Joel 3:13

3:13 Rush forth with ¹  the sickle, for the harvest is ripe!

Come, stomp the grapes, ²  for the winepress is full!

The vats overflow.

Indeed, their evil is great! ³ 

Joel 3:18

3:18 On that day ⁴  the mountains will drip with sweet wine, ⁵ 

and the hills will flow with milk. ⁶ 

All the dry stream beds ⁷  of Judah will flow with water.

A spring will flow out from the temple ⁸  of the Lord,

watering the Valley of Acacia Trees. ⁹ 

Leviticus 26:10

26:10 You will still be eating stored produce from the previous year ¹⁰  and will have to clean out what is stored from the previous year to make room for new. ¹¹ 

Proverbs 3:9-10

3:9 Honor ¹²  the Lord from your wealth

and from the first fruits of all your crops; ¹³ 

3:10 then your barns will be filled completely, ¹⁴ 

and your vats ¹⁵  will overflow ¹⁶  with new wine.

Amos 9:13

9:13 “Be sure of this, ¹⁷  the time is ¹⁸  coming,” says the Lord,

“when the plowman will catch up to the reaper ¹⁹ 

and the one who stomps the grapes ²⁰  will overtake ²¹  the planter. ²² 

Juice will run down the slopes, ²³ 

it will flow down all the hillsides. ²⁴ 

Malachi 3:10

3:10 “Bring the entire tithe into the storehouse ²⁵  so that there may be food in my temple. Test me in this matter,” says the Lord who rules over all, “to see if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until there is no room for it all.

[3:13]  ¹ tn Heb “send.”

[3:13]  ² tn Heb “go down” or “tread.” The Hebrew term רְדוּ (rÿdu) may be from יָרַד (yarad, “to go down”) or from רָדָה (radah, “have dominion,” here in the sense of “to tread”). If it means “go down,” the reference would be to entering the vat to squash the grapes. If it means “tread,” the verb would refer specifically to the action of those who walk over the grapes to press out their juice. The phrase “the grapes” is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[3:13]  ³ sn The immediacy of judgment upon wickedness is likened to the urgency required for a harvest that has reached its pinnacle of development. When the harvest is completely ripe, there can be no delay by the reapers in gathering the harvest. In a similar way, Joel envisions a time when human wickedness will reach such a heightened degree that there can be no further stay of divine judgment (cf. the “fullness of time” language in Gal 4:4).

[3:18]  ⁴ tn Heb “and it will come about in that day.”

[3:18]  ⁵ tn Many English translations read “new wine” or “sweet wine,” meaning unfermented wine, i.e., grape juice.

[3:18]  ⁶ sn The language used here is a hyperbolic way of describing both a bountiful grape harvest (“the mountains will drip with juice”) and an abundance of cattle (“the hills will flow with milk”). In addition to being hyperbolic, the language is also metonymical (effect for cause).

[3:18]  ⁷ tn Or “seasonal streams.”

[3:18]  ⁸ tn Heb “house.”

[3:18]  ⁹ tn Heb “valley of Shittim.” The exact location of the Valley of Acacia Trees is uncertain. The Hebrew word שִׁטִּים (shittim) refers to a place where the acacia trees grow, which would be a very arid and dry place. The acacia tree can survive in such locations, whereas most other trees require more advantageous conditions. Joel’s point is that the stream that has been mentioned will proceed to the most dry and barren of locations in the vicinity of Jerusalem.

[26:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “old [produce] growing old.”

[26:10]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and old from the presence of new you will bring out.”

[3:9]  ¹² tn The imperative כַּבֵּד (kabbed, “honor”) functions as a command, instruction, counsel or exhortation. To honor God means to give him the rightful place of authority by rendering to him gifts of tribute. One way to acknowledge God in one’s ways (v. 6) is to honor him with one’s wealth (v. 9).

[3:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “produce.” The noun תְּבוּאָה (tÿvu’ah) has a two-fold range of meaning: (1) “product; yield” of the earth (= crops; harvest) and (2) “income; revenue” in general (BDB 100 s.v.). The imagery in vv. 9-10 is agricultural; however, all Israelites – not just farmers – were expected to give the best portion (= first fruits) of their income to Lord.

[3:10]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “with plenty” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); NIV “to overflowing.” The noun שָׂבָע (sava’, “plenty; satiety”) functions as an adverbial accusative of manner or contents: “completely.”

[3:10]  ¹⁵ sn This pictures the process of pressing grapes in which the upper receptacle is filled with grapes and the lower one catches the juice. The harvest of grapes will be so plentiful that the lower vat will overflow with grape juice. The pictures in v. 10 are metonymies of effect for cause (= the great harvest that God will provide when they honor him).

[3:10]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “burst open.” The verb פָּרַץ (parats, “to burst open”) functions as hyperbole here to emphasize the fullness of the wine vats (BDB 829 s.v. 9).

[9:13]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

[9:13]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the days are.”

[9:13]  ¹⁹ sn The plowman will catch up to the reaper. Plowing occurred in October-November, and harvesting in April-May (see P. King, Amos, Hosea, Micah, 109.) But in the future age of restored divine blessing, there will be so many crops the reapers will take all summer to harvest them, and it will be time for plowing again before the harvest is finished.

[9:13]  ²⁰ sn When the grapes had been harvested, they were placed in a press where workers would stomp on them with their feet and squeeze out the juice. For a discussion of grape harvesting technique, see O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 110-12.

[9:13]  ²¹ tn The verb is omitted here in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation from the parallel line.

[9:13]  ²² sn The grape harvest occurred in August-September, planting in November-December (see P. King, Amos, Hosea, Micah, 109). But in the future age described here there will be so many grapes the workers who stomp them will still be working when the next planting season arrives.

[9:13]  ²³ tn Or “hills,” where the vineyards were planted.

[9:13]  ²⁴ tn Heb “and all the hills will melt.”

[3:10]  ²⁵ tn The Hebrew phrase בֵּית הָאוֹצָר (bet ha’otsar, here translated “storehouse”) refers to a kind of temple warehouse described more fully in Nehemiah (where the term לִשְׁכָּה גְדוֹלָה [lishkah gÿdolah, “great chamber”] is used) as a place for storing grain, frankincense, temple vessels, wine, and oil (Neh 13:5). Cf. TEV “to the Temple.”