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Introduction
to Joel
This summary of the book of Joel provides information about the
title
author(s)
date of writing
chronology
theme
theology
outline
a
brief overview
and the chapters of the Book of Joel.
The prophet Joel cannot be identified with any of the 12 other
figures in the OT who have the same name. He is not mentioned outside the books
of Joel and Acts (Ac 2:16). The non-Biblical legends about him are
unconvincing. His father
Pethuel (1:1)
is also unknown. Judging from his concern with Judah and Jerusalem (see 2:32;
3:1
6
8
16-20)
it seems likely that Joel lived
in that area. See note on 1:1.
The book contains no references to datable historical events. Many
interpreters date it somewhere between the late seventh and early fifth centuries
b.c. In any case
its message is not significantly affected by its dating.
The book of Joel has striking linguistic parallels to the language
of Amos
Micah
Zephaniah
Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Some scholars maintain that
the prophets borrowed phrases from one another; others hold that they drew more
or less from the religious literary traditions that they and their readers
shared in common -- liturgical and otherwise.
Joel sees the massive locust plague and severe drought devastating
Judah as a harbinger of the "great and dreadful day of the Lord" (2:31).
(The locusts he mentions in 1:4;
2:25 are best understood as real insects
not as allegorical
representations of the Babylonians
Medo-Persians
Greeks and Romans
as held
by some interpreters.) Confronted with this crisis
he calls on everyone to
repent: old and young (1:2-3)
drunkards (1:5)
farmers (1:11) and priests (1:13).
He describes the locusts as the Lord's army and sees in their coming a reminder
that the day of the Lord is near. He does not voice the popular notion that the
day will be one of judgment on the nations but deliverance and blessing for
Israel. Instead -- with Isaiah (2:10-21)
Jeremiah (4:5-9)
Amos (5:18-20) and Zephaniah (1:7-18) -- he describes the day as one of
punishment of unfaithful Israel as well. Restoration and blessing will come
only after judgment and repentance.
I.
Title (1:1)
A.
A Call to Mourning and Prayer (1:2-14)
III.
Judah Is Assured of Salvation in the Day of the Lord (2:18;3:21)
──《New
International Version》
Introduction to Joel
From the desolations about to come upon the
land of Judah
by the ravages of locusts and other insects
the prophet Joel
exhorts the Jews to repentance
fasting
and prayer. He notices the blessings
of the gospel
with the final glorious state of the church.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Joel》
00 Overview
JOEL
INTRODUCTION
I. In What Period
Should Joel’s Activity Be Placed?--Before
we can get a true
idea of any man who played an important part on the stage of the world in past
days
it is essential that we should know something of his environment--what
the character of his age was
who his contemporaries were. This knowledge is of
peculiar value in connection with the prophets; for
more than anything else
they were God’s messengers and missionaries to those among whom they lived and
moved and had their being. They preached first to the generation and the epoch
in which their lot was cast. No doubt their words had other applications
because God’s truth
like God from whom it comes
may fulfil itself in many
ways. But we shall hold a very unnatural and a very inadequate theory of
prophecy if we think of it as dealing solely
or even principally
with the
future. It is the philosophy of history
unveiling its meaning and pointing its
lessons. If the prophet had had to do only or mainly with the distant future
it would have mattered little to us in what particular age he chanced to live.
Because he was linked very truly and vitally to his own days and his own
people
it is most needful that we should try to understand his surroundings.
What
then
did Joel preach and labour? We cannot say that there is anything
like unanimity in the reply to the question. That he belonged to the kingdom of
Judah and dwelt in Jerusalem itself--these facts are admitted by all
and are
indeed rendered indisputable by the prophet’s frequent references to Zion
to
the house of Jehovah
to the porch and the altar
the priests and the
ministers
the meat-offering and the drink-offering. His date
however
is not
so easily determined as his home. Opinions have varied from the middle of the
tenth century before Christ down to the late days of the Maccabees. But
after
all
it is pretty certain that Joel is among the very oldest of the prophets.
Amos
himself one of the first in that goodly fellowship
knew his writings and
loved them
and regarded their author as a teacher
at whose feet he was
willing to sit and listen. The herdsman of Tekoa
to whose soul the breath of
the Spirit came impelling him to speak
opened his prophecy with the awful
declaration with which Joel had closed his--“The Lord shall roar out of Zion
and utter His voice from Jerusalem.” Isaiah
too
though he was so great and
original
was not ashamed to glean from the son of Pethuel sonic of those
spirit-stirring thoughts which he uttered in the ears of his people.£ Evidently
Joel was more ancient than these two. Something may be learned
too
from the
silences of his prophecy as well as from its positive declarations; for there
are significant omissions in his writings. He does not so much as allude to
Assyria
the terrible power
whose armies
having menaced Israel often
at last
carried its tribes into captivity
and whose might and cruelty and doom are frequent
themes with the prophets. No doubt there are interpreters who find Assyria and
its people everywhere latent under Joel’s glowing language; but they are the
exponents
as we shall see
of a theory which is not the wisest or the best.
Nor has our prophet anything to say even of Syria
a nearer neighbour of Israel
and Judah
with whom they were often at war. We may conclude that its people
did not harass his during the time when he fulfilled his mission
else he would
surely have had some message from God regarding them. And so the invasion under
Hazael
when
because King Joash had forgotten the lessons which he had learned
from the godly priest Jehoiada
and had acted foolishly
and unlike a king of
Jehovah’s holy nation
“the host of Syria came up against him to Judah and
Jerusalem
and destroyed all the princes of the people from among the people
and sent all the spoil of them unto the king of Damascus
”--this invasion
so
glorious for Syria but so ignominious for Judah
could hardly have fallen within
the years when Joel lived and preached. But it took place about the middle of
the ninth century before Christ; and we are constrained therefore to fix his
age before that time. Yet not very long before; for he could exult in the
brilliant victory which
in the opening years of this century
Jehoshaphat had
gained over the forces that combined themselves against him and against his
God; and could speak of it as the picture in miniature of a still nobler
triumph which the Lord would win in the latter days. “I will also gather all
nations
and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat
and will
contend with them there for my people and for My heritage Israel.” Such
considerations help us to a decision--to this decision
that Joel prophesied
nearly nine hundred years before the advent of Christ
perhaps in the days when
Joash was still a child
and when the kingdom of which he was the nominal
sovereign was managed by others in his stead. For the preacher’s counsel is not
addressed to any king
but to the old men
and to the inhabitants of the land
and above all to the priests
who were the real rulers during the regency; and
why should he have so much to say to these classes
if not because they were
more prominent in his time than the monarch himself? The reign of Joash
commenced about 877 b.c.
when he was but seven years of age; and in the years
just succeeding his accession we may imagine Joel coining forth in the presence
of the people to utter the prophecies of which we have some fragments in the
book which bears his name. One other proof
confirmatory of this date
may be
added. Names
we know
were significant among the Hebrews. Jewish fathers and
mothers were very careful what they called their children. And Joel means
“Jehovah is God.” But that had been the cry of the Israelites on Mount Carmel
on the memorable day when Elijah triumphed over the prophets of Baal
and slew
them with his own hand until Kishon ran red with their blood. “Jehovah
He is
the God
” they exclaimed
“Jehovah
He is the God.” Now
the birth of Joel
if
he belonged to the period to which I have assigned him
would fall just about
the time when on Carmel Elijah waxed valiant in fight
and turned to flight the
armies of the aliens. Joining this link of evidence to all the rest
have we
not a chain comparatively strong?
II. Is Joel’s
prophecy literal or figurative?--Does he deal with the present and the actual
or rather with events which were still in the future
and which he depicts only
in the language of metaphor and imagery? Each belief has found its advocates.
To all outward seeming he speaks of a solemn visitation of God’s providence
which lay heavily on the land of Judah in his own time. Swarm after swarm of
locusts had spread over the country
and had permitted no green tiling to
escape them. Matters were sad enough
indeed
before they showed themselves.
Long-continued drought had robbed the fields of their wonted fertility. The
vine was dried up
and the fig-tree languished; the pomegranate and the palm
and the apple were withered; the herds of cattle were perplexed because they
had no pasture; all joy was gone from the sons of men. But when the locusts
appeared the crowning desolation came. How graphically and vividly Joel
describes these locusts! Joel
we shall acknowledge
had manifestly an intimate
acquaintance with the natural history of the locust. Then
too
in what
splendid colours He paints the invasion of the insect-host! He speaks of the
shadow which their number throw over the land--a shadow resembling that of the
dim grey twilight of “the morning spread upon the mountains.” He tells how they
advance; “ like horsemen do they come”; “like the noise of chariots they leap
upon the tops of the hills”; “like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth
the stubble”; “as a strong people set in battle array.” They are well
disciplined
for Joel can confirm from his own observation the scientific truth
which Rabbi Agur imparted to his disciples
Ithiel and Ucal--the truth that
though the locusts have no king
yet they go forth by ordered bands. “They
march every one on his ways
” he assures us; “they do not break their ranks
neither does one thrust another.” Before their onset the people are powerless.
“They run to and fro in the streets”; “they mount the wall”; “they climb up
upon the houses”; “they go in at the windows like a thief.” How
indeed
can
they be defeated and put to shame? For this is the army of Jehovah; and they
are strong--they cannot but be strong
whether they be angels or men or locusts of the field--who
execute His word. And so
by heaping terror upon terror
Joel leads his hearers
on to the goal towards which he has been aiming. He calls on them to repent of
their sin. He bids them
in the Lord’s name
rend their hearts and not their
garments. At this stage
with this call to repentance
the first part of his
prophecy ends. We may imagine a pause
of longer or shorter duration
during
which Joel sees his commands complied with. Priest and people humble
themselves
and seek the pardon of the God whom they have offended. It is not
in vain that they do so. When these poor men cry
the Lord hears and saves them
out of all their troubles. This joyful fact Joel commemorates when he opens his
lips again
and his strain passes flora the minor to the major key. Translate
the futures of the 18th verse of the second chapter
where the happier section
of the prophecy begins
by imperfects
as there can be little doubt they should
be translated; and you will know how true was the repentance of Judah--how
seasonable was God’s succour--how thoroughly the winter passed from the
prophet’s soul
and lo
the time of the singing of birds was come. And then the
horizon of the prophet widens. He thinks of better blessings still which God
has for His sons and daughters. He predicts the shame of those ancient foes of
Israel’s youth--the only foes of Jehovah’s people with whom Joel was
acquainted--Egypt
and Edom
and Philistia
and Phoenicia
and the merchants of
the north who sold Hebrew children as slaves to the Greeks of Asia Minor
giving a boy for an harlot and a girl for wine. He prophesies the near approach
of a day of the Lord
full of darkness like the pillar of cloud for all His
enemies
of light and peace like the pillar of fire for all His friends. When
he ceases to speak
this is the vision which he leaves with us--on the one
side
nothing; and on the other
Judah and Jerusalem. God’s foes have become
non-existent; only His people survive. “Egypt shall be a desolation
and Edom a
desolate wilderness; but Judah shall dwell for ever
and Jerusalem from
generation to generation.” With this note of stern triumph
of lofty
intolerance
Joel draws to a close the second and brighter part of his
prophecy. Such in substance is the book. Is it not strange that some interpreters
should have refused to adopt what seems its plain and evident sense? The
drought was not a literal drought
they say; the locusts were not the insects
of the natural world which have carried ruin and destitution many a time to
Eastern lands. One critic thinks that Joel intended the work of the locusts to
represent “the gnawing care of prosperity and the unsatisfied desire left by a
life of luxury.” And others are sure that the prophet’s words dealt with the
future and not with the present
and that it was the scourge of the Assyrians
of which he chiefly thought. It is true that Assyria did not vex Judah until
the time of Hezekiah
many years after Joel’s day; but to the seer’s mind
gifted with the vision and the faculty Divine
are not all things
even things
distant and remote
laid naked and bare. It is difficult to conceive any reason
for this figurative interpretation. Surely
in God’s hand
the locusts
which
destroyed the pastures and trees
and brought want and woe and grim death to
many homes
were a scourge sufficiently terrible to justify the raising up of a
prophet who should expound the lessons of the awful visitation. They were as
worthy instruments for the execution of the Lord’s punishments upon a guilty
people as the Chaldeans could be; and if Joel had them for his text his theme
was sad and weighty enough. To unfold the meaning of God’s providence--to show
that the world of nature
with its “tooth and claw
” its earthquakes and storms
and fearful diseases
its tribes of creatures which can work the most mournful
ruin
is under His government and control
--is not that as lofty and
responsible a mission as any prophet could desire? Indeed
the allegorical view
is the outcome of that very insufficient conception of prophecy which considers
it to consist almost exclusively of prediction. Perhaps
in the case of Joel
there has been this further thought in some minds
that
being one of the
firstborn among the prophets
he was bound to deal with those themes which were
principally to occupy the attention of his successors. He must sketch in
outline the picture which they would fill in detail. But I prefer to believe
that
as the needs of men demanded
God sent out to them His servants
each at
his own hour of the day and with his own allotted task to do--this servant
among the rest
who had a very real and actual difficulty to grapple with
and
who was sufficiently honoured in being chosen to encounter and overcome it.
“Every man shall bear his own burden” is a rule which holds good in prophecy as
well as in daily life. But the book itself is the best refutation of the
figurative theory. It is a marvel that any could read its graphic sentences
without feeling that the whole soul of the author was concerned about a present
trouble--the trouble which he describes so powerfully. And it takes half of the
grandeur and sublimity out of these chapters to make them deal with Assyrians.
“They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war;
they shall run to and fro in the city; they shall climb up upon the
houses
”--understand these sentences of soldiers
and they are commonplace
prose; understand them of locusts
and they are throbbing
beautiful
impressive poetry. They rob Joel of his genius who abandon the literal
interpretation of his prophecy.
III. For
turning
now to the characteristics of his style
I think we must be struck most of all
by the poetic cast of his thought and expression. There is no probability that
this book contains all his prophetic utterances. In every likelihood it is but
a sample of the words he was wont to speak to the people; but if the rest
resembled these
how much we could wish that we had heard them all! If Joel
wrestled with a literal trouble
he did not deal with it in a matter-of-fact
way. His sentences
we might well affirm
sound in our ears “like sweet bells
at the evening-time most musically rung”; only
the music is for the most part
pathetic or terrible rather than joyous
and the bells
while they never lose
their harmony
ring out now a plaintive and again a loud and spirit-stirring
peal. If you wish an example of this sorrowful music--this mournful and yet
most attractive melody--read the exquisite metaphors of the opening chapter.
Joel has three different troubles to describe
each deeper and titterer than
the other; but he does not depict them like a pre-Raphaelite in their unlovely
reality; he throws a halo of imagination round them. First
he wishes to tell
his audience how the locusts had taken away the luxuries which men enjoyed
before
and he paints the picture of a drunkard whose wine has been cut off
and who weeps that he is denied his old delight. And then
advancing in his
account of the griefs of the land
he narrates how God’s worship could not be
fittingly observed
for the meat-offering and the drink-offering were nowhere
to be found; and he paints another picture
very tenderly and feelingly
of a
young wife bereaved and mourn-tug and girded with sackcloth for the husband of
her youth. And yet further and deeper he goes in the sad history. The very
necessities of life
the things which men required for ordinary sustenance
could not now be procured. There was no family but felt the pinch of poverty;
no home but learned from experience how gaunt and fierce the wolf is that comes
to the door in time of famine. And
that he may portray this lowest extremity
Joel paints a third picture
the companion of the others--the picture of some
disappointed husbandmen and vine-dressers
who go out to their fields and
vineyards at the season when the fruits of the earth should be gathered in
and
discover only waste and barrenness. In this book you may find two
characteristics of true poetry--a great sympathy with nature
and a great
sympathy with man
in his varied life
his hopes and fears and joys and griefs.
IV. What is Joel’s
place in history and revelation?--He was the successor of Elijah and Elisha.
When he opened his mouth to speak what God had put into his heart
the great
warfare between Jehovah and Baal was accomplished. There was no need to insist
now on the truth that the Lord alone was God. His unity and His sovereignty and
His spirituality had already been placed beyond all dispute; and to Joel was
entrusted the mission of unveiling and enforcing other lessons about
God--lessons which followed naturally on those taught by his predecessors. That
God works in the world
and that men are connected with Him
and that there is
a Divine event towards which things are lending--these were the doctrines which
this prophet was bidden proclaim. He made clear to iris people the meaning of
two words which are very familiar to us--the words “providence” and “judgment.”
He showed them that God does not sleep
and does not only start at times into
spasmodic activity--that He is a constant power moving among His creatures;
that with Him men have in a most real and solemn way to do. And whilst Joel was
charged to deliver this message
he was honoured in being permitted to hint at
other truths
to which his successors often returned. What are some of these truths
which appear in his book in embryo and germ? To him there was revealed
first
among the prophets
the great thought of “a day of the Lord”--dies irae
dies illa--when the current of history should stand still
and this present
age of the world should come to an end. This prophet
too
lays stress on the
idea of an effectual Divine call
which comes to men
and which
when it comes
in its majesty and grace
they cannot resist. “In Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
shall be deliverance
as the Lord hath said
and in the remnant whom the Lord
shall call.” Of course
Joel did not attach to the idea the full doctrinal
significance which the apostle Paul
for example
was wont to do. God’s
revelation of this truth
as of all truth
was gradual A remnant
he said
called
of God
would escape the desolating ruin wrought by the locusts. These
illustrations of the legacy of truth which this prophet bequeathed to his
successors might be multiplied; but I choose only one other. He was the first
to speak of the outpouring of the Spirit
which should be characteristic of the
new dispensation. They were his sayings which Peter quoted on the day of
Pentecost. And his surely was a great honour
as well as a great personal
happiness
who
before any other
was permitted to behold this glory of the
Gospel day. And can we not fancy now
in some measure
what manner of man he
was? He was very humble; for
though so high a mission was intrusted to him
he
did not exalt himself. It was sufficient to him that he should publish the “word
of the Lord that came to him”; that he should be a voice crying on God’s
behalf
not in the desert
indeed
but in the populous city; that he should
finish the work given him to do
and then go quietly back to the darkness and
the silence out of which for a moment he had been raised. He was Very stern
too
towards all sin; and when he spoke of God’s displeasure against
transgression
men trembled as they listened
and went straightway and did
those things which he commanded. And yet he had in him a tender and loving
heart
and perhaps there were tears in his eyes when he told out his story of
the wrath of the Lord. For he was much affected by the miseries of the
creatures
and of the men and women and little children who were in sorrow
around him. (A. Smellie
M. A.)
The prophet Joel
Of Joel we know absolutely nothing but what may be gathered from
his prophecy
and that tells us neither when nor where he flourished
save by
hints and implications which are still variously read. That he lived in Judah
probably in Jerusalem
we may infer from the fact that he never mentions the
northern kingdom of Israel
and that he shows himself familiar with the temple
the priests
the ordinances of worship; he moves through the sacred city and
the temple of the Lord as one that is at home in them
as one who is native
and to the manner born. On this point the commentators are pretty well agreed;
but no sooner do we ask
“When did Joel live and prophecy?” than we receive the
most diverse and contradictory replies. He has been moved along the
chronological line of at least two centuries
and fixed
now here
now there
at almost every point. He was probably the earliest of the prophets whose
writings have come down to us. There are hints in his poem or prophecy which indicate
that it must have been written in the ninth century before Christ (cir. 870-860)
more than a hundred years before Isaiah “saw the Lord sitting on His throne
high and lifted up
” and some fifty years after Elijah was carried “by a
whirlwind into heaven.” Joel’s style is that of the earlier age. So marked
indeed
is the “antique vigour and imperativeness of his language “ that surely
on this ground Ewald
whose fine
critical instinct deserves a respect which
his dogmatism often averts
places him
without a doubt
first in the rank of
the earlier prophets
and makes him the contemporary of Joash. All we can say
is that
in all probability
the son of Pethuel lived in Jerusalem during the
reign of Joash; that he aided Jehoiada
the high priest
in urging the citizens
to repair the temple
and to recur to the service of Jehovah; and that his
prophecy is the oldest in our hands
and was written in that comparatively calm
and pure interval in which Jerusalem was free from the bloody rites and
licentious orgies of the Baalim worship. That the prophet was an accomplished
and gifted man is proved by his work. The style is pure
severe
animated
finished
and full of happy rhythms and easy
graceful turns. “He has no abrupt
transitions
is everywhere connected
and finishes whatever he takes up. In
description he is graphic and perspicuous
in arrangement lucid; in imagery
original
copious
and varied.” Even in this early poem we find some instances
of the tender refrains and recurring “burdens” which characterise much of the
later Hebrew poetry. In short
there are marks both of the scholar and of the
artist in his style
which distinguish him very clearly from Amos the shepherd
and Haggai the exile. It is almost beyond a doubt that he was a practised author
of whose many poems and discourses only one has come down to us. (Samuel
Cox
D. D.)
Arguments for the later date of Joel
The probable date of the book of Joel is a matter of much dispute.
Some Biblical critics place it as early as 837
others as late as 440 b.c. This
is unfortunate
as the estimate of the value of the prophecy is directly
affected by the position adopted. Joel is either at the head of the aristocracy
of this famous line of prophets
or one of the less gifted who bring up the
rear. He is either indebted for ideas and phrases to twelve other Old Testament
writers
or they are indebted to him. When the smallness of the book is taken
into consideration it seems much more likely that he borrowed from twelve than
that twelve borrowed from him. Other reasons support the conclusion that the
book is of late date. There is no mention of the crass tendency to idolatry
against which the early prophets declaimed. On the contrary
the people appear
docile and devout. The northern tribes of Israel form no part of the body
politic; direct reference is made to the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem and
to the dispersed; the exile is apparently a thing of the past. Assyria as a
world-power is not even darkly hinted at. There is no mention of a king. These facts
favour a late date under the Persian era. Moreover
almost exceptional
importance is attached to the temple ritual. That was an outstanding
characteristic of the time succeeding the great reform of Ezra and Nehemiah
(440 b.c.)
. The bitter hatred of the heathen shown in the idea of their utter
annihilation (Joel 3:13)
and the narrow
national
exclusiveness revealed in the fond conception of Jerusalem as a sacred city
undefiled by the foot of the foreigner (Joel 3:17)
afford convincing evidence
that the book belongs to the later days of Judaism. Further
the “Day of the
Lord
” which in the time of Amos was popularly regarded as the dawn of blessing
rather than of judgment
appears in the writings of Joel in the sharpest
contrast of light and shade that the idea had yet attained in the successive
stages of its development. Such stumbling-blocks as the references to Egypt and
Edom (Joel 3:19) may be accounted for on the
lines of Ezekiel’s visions (Ezekiel 29:9; Ezekiel 32:15). On the other hand
Greece
appears on the horizon in a clear light (Joel 3:6). These and other arguments set
forth by various writers afford weighty evidence
which the tone anal character
of the book seem altogether to confirm. (Thomas M’William
M. A.)
JOEL
INTRODUCTION
I. In What Period
Should Joel’s Activity Be Placed?--Before
we can get a true
idea of any man who played an important part on the stage of the world in past
days
it is essential that we should know something of his environment--what
the character of his age was
who his contemporaries were. This knowledge is of
peculiar value in connection with the prophets; for
more than anything else
they were God’s messengers and missionaries to those among whom they lived and
moved and had their being. They preached first to the generation and the epoch
in which their lot was cast. No doubt their words had other applications
because God’s truth
like God from whom it comes
may fulfil itself in many
ways. But we shall hold a very unnatural and a very inadequate theory of
prophecy if we think of it as dealing solely
or even principally
with the future.
It is the philosophy of history
unveiling its meaning and pointing its
lessons. If the prophet had had to do only or mainly with the distant future
it would have mattered little to us in what particular age he chanced to live.
Because he was linked very truly and vitally to his own days and his own
people
it is most needful that we should try to understand his surroundings.
What
then
did Joel preach and labour? We cannot say that there is anything
like unanimity in the reply to the question. That he belonged to the kingdom of
Judah and dwelt in Jerusalem itself--these facts are admitted by all
and are
indeed rendered indisputable by the prophet’s frequent references to Zion
to
the house of Jehovah
to the porch and the altar
the priests and the ministers
the meat-offering and the drink-offering. His date
however
is not so easily
determined as his home. Opinions have varied from the middle of the tenth
century before Christ down to the late days of the Maccabees. But
after all
it is pretty certain that Joel is among the very oldest of the prophets. Amos
himself one of the first in that goodly fellowship
knew his writings and loved
them
and regarded their author as a teacher
at whose feet he was willing to
sit and listen. The herdsman of Tekoa
to whose soul the breath of the Spirit
came impelling him to speak
opened his prophecy with the awful declaration
with which Joel had closed his--“The Lord shall roar out of Zion
and utter His
voice from Jerusalem.” Isaiah
too
though he was so great and original
was
not ashamed to glean from the son of Pethuel sonic of those spirit-stirring
thoughts which he uttered in the ears of his people.£ Evidently Joel was more
ancient than these two. Something may be learned
too
from the silences of his
prophecy as well as from its positive declarations; for there are significant
omissions in his writings. He does not so much as allude to Assyria
the
terrible power
whose armies
having menaced Israel often
at last carried its
tribes into captivity
and whose might and cruelty and doom are frequent themes
with the prophets. No doubt there are interpreters who find Assyria and its
people everywhere latent under Joel’s glowing language; but they are the
exponents
as we shall see
of a theory which is not the wisest or the best.
Nor has our prophet anything to say even of Syria
a nearer neighbour of Israel
and Judah
with whom they were often at war. We may conclude that its people
did not harass his during the time when he fulfilled his mission
else he would
surely have had some message from God regarding them. And so the invasion under
Hazael
when
because King Joash had forgotten the lessons which he had learned
from the godly priest Jehoiada
and had acted foolishly
and unlike a king of
Jehovah’s holy nation
“the host of Syria came up against him to Judah and
Jerusalem
and destroyed all the princes of the people from among the people
and sent all the spoil of them unto the king of Damascus
”--this invasion
so
glorious for Syria but so ignominious for Judah
could hardly have fallen
within the years when Joel lived and preached. But it took place about the
middle of the ninth century before Christ; and we are constrained therefore to
fix his age before that time. Yet not very long before; for he could exult in
the brilliant victory which
in the opening years of this century
Jehoshaphat
had gained over the forces that combined themselves against him and against his
God; and could speak of it as the picture in miniature of a still nobler
triumph which the Lord would win in the latter days. “I will also gather all
nations
and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat
and will
contend with them there for my people and for My heritage Israel.” Such
considerations help us to a decision--to this decision
that Joel prophesied
nearly nine hundred years before the advent of Christ
perhaps in the days when
Joash was still a child
and when the kingdom of which he was the nominal
sovereign was managed by others in his stead. For the preacher’s counsel is not
addressed to any king
but to the old men
and to the inhabitants of the land
and above all to the priests
who were the real rulers during the regency; and
why should he have so much to say to these classes
if not because they were
more prominent in his time than the monarch himself? The reign of Joash
commenced about 877 b.c.
when he was but seven years of age; and in the years
just succeeding his accession we may imagine Joel coining forth in the presence
of the people to utter the prophecies of which we have some fragments in the
book which bears his name. One other proof
confirmatory of this date
may be
added. Names
we know
were significant among the Hebrews. Jewish fathers and
mothers were very careful what they called their children. And Joel means
“Jehovah is God.” But that had been the cry of the Israelites on Mount Carmel
on the memorable day when Elijah triumphed over the prophets of Baal
and slew
them with his own hand until Kishon ran red with their blood. “Jehovah
He is
the God
” they exclaimed
“Jehovah
He is the God.” Now
the birth of Joel
if
he belonged to the period to which I have assigned him
would fall just about
the time when on Carmel Elijah waxed valiant in fight
and turned to flight the
armies of the aliens. Joining this link of evidence to all the rest
have we
not a chain comparatively strong?
II. Is Joel’s
prophecy literal or figurative?--Does he deal with the present and the actual
or rather with events which were still in the future
and which he depicts only
in the language of metaphor and imagery? Each belief has found its advocates.
To all outward seeming he speaks of a solemn visitation of God’s providence
which lay heavily on the land of Judah in his own time. Swarm after swarm of
locusts had spread over the country
and had permitted no green tiling to
escape them. Matters were sad enough
indeed
before they showed themselves.
Long-continued drought had robbed the fields of their wonted fertility. The
vine was dried up
and the fig-tree languished; the pomegranate and the palm
and the apple were withered; the herds of cattle were perplexed because they
had no pasture; all joy was gone from the sons of men. But when the locusts
appeared the crowning desolation came. How graphically and vividly Joel describes
these locusts! Joel
we shall acknowledge
had manifestly an intimate
acquaintance with the natural history of the locust. Then
too
in what
splendid colours He paints the invasion of the insect-host! He speaks of the
shadow which their number throw over the land--a shadow resembling that of the
dim grey twilight of “the morning spread upon the mountains.” He tells how they
advance; “ like horsemen do they come”; “like the noise of chariots they leap
upon the tops of the hills”; “like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth
the stubble”; “as a strong people set in battle array.” They are well
disciplined
for Joel can confirm from his own observation the scientific truth
which Rabbi Agur imparted to his disciples
Ithiel and Ucal--the truth that
though the locusts have no king
yet they go forth by ordered bands. “They
march every one on his ways
” he assures us; “they do not break their ranks
neither does one thrust another.” Before their onset the people are powerless.
“They run to and fro in the streets”; “they mount the wall”; “they climb up
upon the houses”; “they go in at the windows like a thief.” How
indeed
can
they be defeated and put to shame? For this is the army of Jehovah; and they
are strong--they cannot but be strong
whether they be angels or men or locusts of the field--who
execute His word. And so
by heaping terror upon terror
Joel leads his hearers
on to the goal towards which he has been aiming. He calls on them to repent of
their sin. He bids them
in the Lord’s name
rend their hearts and not their
garments. At this stage
with this call to repentance
the first part of his
prophecy ends. We may imagine a pause
of longer or shorter duration
during
which Joel sees his commands complied with. Priest and people humble themselves
and seek the pardon of the God whom they have offended. It is not in vain that
they do so. When these poor men cry
the Lord hears and saves them out of all
their troubles. This joyful fact Joel commemorates when he opens his lips
again
and his strain passes flora the minor to the major key. Translate the
futures of the 18th verse of the second chapter
where the happier section of
the prophecy begins
by imperfects
as there can be little doubt they should be
translated; and you will know how true was the repentance of Judah--how
seasonable was God’s succour--how thoroughly the winter passed from the
prophet’s soul
and lo
the time of the singing of birds was come. And then the
horizon of the prophet widens. He thinks of better blessings still which God
has for His sons and daughters. He predicts the shame of those ancient foes of
Israel’s youth--the only foes of Jehovah’s people with whom Joel was
acquainted--Egypt
and Edom
and Philistia
and Phoenicia
and the merchants of
the north who sold Hebrew children as slaves to the Greeks of Asia Minor
giving a boy for an harlot and a girl for wine. He prophesies the near approach
of a day of the Lord
full of darkness like the pillar of cloud for all His
enemies
of light and peace like the pillar of fire for all His friends. When
he ceases to speak
this is the vision which he leaves with us--on the one
side
nothing; and on the other
Judah and Jerusalem. God’s foes have become
non-existent; only His people survive. “Egypt shall be a desolation
and Edom a
desolate wilderness; but Judah shall dwell for ever
and Jerusalem from
generation to generation.” With this note of stern triumph
of lofty
intolerance
Joel draws to a close the second and brighter part of his
prophecy. Such in substance is the book. Is it not strange that some
interpreters should have refused to adopt what seems its plain and evident
sense? The drought was not a literal drought
they say; the locusts were not
the insects of the natural world which have carried ruin and destitution many a
time to Eastern lands. One critic thinks that Joel intended the work of the
locusts to represent “the gnawing care of prosperity and the unsatisfied desire
left by a life of luxury.” And others are sure that the prophet’s words dealt
with the future and not with the present
and that it was the scourge of the
Assyrians of which he chiefly thought. It is true that Assyria did not vex
Judah until the time of Hezekiah
many years after Joel’s day; but to the
seer’s mind
gifted with the vision and the faculty Divine
are not all things
even things distant and remote
laid naked and bare. It is difficult to
conceive any reason for this figurative interpretation. Surely
in God’s hand
the locusts
which destroyed the pastures and trees
and brought want and woe
and grim death to many homes
were a scourge sufficiently terrible to justify
the raising up of a prophet who should expound the lessons of the awful
visitation. They were as worthy instruments for the execution of the Lord’s
punishments upon a guilty people as the Chaldeans could be; and if Joel had
them for his text his theme was sad and weighty enough. To unfold the meaning
of God’s providence--to show that the world of nature
with its “tooth and
claw
” its earthquakes and storms and fearful diseases
its tribes of creatures
which can work the most mournful ruin
is under His government and control
--is
not that as lofty and responsible a mission as any prophet could desire?
Indeed
the allegorical view is the outcome of that very insufficient conception
of prophecy which considers it to consist almost exclusively of prediction.
Perhaps
in the case of Joel
there has been this further thought in some
minds
that
being one of the firstborn among the prophets
he was bound to
deal with those themes which were principally to occupy the attention of his
successors. He must sketch in outline the picture which they would fill in
detail. But I prefer to believe that
as the needs of men demanded
God sent
out to them His servants
each at his own hour of the day and with his own
allotted task to do--this servant among the rest
who had a very real and
actual difficulty to grapple with
and who was sufficiently honoured in being
chosen to encounter and overcome it. “Every man shall bear his own burden” is a
rule which holds good in prophecy as well as in daily life. But the book itself
is the best refutation of the figurative theory. It is a marvel that any could
read its graphic sentences without feeling that the whole soul of the author
was concerned about a present trouble--the trouble which he describes so
powerfully. And it takes half of the grandeur and sublimity out of these
chapters to make them deal with Assyrians. “They shall run like mighty men;
they shall climb the wall like men of war; they shall run to and fro in the
city; they shall climb up upon the houses
”--understand these sentences of
soldiers
and they are commonplace prose; understand them of locusts
and they
are throbbing
beautiful
impressive poetry. They rob Joel of his genius who abandon
the literal interpretation of his prophecy.
III. For
turning
now to the characteristics of his style
I think we must be struck most of all
by the poetic cast of his thought and expression. There is no probability that
this book contains all his prophetic utterances. In every likelihood it is but
a sample of the words he was wont to speak to the people; but if the rest
resembled these
how much we could wish that we had heard them all! If Joel
wrestled with a literal trouble
he did not deal with it in a matter-of-fact
way. His sentences
we might well affirm
sound in our ears “like sweet bells
at the evening-time most musically rung”; only
the music is for the most part
pathetic or terrible rather than joyous
and the bells
while they never lose
their harmony
ring out now a plaintive and again a loud and spirit-stirring
peal. If you wish an example of this sorrowful music--this mournful and yet
most attractive melody--read the exquisite metaphors of the opening chapter.
Joel has three different troubles to describe
each deeper and titterer than
the other; but he does not depict them like a pre-Raphaelite in their unlovely
reality; he throws a halo of imagination round them. First
he wishes to tell
his audience how the locusts had taken away the luxuries which men enjoyed
before
and he paints the picture of a drunkard whose wine has been cut off
and who weeps that he is denied his old delight. And then
advancing in his
account of the griefs of the land
he narrates how God’s worship could not be
fittingly observed
for the meat-offering and the drink-offering were nowhere
to be found; and he paints another picture
very tenderly and feelingly
of a
young wife bereaved and mourn-tug and girded with sackcloth for the husband of
her youth. And yet further and deeper he goes in the sad history. The very
necessities of life
the things which men required for ordinary sustenance
could not now be procured. There was no family but felt the pinch of poverty;
no home but learned from experience how gaunt and fierce the wolf is that comes
to the door in time of famine. And
that he may portray this lowest extremity
Joel paints a third picture
the companion of the others--the picture of some
disappointed husbandmen and vine-dressers
who go out to their fields and
vineyards at the season when the fruits of the earth should be gathered in
and
discover only waste and barrenness. In this book you may find two
characteristics of true poetry--a great sympathy with nature
and a great
sympathy with man
in his varied life
his hopes and fears and joys and griefs.
IV. What is Joel’s
place in history and revelation?--He was the successor of Elijah and Elisha.
When he opened his mouth to speak what God had put into his heart
the great
warfare between Jehovah and Baal was accomplished. There was no need to insist
now on the truth that the Lord alone was God. His unity and His sovereignty and
His spirituality had already been placed beyond all dispute; and to Joel was
entrusted the mission of unveiling and enforcing other lessons about
God--lessons which followed naturally on those taught by his predecessors. That
God works in the world
and that men are connected with Him
and that there is
a Divine event towards which things are lending--these were the doctrines which
this prophet was bidden proclaim. He made clear to iris people the meaning of
two words which are very familiar to us--the words “providence” and “judgment.”
He showed them that God does not sleep
and does not only start at times into
spasmodic activity--that He is a constant power moving among His creatures;
that with Him men have in a most real and solemn way to do. And whilst Joel was
charged to deliver this message
he was honoured in being permitted to hint at
other truths
to which his successors often returned. What are some of these
truths which appear in his book in embryo and germ? To him there was revealed
first among the prophets
the great thought of “a day of the Lord”--dies
irae dies illa--when the current of history should stand still
and this
present age of the world should come to an end. This prophet
too
lays stress
on the idea of an effectual Divine call
which comes to men
and which
when it
comes in its majesty and grace
they cannot resist. “In Mount Zion and in
Jerusalem shall be deliverance
as the Lord hath said
and in the remnant whom
the Lord shall call.” Of course
Joel did not attach to the idea the full
doctrinal significance which the apostle Paul
for example
was wont to do.
God’s revelation of this truth
as of all truth
was gradual A remnant
he
said
called of God
would escape the desolating ruin wrought by the locusts.
These illustrations of the legacy of truth which this prophet bequeathed to his
successors might be multiplied; but I choose only one other. He was the first
to speak of the outpouring of the Spirit
which should be characteristic of the
new dispensation. They were his sayings which Peter quoted on the day of
Pentecost. And his surely was a great honour
as well as a great personal
happiness
who
before any other
was permitted to behold this glory of the
Gospel day. And can we not fancy now
in some measure
what manner of man he
was? He was very humble; for
though so high a mission was intrusted to him
he
did not exalt himself. It was sufficient to him that he should publish the
“word of the Lord that came to him”; that he should be a voice crying on God’s
behalf
not in the desert
indeed
but in the populous city; that he should
finish the work given him to do
and then go quietly back to the darkness and
the silence out of which for a moment he had been raised. He was Very stern
too
towards all sin; and when he spoke of God’s displeasure against
transgression
men trembled as they listened
and went straightway and did
those things which he commanded. And yet he had in him a tender and loving
heart
and perhaps there were tears in his eyes when he told out his story of
the wrath of the Lord. For he was much affected by the miseries of the
creatures
and of the men and women and little children who were in sorrow
around him. (A. Smellie
M. A.)
The prophet Joel
Of Joel we know absolutely nothing but what may be gathered from
his prophecy
and that tells us neither when nor where he flourished
save by
hints and implications which are still variously read. That he lived in Judah
probably in Jerusalem
we may infer from the fact that he never mentions the
northern kingdom of Israel
and that he shows himself familiar with the temple
the priests
the ordinances of worship; he moves through the sacred city and
the temple of the Lord as one that is at home in them
as one who is native
and to the manner born. On this point the commentators are pretty well agreed;
but no sooner do we ask
“When did Joel live and prophecy?” than we receive the
most diverse and contradictory replies. He has been moved along the
chronological line of at least two centuries
and fixed
now here
now there
at almost every point. He was probably the earliest of the prophets whose
writings have come down to us. There are hints in his poem or prophecy which
indicate that it must have been written in the ninth century before Christ (cir.
870-860)
more than a hundred years before Isaiah “saw the Lord sitting on His throne
high and lifted up
” and some fifty years after Elijah was carried “by a
whirlwind into heaven.” Joel’s style is that of the earlier age. So marked
indeed
is the “antique vigour and imperativeness of his language “ that surely
on this ground Ewald
whose fine
critical instinct deserves a respect which his
dogmatism often averts
places him
without a doubt
first in the rank of the
earlier prophets
and makes him the contemporary of Joash. All we can say is
that
in all probability
the son of Pethuel lived in Jerusalem during the
reign of Joash; that he aided Jehoiada
the high priest
in urging the citizens
to repair the temple
and to recur to the service of Jehovah; and that his
prophecy is the oldest in our hands
and was written in that comparatively calm
and pure interval in which Jerusalem was free from the bloody rites and
licentious orgies of the Baalim worship. That the prophet was an accomplished
and gifted man is proved by his work. The style is pure
severe
animated
finished
and full of happy rhythms and easy
graceful turns. “He has no abrupt
transitions
is everywhere connected
and finishes whatever he takes up. In
description he is graphic and perspicuous
in arrangement lucid; in imagery
original
copious
and varied.” Even in this early poem we find some instances
of the tender refrains and recurring “burdens” which characterise much of the
later Hebrew poetry. In short
there are marks both of the scholar and of the
artist in his style
which distinguish him very clearly from Amos the shepherd
and Haggai the exile. It is almost beyond a doubt that he was a practised
author
of whose many poems and discourses only one has come down to us. (Samuel
Cox
D. D.)
Arguments for the later date of Joel
The probable date of the book of Joel is a matter of much dispute.
Some Biblical critics place it as early as 837
others as late as 440 b.c. This
is unfortunate
as the estimate of the value of the prophecy is directly
affected by the position adopted. Joel is either at the head of the aristocracy
of this famous line of prophets
or one of the less gifted who bring up the
rear. He is either indebted for ideas and phrases to twelve other Old Testament
writers
or they are indebted to him. When the smallness of the book is taken
into consideration it seems much more likely that he borrowed from twelve than
that twelve borrowed from him. Other reasons support the conclusion that the
book is of late date. There is no mention of the crass tendency to idolatry
against which the early prophets declaimed. On the contrary
the people appear
docile and devout. The northern tribes of Israel form no part of the body
politic; direct reference is made to the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem and
to the dispersed; the exile is apparently a thing of the past. Assyria as a
world-power is not even darkly hinted at. There is no mention of a king. These
facts favour a late date under the Persian era. Moreover
almost exceptional
importance is attached to the temple ritual. That was an outstanding
characteristic of the time succeeding the great reform of Ezra and Nehemiah
(440 b.c.)
. The bitter hatred of the heathen shown in the idea of their utter
annihilation (Joel 3:13)
and the narrow
national
exclusiveness revealed in the fond conception of Jerusalem as a sacred city
undefiled by the foot of the foreigner (Joel 3:17)
afford convincing evidence
that the book belongs to the later days of Judaism. Further
the “Day of the Lord
”
which in the time of Amos was popularly regarded as the dawn of blessing rather
than of judgment
appears in the writings of Joel in the sharpest contrast of
light and shade that the idea had yet attained in the successive stages of its
development. Such stumbling-blocks as the references to Egypt and Edom (Joel 3:19) may be accounted for on the
lines of Ezekiel’s visions (Ezekiel 29:9; Ezekiel 32:15). On the other hand
Greece
appears on the horizon in a clear light (Joel 3:6). These and other arguments set
forth by various writers afford weighty evidence
which the tone anal character
of the book seem altogether to confirm. (Thomas M’William
M. A.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》