And the floors shall be full of corn, and the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil.
Locusts had emptied the threshing floors and wine vats of Joel's day, and here the prophet promises them full again. Does he mean real harvests, or something deeper, and when does it happen?
This promise sits in a larger turn from ruin to plenty. One commentator says God will go past repair.
All is reversed. This is not Christianity, with its spiritual blessings in heavenly places, and its scorn and suffering on earth for the faithful. It is earthly blessing and reward, along with divine and saving mercy... So God will more than undo the mischief. He will restore what He did not take away. He will wipe out by the fullness of His blessing all their past sorrows and shame.
The verse names two pieces of farm equipment. One writer traces the Hebrew word behind "vats."
It is worth noticing that yekev, translated "wine" in Deuteronomy 16:13 in older English versions, means "wine-press," or more exactly, "wine-vat."... The vat is used figuratively for the wine it produced, as the floor is for the grain.
The locusts cost Israel more than food. Grain and wine were the material for the offerings the law required.
To the nation's shame, in the days of the prophet Joel they could not offer the grain and drink offerings the law required. A plague of locusts had destroyed the harvest (Joel 1:9, 13). This was a direct result of the nation's disobedience (Deut. 28:33). Only by repenting and throwing themselves on the mercy of Jehovah could the nation hope for deliverance and a return of the grain and drink offerings (Joel 2:14).
Commentators differ on how far to press the imagery. One insists the produce is real produce for a real land. He also holds that the promise is still waiting.
He will bless their land and make it fruitful once more, as it used to be, the land flowing with milk and honey. It is foolish to spiritualize the terms grain, new wine and oil. Yet it has been done. One of the older commentators on this book says of this verse about grain, wine and oil that it has been fulfilled in the church. He applies the grain to the body of Christ, the wine to the blood of Christ, and the oil to the Spirit. Earthly blessings, such as belong to His earthly people, are exclusively in view. Then they will no longer be a reproach among the nations. Since they are still a reproach, we know this promise is still future in its fulfillment.
Another writer does what Gaebelein rejects. He reads the three as types of the believer's blessing.
"The grain, the wine, and the oil" cover the produce of the field, the vineyard and the orchard. But these things perish as they are used. For us they are only types of what our spiritual blessing is — eternally rich and endlessly full. The grain clearly answers to the person of Christ Himself. He is the fine flour of the grain offering, and the bread of God. Of the wine we find the answer in His work of redemption... And of the oil the answer is seen in the Holy Spirit poured out — the holy anointing oil.
A full floor is no blessing if an invader carries it off. One writer brings in a matching promise from Isaiah.
To Israel: "The LORD has sworn... 'I will not again give your grain to be food for your enemies, and foreigners shall not drink your wine for which you have labored; but those who garner it shall eat it and praise the LORD, and those who gather it shall drink it in the courts of my sanctuary'" (Isa. 62:8-9).
- Repentance first. Disobedience emptied the floors and vats. The way back to full ones ran through turning to God for mercy.
- Worship next. Empty floors had stopped Israel's grain and drink offerings. Full ones mean the nation can bring them again.
- Overflow, not repair. God does more than replace what was lost. He restores what He did not take away, and buries the old shame under the fullness of His blessing.
- Land, or picture. One writer holds that grain, wine and oil mean real produce for God's earthly people. Another reads them as pictures of Christ, redemption and the Spirit. Commentators differ here.
- Kept, not plundered. The gatherers eat their own grain and drink their own wine. No enemy carries it off, and they praise the LORD who filled the floors.
And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmer-worm, my great army which I sent among you.
Swarms of insects have stripped the land bare, and in that setting God makes one of the most generous promises in the Old Testament: He will give back the harvests they ate. Commentators ask who sent the swarm, when God keeps this promise, and whether lost years can ever come back.
The verse names four destroyers. One writer explains that these are not four insects but one creature at four points in its life:
The Hebrew words do not name four different kinds of insect. They name one insect, the locust, at four stages of growth. Gazam means "to gnaw off," Arbeh is "to be many"; this is the common name of the locusts because of their migratory habits. Jelek is "to lick off," and Chasel means "to devour or consume." The locust grows through four stages. First it is the gnawing locust, newly hatched. Then it gets its wings and flies about. After that it begins its destroying, licking off whatever it finds. At last it reaches full growth and devours everything in its path.
The most startling thing in the verse is that this destroying swarm belonged to God. He calls it His army and says He sent it. One writer sees the proof of that ownership in how the insects behave:
They march in instinctive order under a king no one can see. That shows whose army they are, and who commands them. "His army," the Lord calls them.
The promise does not stand alone. It follows a call to repentance, and writers tie the giving back of the years directly to that humbling:
The Lord would hear His people once they humbled themselves. He would fill their land with plenty, and the nations would no longer look down on them... They would receive the abundance of all the years which had failed. They would know for certain that the Lord was among them. He was their God, and no other. They would never be ashamed.
God does not simply balance the books. Commenting on the promise, one writer says the blessing runs past the damage:
So God will more than undo the harm. He will restore what He did not take away. He will wipe out all their past sorrow and shame with the fullness of His blessing.
Writers here read the promise as still future for Israel, not as something already done. The clue is the promise that follows in the same passage, that God's people will never face shame again:
Then the Lord will make good all the harm done by the locusts — the army He used to judge His people. "And My people shall never again be put to shame" (verse 27). This again is enough proof that all this remains unfulfilled.
Writers also apply the verse to any believer who has wasted time. One calls it unmatched for encouragement:
In the thousand pages of the Bible, no passage encourages a man or a woman who has drifted away from God more than this single verse in Joel... In every case of spiritual decline and later recovery, we must think back to the very spot where the decline began. There we must judge the root of the evil.
That same writer is careful about what "restore" can and cannot mean for us. Clock time does not come back:
As plain time, the years are gone for ever... But the spiritual substance matters far more than the stretch of time that grew it. The restoration applies to that spiritual substance. Mere length of life is nothing if it does not lead us to a greater enjoyment of eternal life.
- Sent — The locust is one insect in four devouring stages. God calls the whole swarm His army, and their ordered march shows who commands them.
- Stripped — What the insects took was real loss, and the loss came as chastening, not accident.
- Softened — The promise follows humbling. God fills the land with plenty for a people brought low before Him.
- Restored — He gives back what He did not take away, wiping out past sorrow and shame with the fullness of His blessing.
- Still ahead — The passage ends with God's people never again put to shame, so writers hold this restoration as still future. Meanwhile it encourages any believer who has drifted: what returns is spiritual substance, not clock time.