Date
The book of Joel portrays the devastation wrought by a plague of locusts as a foreshadowing of God's judgment on the approaching "day of the Lord" Thus Joel ("Yahweh is God") urges his Judahite audience to sincere repentance, which might yet reverse their fortunes. Whereas 1:1-2:27 dwell on the current circumstances of the Hebrew community, 2:28-3:21 look toward a final day of judgment, when God sentences "the nations" and establishes forever the kingdom of the repentant elect.
Date
The book offers insufficient data for pinpointing the precise time of the prophet's ministry. Joel demonstrates familiarity with the 8th-centuryB.C. prophets Isaiah and Amos and also the 6thcentury prophet-in-exile, Ezekiel. References to slave trade between the Phoenicians and Greeks support a postexilic setting, and scholars have suggested dates of composition that extend into and even beyond the 4th century. The prophet's call to weep "between the vestibule and the altar" (2:17) reflects features of the second temple, built after the Hebrews' return from exile in Babylon (see Ezra).
1 A Plague of Locusts: Portent of Worse to Come
Joel summons the attention of his fellow Judahites, from drunkards to farmers to priests, to awaken their realization that the current stripping of the local vegetation by a swarm of locusts portends the judgmental "day of the Lord" Throughout history, and even within the last century, winds from the Arabian Desert have driven swarms of locusts west into Canaan/Israel. Modern research reveals that swarms contain up to io billion individual locusts, which can travel as many as 3000 miles
during their lifetime. A swarm can consume in a single day enough food to feed 40 thousand people for one year. So Joel's audience would have had little trouble realizing the severity of the forewarned day of the Lord. Joel likens the locusts' attack to an overpowering military invasion (v. 6).
The frequent biblical pairing of the fruitful "vine" and "fig tree" represents abundant prosperity. Their devastation (v 7) symbolizes total agricultural catastrophe.
Joel's concern in admonishing the people to mourn the situation lies not so much with the personal hardships it presents but with the interruption of daily offerings at the temple for lack of grain, wine, and oil (vv. 8-1o). He calls for a national day of fasting and communal prayer at the temple to lament the coming day of the Lord (v 14). With devastated crops and pastures, empty storehouses, and an accompanying drought, Judah's future looks terribly bleak (vv. 16-20).
2:1-11 The Overwhelming Day of the Lord
Joel uses the recent invasion of Judah by locusts as a springboard to warn of impending attack by a punishing army, commanded by God (v. 11; some scholars interpret this passage as referring to the onslaught of the locusts only). The priests' blast of the ram's horn in Zion (= Jerusalem) warns of imminent danger (vv. 1, 15). Joel describes the overwhelming invasion in language that recalls the plague of locusts sent on Egypt (v. 2; cf. Exod. 10:14). Verses 3-9 picture an innumerable army, characterized by strength, endurance, agility, energy, discipline, and skill. These mighty invaders penetrate every corner, and nothing escapes them. They send people into panic and intimidate all creation (vv. 6, 10).
The cutting, hopping locust, whose swarms symbolize destruction. (Phoenix Data Systems, Neal and Joel Bierling)
2:1217 A Way Out?
The situation is not without hope. Repentance might yet save the day. But people of all ages and statuses must gather at the temple to cry for mercy (v. 16). Yet Joel's charge to "rend your heart and not your clothing" calls the Hebrews to mourn their sins with inward sincerity, not merely outward show (vv 12-13). The priests are to pray that God will honor his covenant and preserve his people N. 17).
2:18-27 Envisioning a Reversal of Fortunes
Joel envisions God as ousting the "northern" invaders and throwing them into the "eastern" and "western" seas (the Dead Sea and Mediterranean). Most conquerors of ancient Israel/ Judah came from areas north-northeast of Canaan (e.g., Assyria and Babylonia). But Joel portrays the results of sincere repentance as not only averting disaster but also restoring divine blessings that obtain from covenantal obedience (cf. Deut. 28:1-14). For Joel's famished audience, the most desirable of these blessings was surely bountiful supplies of food. This reversal of Judah's punishment represents God's positive response to the petition that he spare his people from shame and thereby defend his reputation (vv. 26-27; cf. V. 17).
2:28-3:21 Looking Farther Ahead
Joel looks even farther into the future to a time when God bestows his spirit on not only prophets and priests but all people. Peter quotes Joel when announcing the fulfillment of this prophecy on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:17-21).
The prophet describes a final day of the Lord on which the penitent elect obtain deliverance from divine judgment (2:30-31). The subsequent reversal of the ill fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem involves the reversal of the good fortunes of the oppressive foreign nations, which have prospered at the expense of God and his chosen people. "Jehoshaphat," the valley courtroom to which God gathers these nations, means "Yahweh judges"; some translations call it "Valley of judgment" or "Valley of Decision" (3:2). Seafaring peoples in the Phoenician ports of Tyre and Sidon and the "regions of Philistia," on the southern coast of Canaan, engaged in international commerce throughout the Mediterranean world (3:4). By selling Judahites into foreign slavery, the merchant mariners have written their own sentence: enslavement of their descendants to the Sabeans, renowned traders of Saba/Sheba in southwest Arabia (3:8). In warning the nations to prepare for their day of judgment by transforming tools into weapons, Joel reverses the hopeful words of global peace in Isa. 2:4.
Joel 3:18-21 elaborates the restoration of Judah's fortunes announced in 3:1. The promises include abundant crops, perpetual habitation, and divine vengeance against her enemies. On the "spring" flowing from the temple (3:18), cf. Ezek. 47:1-12; Rev. 22:1-2. Finally, Joel singles out for condemnation two more regions: Egypt, which once enslaved the Hebrew people, and Edom, home to the adversarial descendants of Esau.