance will be "from the power of Satan unto God"Act 26:18. It is certain from Paul Rom 11:26, that there shall be a complete conversion of the Jews, before the end of the world, as indeed has always been believed. This shall probably be shortly before the end of the world, and God would here say, "when I shall have brought to an end the "captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,"i. e., of that people "to whom were the promises"Rom 9:4, and shall have delivered them from the bondage of sin and from blindness to light and freedom in Christ, then will I gather all nations to judgment."

I will gather all nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat - It may be that the imagery is furnished by that great deliverance which God gave to Jehoshaphat, when "Ammon and Moab and Edom come against"him, "to cast God’ s people out of"His "possession,"which "He gave"them "to inherit"2Ch 20:11, and Jehoshaphat appealed to God, "O our God, wilt Thou not judge them?"and God said, "the battle is not yours but God’ s,"and God turned their swords everyone against the other, "and none escaped. And on the fourth day they assembled themselves in the valley of Berachah"(blessing); "for there they blesed the Lord"2 Chr. 24, 26. So, in the end, He shall destroy antichrist, not by human aid, but "by the breath of His mouth,"and then the end shall come and lie shall sit on the throne of His glory to judge all nations. Then shall none escape of those gathered against Judah and Jerusalem, but shall be judged of their own consciences, as those former enemies of His people fell by their own swords.

That valley, however, is nowhere called "the valley of Jehoshaphat."It continued to be "called the valley of Berachah,"the writer adds, "to this day."And it is so called still. Caphar Barucha, "the village of blessing,"was still known in that neighborhood in the time of Jerome ; it had been known in that of Josephus . Southwest of Bethlehem and east of Tekoa are still 3 or 4 acres of ruins , bearing the name Bereikut , and a valley below them, still bearing silent witness to God’ s ancient mercies, in its but slightly disguised name, "the valley of Bereikut"(Berachah). The only valley called the "valley of Jehoshaphat", is the valley of Kedron, lying between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, incircling the city on the east.

There Asa, Hezekiah, and Josiah cast the idols, which they had burned 1Ki 15:13; 2Ch 30:14; 2Ki 23:6, 2Ki 23:12. The valley was the common burying-place for the inhabitants of Jerusalem . "There"was the garden where Jesus oftentimes resorted with His disciples; "there"was His Agony and Bloody Sweat; there Judas betrayed Him; thence He was dragged by the rude officers of the high priest. The temple, the token of God’ s presence among them, the pledge of His accepting their sacrifices which could only be offered there, overhung it on the one side. There, under the rock on which that temple stood, they dragged Jesus, "as a lamb to the slaughter"Isa 53:7. On the other side, it was overhung by the Mount of "Olives,"from where, "He beheld the city and wept over it,"because it "knew"not "in"that its "day, the things which belong to its peace;"whence, after His precious Death and Resurrection, Jesus ascended into, heaven.

There the Angels foretold His return, "This heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven"Act 1:11. It has been a current opinion, that our Lord should descend to judgment, not only in like manner, and in the like Form of Man, but in the same place, over this valley of Jehoshaphat. Certainly, if so it be, it were appropriate, that He should appear in His Majesty, where, for us, He bore the extremest shame; that He should judge "there,"where for us, He submitted to be judged. "He sheweth,"says Hilary (in Matt. 25), "that the Angels bringing them together, the assemblage shall be in the place of His Passion; and meetly will His Coming in glory be looked for there, where He won for us the glory of eternity by the sufferings of His humility in the Body."But since the Apostle says, "we shall meet the Lord in the air,"then, not "in"the valley of Jehoshaphat, but "over"it, in the clouds, would His throne be. : "Uniting, as it were, Mount Calvary and Olivet, the spot would be well suited to that judgment wherein the saints shall partake of the glory of the Ascension of Christ and the fruit of His Blood and Passion, and Christ shall take deserved vengeance of His persecutors and of all who would not be cleansed by His Blood."

God saith, "I will gather all nations,"of the gathering together of the nations against Him under antichrist, because He overrules all things, and while they, in "their"purpose, are gathering themselves against His people and elect, He, in His purpose secret to them, is gathering them to sudden destruction and judgment, "and will bring them down;"for their pride shall be brought down, and themselves laid low. Even Jewish writers have seen a mystery in the word, and said, that it hinteth "the depth of God’ s judgments,"that God "would descend with them into the depth of judgment", "a most exact judgment even the most hidden things."

His very presence there would say to the wicked , "In this place did I endure grief for you; here, at Gethsemane, I poured out for you that sweat of water and Blood; here was I betrayed and taken, bound as a robber, dragged over Cedron into the city; hard by this valley, in the house of Caiaphas and then of Pilate, I was for you judged and condemned to death, crowned with thorns, buffeted, mocked and spat upon; here, led through the whole city, bearing the Cross, I was at length crucified for you on Mount Calvary; here, stripped, suspended between heaven and earth, with hands, feet, and My whole frame distended, I offered Myself for you as a Sacrifice to God the Father. Behold the Hands which ye pierced; the Feet which ye perforated; the Sacred prints which ye anew imprinted on My Body. Ye have despised My toils, griefs, sufferings; ye have counted the Blood of My covenant an unholy thing; ye have chosen to follow your own concupiscences rather than Me, My doctrine and law; ye have preferred momentary pleasures, riches, honors, to the eternal salvation which I promised; ye have despised Me, threatening the fires of hell.

Now ye see whom ye have despised; now ye see that My threats and promises were not vain, but true; now ye see that vain and fallacious were your loves, riches, and dignities; now ye see that ye were fools and senseless in the love of them; but too late. "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."But ye who believed, hoped, loved, worshiped Me, your Redeemer, who obeyed My whole law; who lived a Christian life worthy of Me; who lived soberly, godly and righteously in this world, looking for the blessed hope and this My glorious Coming, "Come ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom of heaven prepared for you from the foundation of the World - And these shall go into everlasting fire; but the righteous into life eternal."Blessed he whoso continually thinketh or foreseeth, provideth for these things."

And will plead with them there - Woe to him, against whom God pleadeth! He saith not, "judgeth"but "pleadeth,"making Himself a party, the Accuser as well as the Judge , "Solemn is it indeed when Almighty God saith, "I will plead. He that hath ears to hear let him hear."For terrible is it. Wherefore also that "Day of the Lord"is called "great and terrible."For what more terrible than, at such a time, the pleading of God with man? For He says, "I will plead,"as though He had never yet pleaded with man, great and terrible as have been His judgments since that first destruction of the world by water. Past are those judgments on Sodom and Gomorrah, on Pharaoh and his hosts, on the whole people in the wilderness from twenty years old and upward, the mighty oppressions of the enemies into whose hands He gave them in the land of promise; past were the four Empires; but now, in the time of antichrist, "there shall be tribulation, such as there had not been from the beginning of the world."But all these are little, compared with that great and terrible Day; and so He says, "I will plead,"as though all before had not been, to "plead.""

God maketh Himself in such wise a party, as not to condemn those unconvicted; yet the "pleading"has a separate awfulness of its own. God impleads, so as to allow Himself to be impleaded and answered; but there is no answer. He will set forth what He had done, and how we have requited Him. And we are without excuse. Our memories witness against us; our knowledge acknowledges His justice; our conscience convicts us; our reason condemns us; all unite in pronouncing ourselves ungrateful, and God holy and just. For a sinner to see himself is to condemn himself; and in the Day of Judgment, God will bring before each sinner his whole self.

For My people - o : "God’ s people are the one true Israel, "princes with God,"the whole multitude of the elect, foreordained to eternal life."Of these, the former people of Israel, once chosen of God, was a type. As Paul says, "They are not all Israel which are of Israel"Rom 9:6; and again, "As many as walk according to this rule"of the Apostle’ s teaching, "peace be on them and mercy, and upon the Israel of God"Gal 6:16, i. e., not among the Galatians only, but in the whole Church throughout the world. Since the whole people and Church of God is one, He lays down one law, which shall be fulfilled to the end; that those who, for their own ends, even although therein the instruments of God, shall in any way injure the people of God, shall be themselves punished by God. God makes Himself one with His people. "He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of My eye"Zec 2:8. So our Lord said, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?"Act 9:4 and in the Day of Judgment He will say, "I was an hungered and ye gave me no meat. Forasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of these My brethern, ye did it not to Me"Mat 25:34-35. : "By calling them "My heritage,"He shows that He will not on any terms part with them or suffer them to be lost, but will vindicate them to Himself forever."

Whom they have scattered among the nations - Such was the offence of the Assyrians and Babylonians, the first ""army,"which God sent against His people. And for it, Nineveh and Babylon perished. : "Yet he does not speak of that ancient people, or of its enemies only, but of all the elect both in that people and in the Church of the Gentiles, and of all persecutors of the elect. For that people were a figure of the Church, and its enemies were a type of those who persecute the saints."The dispersion of God’ s former people by the pagan was renewed in those who persecuted Christ’ s disciples from "city to city,"banished them, and confiscated their goods. Banishment to mines or islands were the slightest punishments of the early Christians .

And they have cast lots - They treated God’ s people as of no account, and delighted in showing their contempt toward them. They chose no one above another, as though all alike were worthless. "They cast lots,"it is said elsewhere, "upon their honorable men"Nah 3:10, as a special indignity, above captivity or slavery. A "girl"they sold for an evening’ s revelry, and a "boy"they exchanged for a night’ s debauch.

Yea, and what have ye to do with Me? - Literally, "and also, what are ye to Me?"The words, "And also,"show that this is something additional to the deeds of those before spoken of. Those, instanced before, were great oppressors, such as dispersed the former people of God and "divided their land."In addition to these, God condemns here another class, those who, without having power to destroy, harass and vex His heritage. The words, "what are ye to Me?"are like that other phrase, "what is there to thee and me?"(Jos 22:24, etc; Mat 8:29, ...), i. e., what have we in common? These words, "what are ye to Me?"also declare, that those nations had no part in God. God accounts them as aliens, "what are ye to Me?"Nothing. But the words convey, besides, that they would, unprovoked, have to do with God, harassing His people without cause. They obtruded themselves, as it were, upon God and His judgments; they challenged God; they thrust themselves in, to their destruction, where they had no great temptation to meddle, noticing, but inbred malice, to impel them.

This was, especially, the character of the relations of Tyre and Zidon and Philistia with Israel. They were allotted to Israel by Joshua, but were not assailed . On the contrary, "the Zidonians"are counted among those who "oppressed"Israel, and "out of"whose "hand"God "delivered"him, when he "cried"to God Jdg 10:12. The Philistines were the unwearied assailants of Israel in the days of the Judges, and Saul, and David Jdg 13:1; 1 Sam. 4; 13; 17; 1Sa 23:1; 1 Sam. 30; 1Sa 31:1-13; during 40 years Israel was given into the hands of the Philistines, until God delivered them by Samuel at Mizpeh. When David was king of all Israel, the Philistines still acted on the offensive, and lost Gath and her towns to David in an offensive war 2Sa 5:17-25; 2Sa 8:1; 1Ch 18:1; 2Sa 21:18; 2Sa 13:9-16. To Jehoshaphat some of them voluntarily paid tribute 2Ch 17:11; but in the reign of Jehoram his son, they, with some Arabians, marauded in Judah, plundering the king’ s house and slaying all his sons, save the youngest 2Ch 21:16-17; 2Ch 22:1. This is the last event before the time of Joel. They stand among the most inveterate and unprovoked enemies of God’ s people, and probably as enemies of God also hating the claim of Judah that their God was the One God.

Will ye render Me a recompense? - People never want pleas for themselves. The Philistines, although the aggressors, had been signally defeated by David. People forget their own wrong-doings and remember their sufferings. It may be then, that the Philistines thought that they had been aggrieved when their assaults were defeated, and looked upon their own fresh aggressions as a requital. If moreover, as is probable, they heard that the signal victories won over them were ascribed by Israel to God, and themselves also suspected, that these "mighty Gods"1Sa 4:7-8 were the cause of their defeat, they doubtless turned their hatred against God. People, when they submit not to God chastening them, hate Him. This belief that they were retaliating against God, (not, of course, knowing Him as God,) fully corresponds with the strong words, "will ye render Me "a recompense?"Julian’ s dying blasphemy, "Galilean, thou hast conquered,"corresponds with the efforts of his life against the gospel, and implies a secret consciousness that He whose religion he was straining to overthrow "might"be, What he denied Him to be, God. The phrase "swiftly,"literally "lightly, and speedily, denotes"the union of easiness with speed. The recompense is returned "upon"their head, coming down upon them from God.

Ye have taken My silver and My gold - Not the silver and gold of the temple, (as some have thought.) At least, up to the prophet’ s time, they had not done this. For the inroad of the Philistines in the reign of Jehoram was, apparently, a mere marauding expedition, in which they killed and plundered, but are not said to have besieged or taken any city, much less Jerusalem. God calls "the silver and gold"which He, through His Providence, had bestowed on Judah, "My"gold and silver; as He said by Hosea Hos 2:8.

"She knew not that I multiplied her silver and gold, whereof she made Baal;"and by Haggai, "The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts"Hag 2:8. For they were His people, and what they had, they held of Him; and the Philistines too so accounted it, and dedicated a part of it to their idols, as they had the ark formerly, accounting the victory over God’ s people to be the triumph of their idols over God.

The children also - Literally, "And the sons of Judah and the sons of Jerusalem have ye sold to the sons of the Greeks."This sin of the Tyrians was probably old and inveterate. The Tyrians, as they were the great carriers of the world’ s traffic, so they were slave-dealers, and, in the earliest times, men-stealers. The Greek ante-historic tradition exhibits them, as trading and selling women, from both Greece and Egypt . As their trade became more fixed, they themselves stole no more, but, like Christian nations, sold those whom others stole or made captive. Ezekiel speaks of their trade in "the souls of men"Eze 27:13 with "Greece"on the one side, and "Tubal and Mesech"near the Black Sea on the other. The beautiful youth of Greece of both sexes were sold even into Persia .

In regard to the Moschi and Tibareni, it remains uncertain, whether they sold those whom they took in war (and, like the tribes of Africa in modern times, warred the more, because they had a market for their prisoners,) or whether, like the modern Cireassians, they sold their daughters. Ezekiel however, says "men,"so that he cannot mean, exclusively, women. From the times of the Judges, Israel was exposed in part both to the violence and fraud of Tyre and Sidon. The tribe of Asher seems to have lived in the open country among fortified towns of the Zidonians. For whereas of Benjamin, Manasseh, Ephraim, Zabulon, it is said that the old inhabitants of the land dwelt among them Jdg 1:21, Jdg 1:27, Jdg 1:29-30, of Asher it is said, that they "dwelt among the Canaanites,"the "inhabitants of the land"Jdg 1:31-32, as though these were the more numerous. And not only so, but since they did "not drive out the inhabitants"of seven cities, "Accho, Zidon, Ahlab, Achzib, Helbah, Aphek, Rehob,"they must have been liable to incursions from them.

The Zidonians were among those who "oppressed Israel"(Jdg 5:30; see Jdg 4:3, Jdg 4:7, Jdg 4:13, Jdg 4:15-16). Sisera’ s army came from their territory, (for Jabin was king of Hazor,) and Deborah speaks of "a damsel or two,"as the expected prey of each man in the whole multitude of his host. An old proverb, mentioned 427 b.c., implies that the Phoenicians sent circumcised slaves into the fields to reap their harvest . But there were no other circumcised there besides Israel.

But the Phoenician slave-trade was also probably, even in the time of the Judges, exercised against Israel. In Joel and Amos, the Philistines and Tyrians appear as combined in the traffic. In Amos, the Philistines are the robbers of men; the Phoenicians are the receivers and the sellers Amo 1:6, Amo 1:9. Pagan nations retain for centuries the same inherited character, the same natural nobleness, or, still more, the same natural vices. The Phoenicians, at the date of the Judges, are known as dishonest traders, and that, in slaves. The Philistines were then also inveterate oppressors. On one occasion "the captivity of the land"coincided with the great victory of the Philistines, when Eli died and the ark of God was taken. For these two dates are given in the same place as the close of the idolatry of Micah’ s graven image. It endured "unto the captivity of the land"Jdg 18:30-31 and, "and all the time that the house of God was at Shiloh,"from where the ark was removed, never to return, in that battle when it was taken.

But "the captivity of the land"is not merely a subdual, whereby the inhabitants would remain tributary or even enslaved, yet still remain. A captivity implies a removal of the inhabitants; and such a removal could not have been the direct act of the Philistines. For dwelling themselves in the land only, they had no means of removing the inhabitants from it, except by selling them; and the only nation, who could export them in such numbers as would be expressed by the words "a captivity of the land,"were the Zidonians. Probably such acts were expressly prohibited "by the brotherly covenant"(see the note at Amo 1:9) or treaty between Solomon and Hiram King of Tyre. For Amos says that Tyre forgot that treaty, when she sold wholesale the captive Israelites whom the Philistines had carried off. Soon after Joel, Obadiah speaks of a captivity at "Sepharad,"or "Sardis"(see the note at Oba 1:20), the capital of the Lydian empire.

The Tyrian merchants were "the"connecting link between Palestine and the coasts of Asia Minor. The Israelites must have been sold there as slaves, and that by the Phoenicians. In yet later times the Tyrian merchants followed, like vultures, on the rear of armies to make a prey of the living, as the vultures of the dead. They hung on the march of Alexander as far as India . In the wars of the Maccabees, at Nicanor’ s proclamation, a thousand (2 Macc. 8:34) merchants gathered to the camp of Gorgias "with silver and gold, very much, to buy the children of Israel as slaves"(1 Macc. 3:41), and with chains , wherewith to secure them. They assembled in the rear of the Roman armies , "seeking wealth amid the clash of arms, and slaughter, and fleeing poverty through peril."Reckless of human life, the slave-merchants commonly, in their wholesale purchase of captives, abandoned the children as difficult of transport, whence the Spartan king was praised for providing for them .

The temptation to Tyrian covetousness was aggravated by the ease with which they could possess themselves of the Jews, the facility of transport, and, as it seems, their value. It is mentioned as the inducement to slave-piracy among the Cilicians. "The export of the slaves especially invited to misdeeds, being most gainful, for they were easily taken, and the market was not so very far off and was most wealthy .

The Jewish slaves appear also to have been valued, until those times after the taking of Jerusalem, when they had become demoralized, and there was a plethora of them, as God had predicted . The post occupied by the "little maid"who "waited on Naaman’ s wife"2Ki 5:2, was that of a favorite slave, as Greek tradition represented Grecian maidens to have been an object of coveting to the wife of the Persian Monarch . The "damsel or two"for the wives of each man in Jabin’ s host appear as a valuable part of the spoil. The wholesale price at which Nicanor set the Jews his expected prisoners, and at which he hoped to sell some 180,000 , shows the extent of the then traffic and their relative value. 2 British pounds. 14 shillings, 9d. as the average price of each of 90 slaves in Judea, implies a retail-price at the place of sale, above the then ordinary price of man.

This wholesale price for what was expected to be a mixed multitude of nearly 200,000, (for "Nicanor undertook to make so much money of the captive Jews as should defray the tribute of 2000 talents which the king was to pay to the Romans"(2 Macc. 8:10)), was nearly 5 times as much as that at which Carthaginian soldiers were sold at the close of the first Punic war . It was two-thirds of the retail price of a good slave at Athens , or of that at which, about 340 b.c., the law of Greece prescribed that captives should be redeemed ; or of that, (which was nearly the same) at which the Mosaic law commanded compensation to be made for a slave accidentally killed Exo 21:30. The facility of transport increased the value. For, although Pontus supplied both the best and the most of the Roman slaves , yet in the war with Mithridates, amid a great abundance of all things, slaves were sold at 3 shillings 3d. .

The special favors also shown to the Jewish captives at Rome and Alexandria show the estimation in which they were held. At Rome, in the reign of Augustus , "the large section of Rome beyond the Tiber was possessed and inhabited by Jews, most of them Roman citizens, having been brought as captives into Italy and made freedmen by their owners."On whatever ground Ptolemy Philadelphus redeemed 100,000 Jews whom his father had taken and sold , the fact can hardly be without foundation, or his enrolling them in his armies, or his employing them in public offices or about his own person.

Joel lived before the historic times of Greece. But there are early traces of slavetrade carried on by Greeks . According to Theopompus, the Chians, first among the Greeks, acquired barbarian slaves in the way of trade . The Ionian migration had tilled the islands and part of the coasts of Asia Minor with Greek traders about two centuries before Joel, 1069 b.c. . Greeks inhabited both the coasts and islands between Tyre and Sardis, where we know them to have been carried. Cyprus and Crete, both inhabited by Greeks and both in near contact with Phoenicia, were close at hand.

The demand for slaves must have been enormous. For wives were but seldom allowed them; and Athens, Aegina, Corinth alone had in the days of their prosperity 1,330,000 slaves . At the great slave-mart at Delos, 10,000 were brought, sold, removed in a single day .

That ye might remove them far from their border - The Philistines hoped thus to weaken the Jews, by selling their fighting men afar, from where they could no more return. There was doubtless also in this removal an anti-religious malice, in that the Jews clung to their land, as ""the Lord’ s land,"the land given by Him to their fathers; so that they, at once, weakened their rivals, aggravated and enjoyed their distress, and seemed again to triumph over God. Tyre and Sidon took no active share in making the Jews prisoners, yet, partaking in the profit and aiding in the disposal of the captives, they became, according to that true proverb "the receiver is as bad as the thief,"equally guilty of the sin, in the sight of God.

Behold I will raise them - If this promise relates to the same individuals who had been sold, it must have been fulfilled silently; as indeed the return of captives to their own land, unless brought about by some historical event, belongs not to history, but to private life. The prophet, however, is probably predicting God’ s dealings with the nations, not with those individuals. The enslaving of these Hebrews in the time of Joram was but one instance out of a whole system of covetous misdeeds. The Philistines carried away captives from them again in the time of Ahaz 2Ch 28:18, and yet again subsequently Eze 16:27, Eze 16:57; and still more at the capture of Jerusalem Eze 25:15.

I will sell your sons - God Himself would reverse the injustice of people. The sons of Zion should be restored, the sons of the Phoenicians and of the Philistines sold into distant captivity. Tyre was taken by Nebuchadnezzar, and then by Alexander, who sold "more than 13,000"of the inhabitants into slavery ; Sidon was taken and destroyed by Artaxerxes Ochus, and it is said, above 40,000 of its inhabitants perished in the flames . The like befell the Philistines (see the notes at Zep 2:4-7). The Sabaeans are probably instanced, as being the remotest nation in the opposite direction, a nation, probably, the partner of Tyre’ s traffic in people, as well as in their other merchandise, and who (as is the way of unregenerate nature) would as soon trade in Tyrians, as with Tyrians. The Sabaeans were like the Phoenicians, a wealthy merchant people, and, of old, united with them in the trade of the world, the Sabaeans sending forth their fleets across the Indian Ocean, as the Tyrians along the Mediterranean. Three fathers of distinct races bore the name Sheba; one, a descendant of Ham, the other two, descended from Shem. The Hamite Sheba was the son of Raamah, the son of Cush Gen 10:7, and doubtless dwelt of old in the country on the Persian gulf called by the name Raamah . Traces of the name Sheba occur there, and some even after our era . The Shemite Sabaeans, were, some descendants of Sheba, the tenth son of Joktan Gen 10:28; the others from Sheba, the son of Abraham and Keturah Gen 25:3. The Sabaeans, descended from Joktan, dwelt in the southwest extremity of Arabia, extending from the Red Sea to the Sea of Babel-mandeb. The country is still called "ard-es-Seba", "land of Saba;"and Saba is often mentioned by Arabic writers .

To the Greeks and Latins they were known by the name of one division of the race (Himyar) Homeritae. Their descendants still speak an Arabic, acknowledged by the learned Arabs to be a distinct language from that which, through Muhammed, prevailed and was diffused ; a "species"of Arabic which they attribute "to the times of (the prophet) Hud (perhaps Eber) and those before him."

It belonged to them as descendants of Joktan. Sabaeans are mentioned, distinct from both of these, as "dwelling in Arabia Felix, next beyond Syria, which they frequently invaded, before it belonged to the Romans."These Sabaeans probably are those spoken of as marauders by Job ; and may have been descendants of Keturah. Those best known to the Greeks and Romans were, naturally, those in the south western corner of Arabia. The account of their riches and luxuries is detailed, and, although from different authorities consistent; else, almost fabulous.

One metropolis is said to have had 65 temples , private individuals had more than kingly magnificence . Arabic historians expanded into fable the extent and prerogatives of their Paradise lands, before the breaking of the artificial dike, made for the irrigation of their country . They traded with India, availing themselves doubtless of the Monsoon, and perhaps brought thence their gold, if not also the best and most costly frankincense . The Sheba of the prophet appears to have been the wealthy Sheba near the Red Sea. Indeed, in absence of evidence to the contrary, it is natural to understand the name of those best known.

Solomon unites it with Seba Psa 72:10, (the Aethiopian Sabae.) The known frankincense-districts are on the southwest corner of Arabia . The tree has diminished, perhaps has degenerated through the neglect consequent on Muslim oppression, diminished consumption, change of the line of commerce; but it still survives in those districts ; a relic of what is passed away. Ezekiel indeed unites "the merchants of Sheba and Raamah"Eze 27:22, as trading with Tyre. "The merchants of Sheba and Raamah, they were thy merchants; with the chief of all spices and with all precious stones and gold they occupied in thy fairs."It may be that he joins them together as kindred tribes yet it is as probable that he unites the two great channels of merchandise, east and west, Raamah on the Persian Gulf, and Sheba near the Red Sea. Having just mentioned the produce of Northern Arabia as poured into Tyre, he would, in this case, enumerate north, east, and west of Arabia as combined to enrich her.

Agatharcides unites the Sabaeans of southwest Arabia with the Gerrhaeans, who were certainly on the Persian Gulf . "No people,"he says , "is apparently richer than the Sabaeans and Gerrhaeans, who dispense forth everything worth speaking of from Asia and Europe. These made the Syria of Ptolemy full of gold. These supplied the industry of the Phoenicians with profitable imports, not to mention countless other proofs of wealth."Their caravans went to Elymais, Carmania; Charrae was their emporium; they returned to Gabala and Phoenicia . Wealth is the parent of luxury and effeminacy. At the time of our Lord’ s Coming, the softness and effeminacy of the Sabaeans became proverbial. The "soft Sabaeans"is their characteristic in the Roman poets . Commerce, navigation, goldmines, being then carried on by means of slaves, and wealth and luxury at that time always demanding domestic slaves, the Sabaeans had need of slaves for both. They too had distant colonies , where the Tyrians could be transported, as far from Phoenicia, as the shores of the Aegean are from Palestine. The great law of divine justice, "as I have done, so God hath requited me"Jdg 1:7, was again fulfilled. It is a sacred proverb of God’ s overruling Providence, written in the history of the world and in people’ s consciences.

Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles - God having before said that He would "gather all nations,"now, by a solemn irony, bids them prepare, if, by any means, they can fight against Him. So in Isaiah; "Associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far countries; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand, for God is with us"(Isa 8:9-10; see also Ezek. 38:7-23).

Prepare - Literally, "hallow, war."To "hallow war"was to make it holy, either in appearance or in truth, as the prophet bade them, "sanctify a fast,"i. e., keep it holily. So God calls the Medes, whom He employed against Babylon, "My sanctified ones"Isa. 13, and bids, "sanctify the nations against her"Jer 51:27; and the enemies of Judah encourage themselves, "sanctify ye war against her"Jer 6:4; and Micah says, that whosover bribed not the false prophets, "they sanctify war against him"Mic 3:5, i. e., proclaim war against him in the Name of God. The enemies of God, of His people, of His truth, declare war against all, in the Name of God. The Jews would have stoned our Lord for blasphemy, and, at the last, they condemned Him as guilty of it. "He hath spoken blasphemy. What further need have we of witttesses? behold, now ye have heard His blasphemy"Mat 26:65. And He foretold to His disciples, "Whosoever killeth you, will think he doeth God service"Joh 16:2.

Stephen was persecuted for speaking "blasphemous words against Moses and against God, this holy place and the law"Act 6:11, Act 6:13. Paul was persecuted for "persuading people to worship God contrary to the law and polluting this holy place"Act 18:13; Act 21:28; Act 24:6. Antichrist shall set himself up as God, "so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God shewing himself that he is God"2Th 2:4. Heretics and unbelievers declaim against the Gospel, as though it, and not themselves, were opposed to the holiness and Majesty and love of God. The Gnostics of old spake against the Creator in the Name of God. Arians affected reverence for the glory of God , being, on their own mis-belief, idolaters or polytheists . The Apollinarians charged the Church with ascribing to our Lord a sinful soul, as though the soul must needs be such , find themselves held the Godhead to have been united to a soulless, and so a brute, nature.

Manichaeans accused her of making God the author of evil, and themselves, as do Pantheists now, invented a god who sinned . Novatians and Donatists accused the Church of laxity. Pelagians charged her with denying the perfectibility of man’ s nature, themselves denying the grace whereby it is perfected. Muhammed arrayed the truth of the Unity of God against His Being in Three Persons, and fought against the truth as idolatry. Some now array "Theism,"i. e., truths as to God which they have stolen from Holy Scripture, against the belief in God as He has revealed Himself. Indeed, no imposture ever long held its ground against truth, unless it masked itself under some truth of God which it perverted, and so "hallowed"its "war"against God in the Name of God.

Wake up the mighty men - Arouse them, as if their former state had been a state of sleep; arouse all their dormant powers, all within them, that they may put forth all their strength, if so be they may prevail against God.

Let all the men of war draw near - , as if to contend, and close, as it were, with God and His people (see 1Sa 17:41. 2Sa 10:13), as, on the other hand, God says, "I will come near to you to judgment"(Mal 3:5; see Isa 41:1; Isa 50:8). "Let them come up"into His very presence. Even while calling them to fulfill this their vain purpose of striving with God, the prophet keeps in mind, into whose presence they are summoned, and so calls them to "come up,"as to a place of dignity.

Beat your plowshares into swords - Peace had been already promised, as a blessing of the gospel. "In His days,"foretold Solomon, "shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace, so long as the moon endureth"Psa 72:7. And another, "He maketh thy borders peace"Psa 147:14. Peace within with God flows forth in peace with man. "Righteousness and peace kissed each other"Psa 85:10. Where there is not rest in God, all is unrest. And so, all which was needful for life, the means of subsistence, care of health, were to be forgotten for war.

Let the weak say, I am strong - It is one last gathering of the powers of the world against their Maker; the closing scene of man’ s rebellion against God. It is their one universal gathering. None, however seemingly unfit, was to be spared from this conflict; no one was to remain behind. The farmer was to forge for war the instruments of his peaceful toil; the sick was to forget his weakness and to put on a strength which he had not, and that to the uttermost. But as weakness is, in and through God, strength, so all strength out of God is weakness. Man may say, I am strong; but, against God, he remains weak as, it is said, that weak man Psa 10:18) from the earth may no more oppress.

Once more all the enemies of God are summoned together. "Assemble yourselves,"(Others in the same sense render, "Haste ye,) and come, all ye pagan, round about,"literally "from round about,"i. e., from every side, so as to compass and hem in the people of God, and then, when the net had been, as it were, drawn closer and closer round them, and no way of escape is left, the prophet prays God to send His aid; "thither cause Thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord."Against "the mighty ones"of the earth, or "the weak"who "say"they are "mighty,"(the same word is used throughout,) there "come down the mighty ones of God."The "mighty ones of God,"whom He is prayed to "cause to come down,"i. e., from heaven, can be no other than the mighty angels, of whom it is said, they "are mighty in strength"Psa 103:20 (still the same word,) to whom God gives "charge over"Psa 91:11. His own, "to keep"them "in all"their "ways,"and one of whom, in this place, killed "one hundred and fourscore and five thousand"2Ki 19:35 of the Assyrians. So our Lord saith, "The Son of man shall send forth His Angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them that do iniquity"Mat 13:41.

Let the pagan be awakened - This emphatic repetition of the word, "awaken,"seems intended to hint at the great awakening, to Judgment , when they "who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, being awakened"from the sleep of death. Another word is used of "awakening". On the destruction of antichrist it is thought that the general Judgment will follow, and "all who are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man and shall come forth"Joh 5:27-29 : They are bidden to "come up"into the valley of Jehoshaphat , "for to come into the presence of the most High God, may well be called "a coming up."For there will I sit to judge all the pagan round about,"(again literally "from round about,) from every side,"all nations from all the four quarters of the world. The words are the same as before. There "all nations from every side"were summoned to come, as they thought, to destroy God’ s people and heritage. Here the real end is assigned, for which they were brought together, for God would sit to judge them. In their own blind will and passion they came to destroy; in God’ s secret overruling Providence, they were dragged along by their passions - to be judged and to be destroyed. So our Lord says, "When the Son of Man shall come in His Glory, and all the Holy Angels with Him, then shall He sit on the throne of His Glory and before Him shall be gathered all nations"Mat 25:31-32. Our Lord, in that He uses words of Joel, seems to intend to direct our minds to the prophet’ s meaning. What follows are nearly His own words;

Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe - So Jesus saith, "let both grow together until the harvest, and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them;"and this He explains, "The harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the Angels"Mat 13:30, Mat 13:39. He then who saith, "put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe,"is the Son of Man, who, before He became the Son of Man, was, as He is now, the Son of God, and spake this and the other things by the Prohets; they to whom He speaketh are His reapers, the Angels; and the ripeness of the harvest is the maturity of all things here, good and evil, to be brought to their last end.

In itself, the harvest, as well as the vintage, might describe the end of this world, as to both the good and the bad, in that the wheat is severed from the chaff and the tares, and the treading of the winepress separates the wine which is stored up from the husks which are cast away. Yet nothing is said, here of storing up aught, either the wheat or the wine, but only of the ripeness of the harvest, and that "the fats overflow, because their wickedness is great."The harvest is sometimes, although more rarely, used of destruction Isa 17:5; Jer 51:33; the treading of the winepress is always used as an image of God’ s anger Lam 1:15; Isa 63:3; Rev 19:15; the vintage of destruction Isa 17:6; Jdg 8:2; Mic 7:1; the plucking off the grapes, of the rending away of single lives or souls Psa 80:12. It seems probable then, that the ripeness of the harvests and the fullness of the vats are alike used of the ripeness for destruction, that "they were ripe in their sins, fit for a harvest, and as full of wickedness as ripe grapes, which fill and overflow the vats, through the abundance of the juice with which they swell."Their ripeness in iniquity calls, as it were, for the sickle of the reaper, the trampling of the presser.

For great is their wickedness - The whole world is flooded and overflowed by it, so that it can no longer contain it, but, as it were, cries to God to end it. The long suffering of God no longer availed, but would rather increase their wickedness and their damnation. So also, in that first Judgment of the whole world by water, when "all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth, God said, the end of all flesh is before Me"Gen 6:12-13; and when the hundred and twenty years of the preaching of Noah were ended without fruit, "the flood came."So Sodom was "then"destroyed, when not ten righteous could be found in it; and the seven nations of Canaan were spared above four hundred years, because the "iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full"Gen 15:16; and our Lord says, "fill ye up the measure of your fathers - that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth"Mat 23:32, Mat 23:35. So , "God condemneth each of the damned, when he hath filled up the measure of his iniquity."

The prophet continues, as in amazement at the great throng assembling upon one another, "multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision,"as though, whichever way he looked, there were yet more of these "tumultuous masses,"so that there was nothing beside them. It was one living, surging, boiling, sea: throngs upon throngs, mere throngs! . The word rendered "multitudes"suggests, besides, the thought of the hum and din of these masses thronging onward, blindly, to their own destruction. They all "tumultuously rage together, and imagine a vain thing, against the Lord and against His Christ"Psa 2:1-2; but the place where they are gathered, (although they know it not,) is the "valley of decision,"i. e., of "sharp, severe judgment."The valley is the same as that before called "the valley of Jehoshaphat;"but whereas that name only signifies "God judgeth,"this further name denotes the strictness of God’ s judgment. The word signifies "cut,"then "decided;"then is used of severe punishment, or destruction decided and decreed , by God.

For the Day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision - Their gathering against God shall be a token of His coming to judge them. They come to fulfill their own ends; but His shall be fulfilled on them. They are left to bring about their own doom; and being abandoned by Him, rush on the more blindly because it is at hand. When their last sin is committed, their last defiance of God spoken or acted against Him, it is come. At all times, indeed, "the Lord is at hand"Phi 4:5. It may be, that we are told, that the whole future revealed to us "must shortly come to pass"Rev 1:1, in order to show that all time is a mere nothing, a moment, a dream, when it is gone. Yet here it is said, relatively, not to us, but to the things foretold, that it "is near"to come.

The sun and the moon shall be darkened - This may be, either that they shall be outshone by the brightness of the glory of Christ, or that they themselves shall undergo a change, whereof the darkness at the Crucifixion was an image. An ancient writer says ; "As in the dispensation of the Cross the sun failing, there was darkness over all the earth, so when the ‘ sign of the Son of man’ appeareth in heaven in the Day of Judgment, the light of the sun and moon and stars shall fail, consumed, as it were by the great might of that sign."And as the failure of the light of the sun at our Lord’ s Passion betokened the shame of nature at the great sin of man, so, at the Day of Judgment, it sets before us the awfulness of God’ s judgments, as though "it dared not behold the severity of Him who judgeth and returneth every man’ s work upon his own head;"as though "every creature, in the sufferings of others, feared the judgment on itself."

The Lord shall roar out of Zion - As in the destruction of Sennacherib, when he was now close upon his prey, and "shook his hand against the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem, the Lord of hosts lopped the bough with terror, and the high ones of stature were hewn down, and the haughty were humbled Isa 10:32-33, so at the end. It is foretold of antichrist, that his destruction shall be sudden, "Then shall that Wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His Coming"2Th 2:8. And Isaiah saith of our Lord, "He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked"Isa 11:4. When the multitudes of God’ s enemies were thronged together, then would He speak with His Voice of terror. The terrible voice of God’ s warnings is compared to the roaring of a lion. "The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord hath spoken, who can but prophesy?"Amo 3:8. Much more, when those words of awe are fulfilled. Our Lord then, "The Lion of the tribe of Judah"Rev 5:5. Who is here entitled by the incommunicable Name of God, I am, shall utter His awful Voice, as it is said; "The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel and with the Trump of God"1Th 4:16; and He Himself says, "The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice and shall come forth, they that have done good unto the Resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation"Joh 5:28-29.

And shall utter His voice from Jerusalem - that is, either from His Throne aloft "in the air"above the holy city, or from the heavenly Jerusalem, out of the midst of the tens of thousands of His holy angels Mat 16:27; Mat 25:31; Mar 8:38; 2Th 1:7, and saints Zec 14:5; Jud 1:14, who shall "come with Him."So terrible shall that voice be, that "the heavens and the earth shall shake,"as it is said, "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up"2Pe 3:10; and "heaven shall open for the coming of the saints,"and ‘ hell shall be moved at the coming’ Isa 14:9 of the evil. : "Nor shall it be a slight shaking of the earth at His Coming, but such that all the dead shall be roused, as it were from their sleep, yea, the very elect shall fear and tremble, but, even in their fear and trembling, shall retain a strong hope. This is what he saith immediately, ‘ The Lord will be the hope (or place of refuge)’ of His ‘ people, and the strength (or stronghold) of the children of Israel,’ i. e., of the true Israel, the whole people of the elect of God. All these He will then by that His Majesty at once wonderfully terrify and strengthen, because they ever hoped in God, not in themselves, and ever trusted in the strength of the Lord, never presumed on their own. Whereas contrariwise the false Israelites hope in themselves, while, ‘ going about to establish their own righteousness, they submitted themselves not to the righteousness of God.’ Rom 10:3. The true Israel shall trust much more than ever before; yet none can trust then, who in life, had not trusted in Him Alone.

God Himself wondrously joins on His own words to those of the prophet, and speaks to His own people; "so (literally, and) ye shall know,"by experience, by sight, face to face, what ye now believe, "that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Zion, My holy mountain."So He saith in the second Psalm, "Then shall he speak unto them"Psa 2:5-6 (the enemies of His Christ) "in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure; And I have set My king on My holy hill of Zion;"and, "Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, their God"Rev 21:3, dwelling with them and in them, by an unvarying, blissful, hallowing presence, never withdrawn, never hidden, never shadowed, but ever shining upon them. "Your God,"your own, as much as if possessed by none besides, filling all with gladness, yet fully possessed by each, as though there were none besides, so that each may say, "Thou art my Portion, O Lord"Psa 119:57; Lam 3:24; my "Lord, and my God"Joh 20:28, as He saith, "I am thy exceeding great Reward"Gen 15:1.

And Jerusalem shall be holy - Literally, "holiness"as John saith, "He carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God"Rev 21:10-11.

And there shall no stranger pass through her anymore - " Without,"says John, "are dogs and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie"Rev 22:15. None alien from her shall pass through her, so as to have dominion over her, defile or oppress her.

This special promise is often repeated. "It shall be called the way of holiness, the unclean shall not pass over it"Isa 35:8. "Henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean"Isa 52:1. "The wicked shall no more pass through thee"Nah 1:15. "In that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts". "And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth"Rev 21:27. These promises are, in their degree and in the image and beginning, made good to the Church here, to be fully fulfilled when it shall be "a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but holy and without blemish"Eph 5:27. Here they do not pass through her, so as to overcome; "the gates of hell shall not prevail against her."However near, as hypocrites, they come to her, they feel in themselves that they "are not of her"1Jo 2:19. There they shall be severed from her forever. : "Heretics came, armed with fantastic reasons and deceitful arguments; but they could not pass through her, repelled by the truth of the word, overcome by reason, cast down by the testimonies of Scripture and by the glow of faith."They fell backward to the ground before her. They "go out from her, because they are not of her"1Jo 2:19. They who are not of her can mingle with her, touch her sacraments, but their power and virtue they partake not. They are inwardly repelled.

And it shall come to pass in that Day - After the destruction of antichrist, there will, it seems, still be a period of probation, in which the grace of God will abound and extend more and more widely. The prophet Zechariah, who continues on the image, of the "living waters going out from Jerusalem"Zec 14:8, places this gift after God had gathered all nations against Jerusalem, and had visibly and miraculously overthrown them Zec 14:2-4. But in that the blessings which he speaks of, are regenerating, they belong to time; the fullness of the blessing is completed only in eternity; the dawn is on earth, the everlasting brightness is in heaven. But though the prophecy belongs eminently to one time, the imagery describes the fulness of spiritual blessings which God at all times diffuses in and through the Church; and these blessings, he says, shall continue on in her for ever; her enemies shall be cut off for ever. It may be, that Joel would mark a fresh beginning and summary by his words, "It shall be in that Day."The prophets do often begin, again and again, their descriptions. Union with God, which is their theme, is one. Every gift of God to His elect, except the beatific vision, is begun in time, union with Himself, indwelling, His Spirit flowing forth from Him into His creatures, His love, knowledge of Him, although here through a glass darkly.

The promise cannot relate to exuberance of temporal blessings, even as tokens of God’ s favor. For he says, "a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the valley of Shittim."But "the valley of Shittim"is on the other side Jordan, beyond the Dead Sea, so that by nature the waters could not flow there. The valley of Shittim or acacia trees is a dry valley, for in such the Easten Acacia, i. e., the sant or sandal wood grows. "It is,"says Jerome (on Isa 12:1-6 :19), "a tree which grows in the desert, like a white thorn in color and leaves, not in size. For they are of such size, that very large planks , are cut out of them. The wood is very strong, and of incredible lightness and beauty. They do not grow in cultivated places, or in the Roman soil, save only in the desert of Arabia."It does not decay ; and when old becomes like ebony . Of it the ark of God was made, its staves, the table of showbread, the tabernacle and its pillars, the altar for burnt-offerings, and of incense Exo 25:5, Exo 25:10, Exo 25:13, Exo 25:23, Exo 25:28; Exo 26:15, Exo 26:26, Exo 26:32, Exo 26:37; Exo 27:1, Exo 27:6; Exo 30:1; Exo 35:7, Exo 35:24; Exo 36:20, Exo 36:31, Exo 36:36; Exo 37:1, Exo 37:4, Exo 37:10, Exo 37:15, Exo 37:25, Exo 37:28; Exo 38:1, Exo 38:6; Deu 10:3. The valley is about six miles from Livias , seven and a half beyond the Dead Sea . It was the last station of Israel, before entering the land of promise Num 33:49, from where Joshua sent out the spies Jos 2:1; where God turned the curse of Balaam into a blessling Num. 23; 24; Mic 6:5; and he prophesied of the Star which should arise out of Israel, even Christ Num 24:17; where Israel sinned in Baal Peor, and Phineas turned aside His displeasure Num 25:1, Num 25:7, Num 25:11.

The existence of a large supply of water under the temple is beyond all question. While the temple was still standing, mention is made up of "a fountain of ever-flowing water under the temple,"as well as pools and cisterns for preserving rain-water. One evidently well acquainted with the localities says , "The pavement has slopes at befitting places, for the sake of a flush of water which takes place in order to cleanse away the blood from the victims. For on festivals many myriads of animals are sacrificed. But of water there is an unfailing supply, a copious and natural fountain within gushing over, and there being moreover wonderful underground-receptacles in a circuit of five furlongs, in the substructure of the temple, and each of these having numerous pipes, the several streams inter-communicating, and all these closed up below and on the sides - There are also many mouths toward the base, invisible to all except those to whom the service of the temple belongs. So that the manifold blood of the sacrifices being brought together are cleansed by the gush (of water down) the slope."

This same writer relates that, more than half a mile from the city, he was told to stoop down and heard the sound of gushing waters underground. The natural fountain, then, beneath the temple was doubtless augmented by waters brought from a distance, as required for the "divers washings"both of the priests and other things, and to carry off the blood of the victims. Pools near the temple are mentioned by writers of the third and fourth century ; and Omar, on the surrender of Jerusalem, 634 a.d., was guided to the site of the ancient temple (whereon he built his Mosk) by the stream of water which issued through a water-channel from it . Whencesoever this water was derived, whether from a perennial spring beneath the temple itself, or whether brought there from some unfailing source without, it afforded Jerusalem an abundant supply of water.

Much as Jerusalem suffered in sieges by famine, and its besiegers by thirst, thirst was never any part of the sufferings of those within . The superfluous water was and still is carried off underground, to what is now "the fountain of the Virgin", and thence again, through the rock, to the pool of Siloam . Thence it carried fertility to the gardens of Siloam, in Joel’ s time doubtless "the king’ s gardens", still "a verdant spot, refreshing to the eye in the heat of summer, while all around is parched and dun."The blood of the victims flowed into the same brook Kidron, and was a known source of fertility, before the land was given to desolation. The waters of Kidron, as well as all the waters of Palestine, must have been more abundant formerly.

Isaiah speaks of it as "flowing softly"Isa 8:6; Josephus , of the "abundant fountain;"an official report , of the "fountain gushing forth with abundance of water."Still its fertilizing powers formed but one little oasis, where all around was arid. It fertilized those gardens live miles from the city, but the mid-space was waterless , thirsty, mournful . Lower down, the rivulet threaded its way to the Dead Sea, through a narrow ravine which became more and more wild, where Saba planted his monastery. "A howling wilderness, stern desolation. stupendous perpendicular cliffs, terrific chasms, oppressive solitude"are the terms by which one endeavors to characterize "the heart of this stern desert of Judaea".

Such continues to be its character, in the remaining half of its course, until it is lost in the Dead Sea, and is transmuted into its saltness. Its valley bears the name of desolation, Wady en Nar , "valley of fire."No human path lies along it. The Kidron flows along "a deep and almost impenetrable ravine"Psa 46:4, "in a narrow channel between perpendicular walls of rock, as if worn away by the rushing waters between those desolate chalky hills."That little oasis of verdure was fit emblem of the Jewish people, itself bedewed by the stream which issued from the Temple of God, but, like Gideon’ s fleece, leaving all around dry. It made no sensible impression out of, or beyond itself. Hereafter, "the stream", the Siloah, whose "streamlets,"i. e., the artificial fertilizing divisions, "made glad the city of God"Eze 47:1-12, should make the wildest, driest spots of our mortality "like the garden of the Lord."Desolation should become bright and happy; the parched earth should shoot up fresh with life; what was by nature barren and unfruitful should bring forth good fruit; places heretofore stained by sin should be purified; nature should be renewed by grace; and that, beyond the borders of the promised land, in that world which they had left, when Joshua brought them in there.

This, which it needs many words to explain, was vivid to those to whom Joel spoke. They had that spot of emerald green before their eyes, over which the stream which they then knew to issue from the temple trickled in transparent brightness, conducted by those channels formed by man’ s diligence. The eyes of the citizens of Jerusalem must have rested with pleasure on it amid the parched surface around. Fresher than the gladliest freshness of nature, brighter than its most kindled glow, is the renewing freshness of grace; and this, issuing from mount Zion, was to be the portion not of Judea only, but of the world.

The vision of Ezekiel Eze 47:1-12, which is a comment on the prophecy of Joel, clearly belongs primarily to this life. For in this life only is there need for healing; in this life only is there a desert land to be made fruitful; death to be changed into life; death and life, the healed and unhealed, side by side; life, where the stream of God’ s grace reacheth, and death and barrenness, where it reacheth not. The fishers who spread their nests amid "the fish, exceeding many,"are an emblem which waited for and received its explanation from the parables of our Lord.

In the Revelation, above all, the peace, glory, holiness, vision of God, can only be fulfilled in the sight of God. Yet here too the increase of the Church, and the healing of the nations Rev 21:24-26; Rev 22:21, belong to time and to a state of probation, not of full fruition.

But then neither can those other symbols relate to earthly things.

The mountains shall drop down new wine - Literally, "trodden"out. What is ordinarily obtained by toil, shall be poured forth spontaneously. "And the hills shall flow with milk,"literally, "flow milk,"as though they themselves, of their own accord, gushed forth into the good gifts which they yield. "Wine"ever new, and ever renewing, sweet and gladdening the heart; "milk,"the emblem of the spiritual food of childlike souls, of purest knowledge, holy devotion, angelic purity, heavenly pleasure. And these shall never cease. These gifts are spoken of, as the spontaneous, perpetual flow of the mountains and hills; and as the fountain gushes forth from the hill or mountain-side in one ceaseless flow, day and night, streaming out from the hidden recesses to which the waters are supplied by God from His treasure-house of the rain, so day and night, in sorrow or in joy, in prosperity or adversity, God pours out, in the Church and in the souls of His elect, the riches of His grace. "All the rivers,"literally "channels, of Judah shall flow with water."Every "channel,"however narrow and easily drying up, shall "flow with water,"gushing forth unto everlasting life; the love of God shall stream through every heart; each shall he full according to its capacity and none the less full, because a larger tide pours through others. How much more , "in those everlasting hills of heaven, "the heavenly Jerusalem,"resting on the eternity and Godhead of the Holy Trinity, shall that long promise be fulfilled of the land flowing with milk and honey, where God, through the beatific vision of Himself, shall pour into the blessed "the torrent of pleasure,"the unutterable sweetness of joy and gladness unspeakable in Himself; and "all the rivers of Judah,"i. e., all the powers, capacities, senses, speech of the saints who "confess"God, shall flow with a perennial stream of joy, thanksgiving, and jubilee, as of all pleasure and bliss."

Egypt shall be a desolation - " Egypt"and "Edom"represent each a different class of enemies of the people of God, and both together exhibit the lot of all. Egypt was the powerful oppressor, who kept Israel long time in hard bondage, and tried, by the murder of their male children, to extirpate them. Edom was, by birth, the nearest allied to them, but had, from the time of their approach to the promised land, been hostile to them, and showed a malicious joy in all their calamities (Oba 1:10-14; Eze 25:12; Eze 35:15; Eze 36:5; Lam 4:22; Psa 137:7; see the note at Amo 1:11). "Their land,"in which Egypt and Edom shed the "innocent blood of the children of Judah,"may either be Edom, Egypt, or Judaea. If the land was Judaea, the sin is aggravated by its being God’ s land, the possession of which they were disputing with God. If it was Egypt and Edom, then it was probably the blood of those who took refuge there, or, as to Edom, of prisoners delivered up to them (see the note at Amo 1:9).

This is the first prophecy of the humiliation of Egypt. Hosea had threatened, that Egypt should be the grave of those of Israel who should flee there Hos 9:6. He speaks of it as the vain trust, and a real evil to Israel Hos 7:11-12, Hos 7:16; Hos 8:13; Hos 9:3; Hos 11:5; of its own future he says nothing. Brief as Joel’ s words are, they express distinctly an abiding condition of Egypt. They are expanded by Ezekiel Eze 29:9-12, Eze 29:15; particular chastisements are foretold by Isaiah Isa. 19; Isa 20:1-6, Jeremiah Jer. 46, Ezekiel Ezek. 29\endash 32, Zechariah Zec 10:11. But the three words of Joel , "Egypt shall become desolation,"are more comprehensive than any prophecy, except those by Ezekiel. They foretell that abiding condition, not only by the force of the words, but by the contrast with an abiding condition of bliss. The words say, not only "it shall be desolated,"as by a passing scourge sweeping over it, but "it shall itself ‘ pass over into’ that state;"it shall become what it had not been ; and this, in contrast with the abiding condition of God’ s people. The contrast is like that of the Psalmist, "He turneth a fruitful land into barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein. He turneth the wilderness into a standing water, and dry ground into water-springs"Psa 107:33-35. Judah should overflow with blessing, and the streams of God’ s grace should pass beyond its bounds, and carry fruitfulness to what now was dry and barren. But what should reject His grace should be itself rejected.

Yet when Joel thus threatened Egypt, there were no human symptoms of its decay; the instruments of its successive overthrows were as yet wild hordes, (as the Chaldees, Persians, and Macedonians,) to be consolidated thereafter into powerful empires, or (as Rome) had not the beginnings of being. : "The continuous monumental history of Egypt"went back seven centuries before this, to about 1520 b.c. They had had a line of conquerors among their kings, who subdued much of Asia, and disputed with Assyria the country which lay between there . Even after the time of Joel, they had great conquerors, as Tirhaka; Psammetichus won Ashdod back from Assyria , Neco was probably successful against it, as well as against Syria and king Josiah, for he took Cadytis on his return from his expedition against Carchemish 2Ki 23:29; Pharaoh Hophra, or Apries, until he fell by his pride Eze 29:3, renewed for a time the prosperity of Psammetichus ; the reign of Amasis, even after Nebuchadnezzars conquest, was said to be "the most prosperous time which Egypt ever saw"; it was still a period of foreign conquest , and its cities could be magnified into 20,000.

The Persian invasion was drawn upon it by an alliance with Lydia, where Amasis sent 120,000 men ; its, at times, successful struggles against the gigantic armies of its Persian conquerors betoken great inherent strength; yet it sank for ever, a perpetual desolation. "Rent, twenty-three centuries ago, from her natural proprietors,"says an unbelieving writer , "she has seen Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Georgians, and at length, the race of Tartars, distinguished by the name of Ottoman Turks, establish themselves in her bosom.""The system of oppression is methodical;""an universal air of misery is manifest in all which the traveler meets.": "Mud-walled cottages are now the only habitations, where the ruins of temples and palaces abound. The desert covers many extensive regions, which once raised Egypt among the chief of the kingdoms."The desolation of Egypt is the stranger, because exceeding misrule alone could have effected it.

Egypt in its largest dimensions, has been calculated to contain 123,527 square miless or 79,057,339 acres, and to be three fourths of the size of France Memoire sur le lae de Moeris. (1843). The mountains which hem in Upper Egypt, diverge at Cairo, parting, the one range, due east, the other northwest. The mountains on the west sink into the plains; those on the east retain their height as far as Suez. About 10 miles below Cairo, the Nile parted, enclosing within the outside of its seven branches, that triangle of wondrous fertility, the Delta. A network of canals, formed by the stupendous industry of the ancient Egyptians, enclosed this triangle in another yet larger, whose base, along the coast, was 235 miles, in direct distance about 181. East of the eastern-most branch of the Nile, lay the "land of Goshen,"formerly, at least for cattle, "the good of the land"Gen 47:6, Gen 47:11, a part, at least, of the present esh-Sharkiyyeh, second in size of the provinces of Egypt, but which, 1375 a.d., yielded the highest revenue of the state .

On the western side of the Nile, and about a degree south of the apex of the Delta, a stupendous work, the artificial lake of Moeris , enclosing within masonry 64 34 square miles of water, received the superfluous waters of the river, and thus at once prevented the injury incidental on any too great rise of the Nile, and supplied water during six months for the irrigation of 1724 square miles, or 1,103, 375, acres .

The Nile which, when it overflowed, spread like a sea over Egypt , encircling its cities like islands, carried with it a fertilizing power, attested by all, but which, unless so attested, would seem fabulous. Beneath a glowing heat, greater than its latitude will account for, the earth, supplied with continual moisture and an ever renewed alluvial deposit which supersedes all need of "dressing"the soil, yields, within the year, three harvests of varied produce . This system of canalising Egypt must have been of very early antiquity. That giant conception of the water system of lake Moeris is supposed to have been the work of Ammenemhes, perhaps about 1673, b.c. . But such a giant plan presupposes the existence of an artificial system of irrigation which it expanded. In the time of Moses, we hear incidentally of "the streams"of Egypt, "the canals"(that is, those used for irrigation), and "the ponds"Exo 7:19; Exo 8:1, the receptacles of the water which was left when the Nile retired.

Besides these, an artificial mode of irrigation "by the foot"Deut. 11:40 is mentioned, now no longer distinctly known, but used, like the present plans of the water-wheel and the lever , to irrigate the lands for the later harvests. This system of irrigation had, in the time of Joel, lasted probably for above 1000 years. The Egyptians ascribed the first turning of the Nile to their first king, Menes , of fabulous antiquity. But while it lasted in any degree, Egypt could not become barren except by miracle. Even now it recovers, whenever water is applied. "Wherever there is water, there is fertility.": "The productive powers of the soil of Egypt are incalculable. Wherever water is scattered, there springs up a rapid and beautiful vegetation. The seed is sown and watered, and scarcely any other care is requisite for the ordinary fruits of the earth. Even in spots adjacent to the desert and which seem to be taken possession of by the sands, irrigation brings rapidly forth a variety of green herbs and plants."For its first crop, there needed but to cast the seed, and have it trodden in by cattle .

Nothing then could desolate Egypt, except man’ s abiding negligence or oppression. No passing storm or inroad could annihilate a fertility, which poured in upon it in everrenewing richness. For 1000 years, the Nile had brought to Egypt unabated richness. The Nile overflows still, but in vain amid depopulation, and grinding, uniform, oppression. Not the country is exhausted, but man.

"If"says Mengin , "it is true that there is no country richer than Egypt in its territorial productions, still there is perhaps no one whose inhabitants are more miserable. It is owing solely to the fertility of its soil and the sobriety of its cultivators, that it retains the population which it still has."The marked diminution of the population had begun before the Birth of our Lord. "Of old,"says Diodorus , "it far exceeded in denseness of population all the known countries in the world, and in our days too it seems to be inferior to no other. For in ancient times it had more than 18,000 considerable villages and towns, as you may see registered in the sacred lists. In the time of Ptolemy Lagus more than 30,000 were counted, a number which has continued until now. But the whole people are said of old to have been about seven million, and in our days not less than three".

A modern estimate supposes that Egypt, if cultivated to the utmost, would, in plentiful years, support eight million . It is difficult to calculate a population where different ranks wish to conceal it. It has been guessed however, that two centuries ago, it was four million; that, at the beginning of this century, it was two million and a half; and that, in 1845, it was 1,800,000 . The great diminution then had begun 1900 years ago. Temporary causes, plague, smallpox; conscription, have, in this last century, again halved the population; but down to that time, it had sunk to no lower level than it had already reached at least 18 centuries before. The land still, for its fruitfulness, continues to supply more than its inhabitants consume; it yields over and above cotton , for strangers to employ.

Yet its brilliant patches of vegetation are but indications how great the powers implanted in it. In vain "the rising Nile overflows (as it is thought) a larger proportion of the soil"than heretofore; in vain has the rich alluvial deposit encroached upon the gradual slope of the desert; in vain, in Upper Egypt has a third been added since about the time of the Exodus. Egypt is stricken. Canals and even arms of the Nile, were allowed to choke up. Of the seven branches of the Nile, two only, at first artificial, remain. : "The others have either entirely disappeared or are dry in summer."The great eastern arm, the Pelusian, is nearly effaced "buried almost wholly beneath the sands of the desert.": "The land at the mouth of the canal which represents it, is a sand waste or a marsh.": "There is now no trace of vegetation in the whole Pelusian plain. Only one slight isolated rise has some thickets on it, and some shafts of columns lie on the sand.": "In the midst of a plain the most fertile, they want the barest necessaries of life."

The sand of the desert, which was checked by the river and by the reeds on its banks, has swept over lands no longer fertilized. : "The sea has not been less destructive. It has broken down the dykes wherewith man’ s labor held it in, and has carried barrenness over the productive lands which it converted into lakes and marshes."A glance at the map of Egypt will show how widely the sea has burst in, where land once was. On the east, the salt lake Menzaleh, (itself from west-northwest to southeast about 50 miles long, and above 10 miles from north to south) absorbs two more of the ancient arms of the Nile, the Tanitic and the Mendesian . The Tanitic branch is marked by a deeper channel below the shallow waters of the lake . The lake of Burlos "occupies from east to west more than half the basis of the Delta."Further westward are a succession of lakes, Edkou, Madyeh (above 12 12 miles) Mareotis (37 12 miles). : "The ancient Delta has lost more than half its surface, of which one-filth is covered with the waters of the lakes Mareotis, Madyeh, Edkou, Bourlos, and Menzaleh, sad effects of the carelessness of the rulers or rather spoilers of this unhappy country."Even when the lake Mareotis was, before the English invasion in 1801, allowed nearly to dry up, it was but an unhealthy lagoon; and the Mareotic district, once famous for its wine and its olives and papyrus , had become a desert. So far from being a source of fertility, these lakes from time to time, at the low Nile, inundate the country with salt water, and are "surrounded by low and barren plains".

The ancient populousness and capabilities of the western province are attested by its ruins. : "The ruins which the French found everywhere in the military reconnaissances of this part of Egypt attest the truth of the historical accounts of the ancient population of the Province, now deserted"; "so deserted, that you can scarce tell the numbers of ruined cities frequented only by wandering Arabs."

According to a calculation lower than others, 13 of the land formerly tilled in Egypt has been thrown out of cultivation, i. e., not less than 1,763,895 acres or 2755.710 square miles . And this is not of yesterday. Toward the end of the 14th century, the extent of the land taxed was 3,034,179 feddans , i. e., 4,377,836.56 acres or 6840.13 square miles. The list of lands taxed by the Egyptian government in 1824 yields but a sum of 1,956, 40 feddans , or 2,822,171 acres or 4409 square miles. Yet even this does not represent the land actually cultivated. Some even of the taxed land is left wholly, some partially, uncultivated .

In an official report , 2,000,000 feddans are stated to be cultivated, when the overflow of the Nile is the most favorable, i. e., 47 only of the estimated cultivable amount. The French, who surveyed Egypt minutely, with a view to future improvement, calculated that above 1,000,000 feddans (1,012,887) might be proximately restored by the restoration of the system of irrigation, and nearly 1,000,000 more (942,810) by the drainage of its lakes, ponds and marshes, i. e., nearly as much again as is actually cultivated. One of the French surveyors sums up his account of the present state of Egypt ; "without canals and their dykes, Egypt, ceasing to be vivified throughout, is only a corpse which the mass of the waters of its river inundates to superfluity, and destroys through fullness. Instead of those ancient cultivated and fertile plains, one only finds, here and there, canals filled up or cut in two, whose numerous ramifications, crossing each other in every direction, exhibit only some scarcely distinguishable traces of a system of irrigation; instead of those villages and populous cities, one sees only masses of bare and arid ruins, remnants of ancient habitations reduced to ashes; lastly, one finds only lagoons, miry and pestilential, or sterile sands which extend themselves, and unceasingly invade a land which the industry of man had gained from the desert and the sea."

Yet this is wholly unnatural. In the prophet’ s time, it was contrary to all experience. Egypt is alike prolific in its people and in the productions of the earth. The Egyptian race is still accounted very prolific . So general is this, that the ancients thought that the waters of tim Nile must have some power of fecundity . Yet with these powers implanted in nature unimpaired, the population is diminished, the land half-desert. No one doubts that man’ s abiding misgovernment is the cause of Egypt’ s desolation. Under their native princes, they were happy and prosperous . Alexander, some of the Ptolemies, the Romans, saw, at least, the value of Egypt. The great conception of its Greek conqueror, Alexandria, has been a source of prosperity to strangers for above 2000 years. Prosperity has hovered around Egypt. Minds, the most different, are at one in thinking that, with a good government, internal prosperity and its farfamed richness of production might at once be restored. Conquerors of varied nations, Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Georgians, Tartars, or Turks have tried their hands upon Egypt. Strange that selfishness or powerlessness for good should have rested upon all; strange that no one should have developed its inherent powers! Strange contrast. One long prosperity, and one long adversity. One scarcely broken day, and one troubled night. And that doom foretold in the mid-day of its prosperity, by those three words, "Egypt shall be a desolation."

Edom shall be a desolate wilderness - Edom, long unknown, its ancient capital, its rock-dwellings, have been, within these last forty years, anew revealed. The desolation has been so described to us, that we have seen it, as it were, with our own eyes. The land is almost the more hopelessly desolate, because it was once, artificially, highly cultivated. Once it had the "fatness of the earth and the dew of heaven from above"Gen 27:39 : it had Num 20:17 "cornfields"and "vineyards"in abundance, and "wells"of water; its vegetation, its trees, and its vineyards, attracted the dew by which they were supported. "Petra,"says Strabo, (xvi. 4, 21), "lies in a spot precipitous and abrupt without, but within possessed of abundant fountains for watering and horticulture."The terrace-cultivation, through which each shower which falls is stored to the uttermost, clothing with fertility the mountain-sides, leaves those steep sides the more bare, when disused. "We saw,"says a traveler , "many ruined terraces, the evidences and remains of a flourishing agriculture, which, in the prosperous days of Edom and Petra, clothed many of these now sterile mountains with fertility and beauty. Fields of wheat and some agricultural villages still exist in the eastern portion of Edom; but, with very slight exceptions, the country is blighted with cheerless desolations and hopeless sterility. The hill-sides and mountains, once covered with earth and clothed with vineyards, are now bare rocks. The soil no longer supported by terraces and sheltered by trees, has been swept away by the rains. The various contrivances for irrigation, which even now might restore fertility to many considerable tracts, have all disappeared. Sand from the desert, and the debris of the soft rock of the mountains, cover the valleys which formerly smiled with plenty."

Now "the springs have been dried up to such an extent, as to render the renewal of the general fertility of Edom (well nigh) impossible. In places along the course of the stream, reeds and shrubs grow luxuriantly, oleanders and wild figs abound, and give proof that a little cultivation would again cover the rock, and fill the cliffs with the numberless gardens which once adorned them. The traces of former fertility are innumerable; every spot capable of sustaining vegetable life was carefully watered and cultivated. There are numerous grooves in the rocks to carry rainwater to the little clefts in which even now figs are found. Every spot capable of being so protected has been walled up, however small the space gained, or however difficult the means of securing it. The ancient inhabitants seem to have left no accessible place untouched. They have exhibited equal art and industry in eliciting from the grand walls of their marvelous capital whatever the combination of climate, irrigation and botanical skill could foster in the scanty soil afforded them. The hanging gardens must have had a wondrous effect among the noble buildings of the town when it was in all its glory."This desolation began soon after the captivity of Judah and Edom’ s malicious joy in it. For Malachi appeals to Judah, that whereas God had restored him, He had "laid the mountains and the heritage"of Esau "waste for the jackals of the wilderness"Mal 1:3.

Yet Edom was the center of the conversation of nations. Occupying, as it did in its narrowest dimensions, the mountains between the south end of the Dead Sea and the Aelanitic gulf, it lay on the direct line between Egypt and Babylonia. A known route lay from Heroopolis to Petra its capital, and thence to Babylon . Elath and Ezion-geber discharged through its vally, the Arabah, the wealth which they received by sea from India or Africa. Petra was the natural halting-place of the caravans. "The Nabataeans,"says Pliny , "enclose Petra, in a valley of rather more than two miles in extent, surrounded by inaccessible mountains, through which a stream flows. Here the two roads meet of those who go to Palmyra of Syria, and of those who come from Gaza."Eastward again, he says , "they went from Petra to Fora, and thence to Charax"on the banks of the Tigris, near the Persian gulf.

Yet further the wealth of Arabia Felix poured by a land-route through Petra. : "To Petra and Palestine, Gerraens and Minaeans and all the neighboring Arabs brought down from the upper country the frankincense, it is said, and all other fragrant merchandise."Even after the foundation of Alexandria had diverted much of the stream of commerce from Leuce Come, the Aelanitic gulf, and Petra to Myos Hormus on the Egyptian side of the Red Sea, the Romans still connected Elath and Petra with Jerusalem by a great road, of which portions are still extant , and guarded the contact by military stations . Of these routes, that from Arabia Felix and from Egypt to Babylonia had probably been used for above 1000 years before the time of Joel. Elath and Eziongeber were well-known towns at the time of the Exodus Deu 2:8.

The contact was itself complex and manifold. The land exports of Arabia Felix and the commerce of Elath necessarily passed through Edom, and thence radiated to Egypt, Palestine, Syria. The withdrawal of the commerce of Egypt would not alone have destroyed that of Petra, while Tyre, Jerusalem, Damascus, still received merchandise through her. To them she was the natural channel; the pilgrim-route from Damascus to Mecca lies still by Petra. In Joel’ s time, not the slightest shadow was cast on her future. Then Babylon destroyed her for a time; but she recovered. The Babylonian and Persian Empires perished; Alexander rose and fell; Rome, the master alike of Alexandria and Petra, meant Petra still to survive. No human eye could even then tell that it would be finally desolate; much less could any human knowledge have foreseen it in that of Joel. But God said by him, "Edom shall be a desolate wilderness,"and it is so!

As, however, Egypt and Edom are only instances of the enemies of God’ s people and Church, so their desolation is only one instance of a great principle of God’ s Government, that "the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the ungodly for a moment"Job 20:5; that, after their short-lived office of fulfilling God’ s judgment on His people, the judgment rolls round on themselves, "and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate"Psa 34:21.

Judah shall dwell for ever - Not earthly Judah, nor earthly Jerusalem, for these must come to an end, together with the earth itself, of whose end the prophets well knew. It is then the one people of God, the true Judah, the people who praise God, the Israel, which is indeed Israel. Egypt and Edom and all the enemies of God should come to an end; but His people shall never come to an end. "The gates of hell shall not prevail against her."The enemy shall not destroy her; time shall not consume her; she shall never decay. The people of God shall abide before Him and through Him here, and shall dwell with Him forever.

For I will cleanse her blood that I have not cleansed - The word rendered "cleansed"is not used of natural cleansing, nor is the image taken from the cleansing of the body. The word signifies only to pronounce innocent, or to free from guilt. Nor is "blood"used of sinfulness generally, but only of the actual guilt of shedding blood. The whole then cannot be an image taken from the cleansing of physical defilement, like the words in the prophet Ezekiel, "then washed I thee with water; yea, I thoroughly washed away thy blood from thee"Eze 16:9. Nor again can it mean the forgiveness of sins generally, but only the pronouncing innocent the blood which had been shed. This, the only meaning of the words, fall in with the mention of the "innocent blood,"for shedding which, Egypt and Edom had been condemned. The words are the same. There it was said, "because they have shed innocent blood; dam naki;"here, "I will pronounce innocent their blood, nikkethi damam.""How,"it is not said. But the sentence on Egypt and Edom explains how God would do it, by punishing those who shed it. For in that He punishes the shedding of it, He declared the "blood"innocent, whose shedding He punished. So in the Revelation it is said, "I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held, and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?"Rev 6:10-11. : "Then, at the last judgment, when the truth in all things shall be made manifest, He shall "declare the blood"of His people, who clave to Him and His truth, which blood their enemies thought they had shed justly and deservedly as the blood of guilty persons, to have indeed been innocent, by absorbing them from eternal destruction to which He shall then adjudge their enemies for shedding of it."

For - (literally and) the Lord dwelleth in Zion He closes with the promise of God’ s abiding dwelling. He speaks, not simply of a future, but of an ever-abiding present. He who is, the unchangeable God , "the Lord, infinite in power and of eternal Being, who gives necessary being to all His purposes and promises,"dwelleth now in "Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem"(Heb 12:22; add Gal 4:26; Rev 3:12; Rev 14:1; Rev 21:2, Rev 21:10), now by grace and the presence of His Holy Spirit, hereafter in glory. Both of the Church militant on earth and that triumphant in heaven, it is truly to be said, that the Lord dwelleth in them, and that, perpetually. Of the Church on earth will be verified what our Saviour Christ saith, "lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world"Mat 28:20; and of its members Paul saith, that "they"are "of the household of God, an holy temple in the Lord, in whom they are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit"Eph 2:19, Eph 2:21-22. Of the Church triumphant, there is no doubt, that "He"doth and will there dwell, and manifest His glorious presence forever, "in"whose "presence is the fullness of joy, and at His Right Hand"there are "pleasures for evermore"Psa 16:1-11 :12. It is an eternal dwelling of the Eternal, varied as to the way and degree of His presence by our condition, now imperfect, there perfected in Him; but He Himself dwelleth on for ever. He, the Unchangeable, dwelleth unchangeably; the Eternal, eternally.

: "Glorious things are spoken of thee, thou city of God"Psa 87:3 Jerusalem, our mother, we thy children now groan and weep in this valley of tears, hanging between hope and fear, and, amid toil and conflicts, "lifting up our eyes"to thee and greeting thee from far. Truly "glorious things are spoken of thee."But whatever can be said, since it is said to people and in the words of people, is too little for the "good things"in thee, which "neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man"1Co 2:9. Great to us seem the things which we suffer; but one of thy most illustrious citizens, placed amid those sufferings, who knew something of thee, hesitated not to say, "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory"2Co 4:17. We will then "rejoice in hope,"and "by the waters of Babylon,"even while "we sit and weep,"we will "remember thee, O Zion. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget"her cunning. "Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, I do not remember thee, if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy"Psa 137:1-9.

O blessed longed-for day, when we shall enter into the city of the saints, ‘ whose light is the Lamb,’ where ‘ the King is seen in His beauty,’ where ‘ all tears are wiped off from the eyes’ of the saints, ‘ and there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor pain, for the former things have passed away Rev 21:23; Isa 33:17; Rev 21:4. "How amiable are Thy tabernacle, O Lord of Hosts! My soul longeth, yea fainteth for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God"Psa 84:1-2. "When shall I come and appear before God?"Psa 42:2, when shall I see that Father, whom I ever long for and never see, to whom out of this exile, I cry out, "Our Father, which art in heaven?"O true Father, "Father of our Lord Jesus Christ"(Rom 15:6, ...), "Father of mercies and God of all comfort!"2Co 1:3. When shall ‘ I see the Word, who was in the beginning with God,’ and who ‘ is God?’ Joh 1:1. When may I kiss His sacred Feet, pierced for me, put my mouth to His sacred Side, sit at His Feet, never to depart from them? O Face, more Glorious than the sun! Blessed is he, who beholdeth Thee, who hath never ceased to say, ‘ I shall see Him, but not now; I shall behold Him, but not nigh’ Num 24:17. When will the day come, when, cleansed from the defilement of my sins, I shall, ‘ with unveiled face, behold the glory of the Lord’ 2Co 3:18, and see the sanctifying Spirit, the Author of all good, through whose sanctifying we are cleansed, that ‘ we may be like Him, and see Him as He is?’ 1Jo 3:2. ‘ Blessed are all they that dwell in Thy house,’ O Lord, ‘ they shall ever praise Thee’ Psa 84:4; forever shall they behold Thee and love Thee."

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