Proclaim this among the nations prepare war, arouse the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near, let them come up.
A call goes out to the nations to arm themselves. God Himself issues it. Who is really mustering these armies? Where do they go, and what is the case against them?
The words read like a war recruiter's speech. But the speaker is the One the armies will march against.
In such a strain of solemn irony does God challenge His adversaries to the battle. He calls on them to summon all their forces, and to muster all their strength.
The muster has a destination, given a few verses later: the valley of Jehoshaphat. The name itself tells you what will happen there.
This part of Joel details the last days, when God brings back the captives of Judah and Jerusalem. That time comes before the age of peace and blessing, when the curse is taken away completely. It is the judgment of the nations, needed to vindicate God's rights over His oppressed people… Before their full blessing, God must take up His direct government of them again, in the same place where He gave it up. There He will plead in His power with all the nations that dispute His rights. He will show Himself among His people, and act as One dwelling with them, upholding their rights, because they belong to Him. Israel is His inheritance. The word "Jehoshaphat" means "the judgment, or the sceptre, of Jehovah or Jah." There, in judgment, He pleads with the nations for His people, whom they had scattered, and for His land, which they had divided.
The proclamation follows a long list of wrongs done to Israel in the earlier verses. The summons is the answer to that record.
But the nations, all nations, are to be judged as such in this world in that day. So the passage lists the insults they had done to Israel, and the Lord declares that He will pay them back. He holds to righteous retribution. What they caused Israel to suffer, they must suffer themselves… So the call goes out among the nations: let them muster all their forces and escape their fate if they can.
Verse 9 turns farming tools into weapons — the opposite direction from the world's hope of disarmament. One writer sees in this the collapse of every human plan for improving the world, and then the far greater force that answers the nations' "mighty men."
Before that day comes, the utter failure of charitable and other schemes for improving the world will be plain… They must soon answer the prophet's ironical call to consecrate for war and stir up the mighty men… The call goes up for the Lord's mighty ones to come down there, to meet the world in its might. Those legions of angels are surely in the mind of the Spirit — the ones the Lord Jesus refused for Himself. In that day there will be, so to speak, a pitched battle between the powers of God and the powers of evil. No one can doubt the result.
Another writer notes what the nations must leave behind.
The nations receive a call to prepare for war. They are all to assemble. They are to wake up, leave their peaceful work, and come to the valley of Jehoshaphat.
Who echoes this call on earth? One writer points to the powers behind the coming world alliance.
The dragon (the devil), the beast, and the false prophet form a terrible trinity of evil. Revelation 16:13-14 brings them together in one purpose: war. The present League of Nations, which is a mere shadow, is for peace; the real League of Nations, when it appears, will be for war. The evil spirits that come out of the mouths of these three are deceptive and inflammatory words and teachings. And in forming and spreading them, Antichrist will take the lead.
The nations come armed and confident. The prophecy answers with a sickle and a winepress.
But however great the pride of the men of war, it was, after all, the judgment of God — the sickle of God reaping the earth. His press would be full and His vats would overflow, for the wickedness was great… What multitudes in that day would learn the cost of their contempt for the word of grace! They would learn the cost of their pride too — the pride that raised them up in rebellion against the Lord of hosts. All governmental order, its grandeur and its power, would disappear before the judgment of God.
- Proclamation. God Himself sends the call to arms among the nations. It is irony — a challenge to His enemies, not approval of their war.
- Provocation. The case is retribution: what the nations did to His people and His land, they must receive back on their own heads.
- Place. The muster ends in the valley of Jehoshaphat. The name means the judgment or sceptre of the Lord, so the place announces the verdict.
- Power. His mighty ones answer their mighty men — the legions of angels the Lord once refused for Himself. That battle's outcome is never in doubt.
- Press. Every human scheme for peace fails. Then the sickle and the winepress sweep away all human grandeur before God.
Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning-knives into spears; let the weak say, I am strong.
Joel 3 shows God gathering all nations into the valley of Jehoshaphat. Verse 10 belongs to a call to arms — but who gives the order, and why would God tell the world to beat its farm tools into weapons?
One writer hears the order as God daring His enemies to test their strength against Him.
In solemn irony God challenges His enemies to the battle. He calls on them to summon all their forces, and to muster all their strength.
A plowshare is the blade that cuts the furrow; a pruning hook is the curved knife used on vines. Here both are hammered into weapons. One writer points to the day when the change runs the other way.
Today nations turn their plowshares into swords. Some day they will do the opposite, and change their swords into plowshares. Righteousness and peace will surely kiss each other. Creation's curse and birth pains will end.
So the world does not disarm little by little before the day of the Lord. One writer says the drift runs the other way.
Peace will not come before the day of Jehovah. Instead, the world will see a gathering for war on a scale it has never seen yet. The desire to do great things, impatience of obligations, and lust of conquest and military glory will soon give men such a taste for war that no restraint will be enough to hold them back. Restraint will be harder still, because jealousy of each other will have led them to pile up vast stores for military use.
The same writer traces war past treaties and peace campaigns to its root in man himself.
Meanwhile, every effort of peace movements is at best a pleasant illusion, at worst an unbelieving confidence in man, and always ignorance of God's word... Wars certainly have their roots in the passions and desires of man. To escape the bad fruit, you must first make the tree good.
God tells the weakest man to call himself a warrior. Every human scheme for improving the world must answer the same call — and then a different army comes down.
Before that day comes, the utter failure of charitable and other schemes for improving the world will be plain... They must soon answer the prophet's ironical call: "wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up"... "Bring Your mighty ones down there" to meet the world in its might. For in that day there will be, so to speak, a pitched battle between the powers of God and those of evil. No one can doubt how it ends.
The nations arm and march to a valley. Its name settles the outcome before the fighting starts.
This is the judgment of the nations. That judgment must happen, to vindicate God's rights concerning His oppressed people, and to show the nations what He is in His government of the earth... The word "Jehoshaphat" means "the judgment, or the sceptre, of Jehovah." There, in judgment, He pleads with the nations for His people, whom they had scattered, and for His land, which they had divided.
- Speaker — The order to forge weapons is God's challenge to His enemies. He speaks "in solemn irony," calling them to muster all their strength.
- Reversal — Today nations "turn their plowshares into swords." In that day they will "change their swords into plowshares."
- Reason — Human effort will not bring peace. "Wars have their roots in the passions and desires of man," so the tree must be made good first.
- Mismatch — Both sides answer a summons. Man wakes his mighty men; God brings down His mighty ones, and no one can doubt how it ends.
- Verdict — The armies gather in the valley of Jehoshaphat, "the judgment of Jehovah." There God pleads with the nations for His scattered people and His divided land.
Haste ye and come, all ye nations round about, and gather yourselves together. Thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Jehovah.
God calls the nations to hurry, crowd together, and bring every fighter they have. Then another voice asks the LORD to send down His own warriors.
Chapter 3 is about God's judgment of the nations. The name of the valley where they gather carries the whole point.
This is the judgment of the nations. The judgment is needed to uphold God's rights concerning His oppressed people, and to show the nations what He is in His government of the earth... The word "Jehoshaphat" means "the judgment, or the sceptre, of Jehovah or Jah." There, in judgment, He pleads with the nations for His people, whom they had scattered; and for His land, which they had divided.
The call to arm and assemble sounds like a war cry from the nations. God is the speaker. And by the last line of the verse, someone else takes over.
God challenges His adversaries to the battle in a tone of solemn irony. He calls on them to summon all their forces, and to muster all their strength... In the last clause of the verse it is the prophet who speaks, asking Jehovah to step in and judge the assembled armies. And He does not turn a deaf ear to the appeal.
The verse ends by turning from the nations to the LORD, and the contrast is deliberate — each side calls up its own strength.
And if the Gentiles are to awaken all their mighty men for the day of God, God on His part will cause His mighty ones to come down (v. 11).
Who are these warriors? Commentators point to God's angelic hosts, who come down before the Lord Himself appears.
Verses 9-16. This is a prophecy showing what comes before the judgment of these nations. The judgment hosts of the Lord, the angels, come down first. Then He appears in all His majesty, while the sun and moon go dark.
William Kelly names the same hosts, and points to help the Lord Jesus once refused:
The Spirit surely has in mind those legions of angels which the Lord Jesus declined for Himself. "Bring down Your warriors" — to meet the world in its might. For in that day there will be, so to speak, a pitched battle between the powers of God and those of evil. No one can doubt the result.
"Gather yourselves there" names a place on a map, not a symbol. That detail rules out one common reading.
He invites the nations to that valley of Jehoshaphat, where the living are destined to meet a judgment they will never forget. The "valley of Jehoshaphat" is a literal place in the land of Israel. This again disproves the idea of a resurrection scene. The solemnities of the great white throne describe such a scene, not figures taken from the sickle or the winepress. Those figures belong only to the Son of Man's dealing with nations... In this place the gathered Gentiles shall find their graves. There is not a single thing man prides himself on that will not come into the dust of death.
This gathering is not an isolated scene in prophecy.
Throughout the prophetic Word we read of great nations joined in alliance. They will oppose God and His purposes when this age closes... Judgment then falls upon these opposing nations. This judgment appears as reaping and treading the winepress, the same as in Revelation 14:14-20.
The chapter does not end with the armies. The same coming has another side.
Though this intervention was the judgment of the rebellious, the One who intervened, Jehovah, would be the hope of His people. He Himself would be the strength of the children of Israel. And so they would know Him as Jehovah their God, dwelling in Zion, His holy mountain.
- Summons. God gives the order to arm and assemble. It is a challenge to His enemies, spoken in solemn irony: bring every force you have.
- Site. They gather in a literal valley in Israel. Its name means the judgment of Jehovah, and there He pleads with the nations for His scattered people and His divided land.
- Descent. The nations wake their mighty men; God brings down His own. The prophet asks for them, and commentators name them as the angel hosts, who come before He appears in majesty.
- Sentence. The outcome is settled before the battle starts. Scripture pictures it as reaping and treading the winepress, and every human boast ends in the dust of death.
- Shelter. One act, two outcomes. The intervention that judges the rebellious makes Jehovah the hope and strength of His people.
Let the nations rouse themselves, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there will I sit to judge all the nations round about.
The last chapter of Joel gathers the world's armies to one place, and the summons comes from God Himself. The name of the meeting place is itself the answer: commentators read "Jehoshaphat" as a statement about who judges.
This valley appears nowhere else in the Bible. Its name explains the scene.
This is mentioned only in Joel 3:2, 12, as a place where God will judge the nations for how they treated His people, at the time He brings Judah into blessing. The name means "Jehovah is judge." Some take it as a symbolic name for the place where God will judge. Joel 3:14 speaks of "the valley of decision," which is also linked with God's judgments.
The setting is not only a battlefield. It is the seat of a government God had once stepped back from and now takes up again.
Before His people can have full blessing, God must take up His direct government of them again. He must do it in the same place where He gave it up. He must take possession once more of the seat of that government — a seat He chose Himself. There He will plead in His power with all the nations that dispute His rights... The word "Jehoshaphat" means "the judgment, or the sceptre, of Jehovah or Jah."
God tells the nations to arm and come up. He is daring them.
They must soon answer the prophet's ironic call: "Prepare for war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up"... "Assemble yourselves, and come, all you nations, and gather yourselves together from round about: cause your mighty ones to come down there, O Jehovah." No doubt the Spirit has in mind those legions of angels that the Lord Jesus refused for Himself... For in that day there will be, so to speak, a pitched battle between the powers of God and the powers of evil. No one can doubt the result.
Verse 12 says God will judge — the earlier verses say why. The wrongs listed are wrongs done to Israel, and God treats them as done to Himself.
He lists all the wrongs done to His people as wrongs done to Himself. Through them He would repay in judgment the very same evils on the nations that inflicted them.
The sentence matches the crime measure for measure.
All the nations are to be judged as nations in this world in that day. He holds to righteous retribution. What they made Israel suffer, they must suffer themselves. In God's eyes it is right that they should receive what they gave to the Jews — the nations that wronged and insulted Israel not only during the time of the law, but right up to the end, after Christianity came.
"There I will sit to judge" pictures a court in session on earth. Kelly argues from the imagery that those on trial are alive.
He invites them to that valley of Jehoshaphat, where the living are set to meet a judgment they will never forget. The "valley of Jehoshaphat" is a literal place in the land of Israel. This again disproves the idea that it is a resurrection scene. That kind of scene appears in the solemn setting of the great white throne. It does not appear in images taken from the sickle or the winepress. Those images belong only to the Son of Man's dealing with nations.
Commentators differ on where this valley is. One reading looks for a valley that does not yet exist.
We should look for the valley of Jehoshaphat close to Jerusalem. Most writers place it in the Kidron valley, east of Jerusalem. It may not exist yet... When the Lord appears His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives in that day. The Mount of Olives will then split down the middle, and this will form a very great valley (Zech. 14:4). This great valley may be the valley where the Lord judges the nations.
The judgment is not the end of the story.
This intervention meant judgment on the rebellious. Yet the One who stepped in, Jehovah, would be the hope of His people — Himself the strength of the children of Israel... Jerusalem would be holy. Strangers would no longer pass through it, defiling it as their prey... We see that this is effective and sovereign grace.
- Name — "Jehoshaphat" means Jehovah judges. The gathering place already names the Judge.
- Summons — the call to arm and come up is God's challenge, not the nations' idea. The outcome is not in doubt.
- Ground — God judges the nations for what they did to His people. He counts it as done to Himself, and repays it in the same measure.
- Session — "there I will sit" is a court on earth over living nations. The great white throne is where the dead stand.
- Result — the sentence on the nations clears the ground for Jerusalem's holiness and Israel's blessing.