The Book of Joel

Hebrew Study

Explanation

The scene is a courtroom. "In those days," when God restores "the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem," He will also "gather all nations" to "the valley of Jehoshaphat" and "plead with them there." The charges are specific and grievous: they "scattered" His people, "parted" His land, "cast lots" for His people as spoil, and treated human lives so cheaply they traded "a boy for an harlot" and "a girl for wine." Named offenders, "Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine" (Philistia), had plundered His temple treasures and sold Judah's children into slavery to distant peoples.

God's verdict is exact retribution: "swiftly and speedily will I return your recompence upon your own head." What they did will be done to them; the slavers will be sold. He will "raise" His people "out of the place whither ye have sold them", redemption for the captives, reckoning for the captors. The section ends with the seal of certainty: "for the LORD hath spoken it." The God who saw every cruelty will repay every cruelty.

Gospel Focus

This passage answers a cry every suffering saint has raised: does God see, and will He act? The valley of Jehoshaphat says yes. "The LORD judges." Every injustice done to God's people, every trafficking of the vulnerable, every plundering of the helpless, is recorded and will be answered. God counts the wrongs done to His people as wrongs done to Himself, and He has appointed a day to set the books right. For those who suffer now, this is deep comfort: "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord" (Romans 12:19). We need not avenge ourselves, because the Judge of all the earth will do right.

And there is a solemn warning here for the nations and for every soul: how you treat God's people, and the vulnerable He loves, is how you are treating God. The King will one day say, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" (Matthew 25:40). The valley of Jehoshaphat is a mercy to the oppressed and a warning to the oppressor. Stand, while there is time, on the side of the God who judges.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

God issues a summons to war, in irony, to the nations that loved violence: "Prepare war... Beat your plowshares into swords." This is the deliberate reverse of the peace prophecy where swords become plowshares (Isaiah 2:4); the nations that would not have God's peace are called to bring their weapons to the place of judgment. Even "the weak" are told to boast "I am strong", let them muster every last soldier, it will not help. They gather to the valley of Jehoshaphat, where God says, "there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about."

The picture shifts to harvest and winepress: "Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe... the press is full," an image of ripe judgment, "for their wickedness is great." Then the great cry, "Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near." As the heavens darken, "the LORD also shall roar out of Zion," shaking heaven and earth. But the very next words turn the terror to comfort for the faithful: "the LORD will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel." The outcome is knowledge and holiness: "ye shall know that I am the LORD your God dwelling in Zion," and Jerusalem shall at last be "holy," with "no strangers" to defile her again.

Gospel Focus

"Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision" has often been preached as a call to decide for Christ, and while the word here means God's verdict rather than man's choice, the application is not far wrong: there is a valley where every life is decided, and the day of the LORD is near. The harvest ripens; the sickle waits. The one thing needful is to be found, before that day, on the right side of the great divide, not among the gathered nations under judgment, but among the people whose hope is the LORD. Now, while it is still the day of grace, is the time to settle the question of where you stand.

And here is the heart of the comfort: the same roar that terrifies the nations is the shelter of the saints. "The LORD will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel." The Lion who roars out of Zion is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Lord Jesus Christ, and to be His is to have the Judge Himself as your refuge. When the heavens shake and the earth trembles, His people will not be swept away in the harvest of wrath but sheltered in the hope of their God. Make the Judge your hope now, and the day of the LORD becomes not your terror but your deliverance.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

After the harvest of judgment comes the harvest of blessing. "In that day" the land overflows with life: "the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk," the rivers run full, and, most wonderful of all, "a fountain shall come forth of the house of the LORD," watering even the dry "valley of Shittim." The source of all this abundance is God's own presence. By contrast, the violent nations, "Egypt" and "Edom," who shed "innocent blood," become "a desolation", the fruit of their cruelty.

The book's last two verses set the everlasting security of God's people against that desolation: "But Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation." God promises to "cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed", to deal at last with the guilt and defilement that judgment alone could not remove. And the final clause is the foundation of it all: "for the LORD dwelleth in Zion." The whole hope of the book rests on the presence of God among His people. Joel, which began with locusts stripping the land bare, ends with God Himself dwelling forever in the midst of a cleansed, secure, and abundantly watered people.

Gospel Focus

Joel closes with two gospel treasures. The first is the fountain: "a fountain shall come forth of the house of the LORD." The book that promised the Spirit poured out "upon all flesh" now pictures a river of living water flowing from God's presence to make dry valleys bloom. That fountain is opened in Jesus Christ, who cried, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink," and from whom flow "rivers of living water", the Spirit given to all who believe. And it is opened at the cross, the "fountain... for sin and for uncleanness" (Zechariah 13:1). God promises here, "I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed", the deep cleansing that only the blood of Christ accomplishes, "the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7).

The second treasure is the last word of the book: "for the LORD dwelleth in Zion." All the blessing, the fountain, the security, the everlasting dwelling, flows from the presence of God with His people. This is the story of the whole Bible reaching its end: God with us. He came into our midst in Jesus, "God with us"; He dwells now within His people by the Spirit He poured out; and He will dwell with the redeemed for ever, when "the tabernacle of God is with men." The prophet who called a stricken people to weep leaves them, and us, with the surest of all hopes: the one true God, cleansing our sin and dwelling among His people, world without end.