Book of Joel - Bible Survey

The prophecy of Joel is one which extends from his own time to the time of Israel 's restoration and blessing in the day of the Lord. The style of the brief prophecy is sublime. To show its beauty we give a corrected metric version. It must be read through several times to grasp its vivid descriptions, the terse and solemn utterances, the full, smooth phrases, and above all the revelation it contains. His utterances are distinguished by the soaring flight of imagination, the originality, beauty and variety of the similes. The conceptions are simple enough, but they are at the same time bold and grand. The perfect order in which they are arranged, the even flow, the well compacted structure of the prophecy are all remarkable.

The occasion of the book and prophecy of Joel was a dreadful scourge which swept over the land of Israel. Locusts swarms had fallen upon the land and stripped it of everything green. There was also a great drought. All was a chastisement from the Lord. Hence we see in the first chapter the penitential lamentations of old and young, priests and people. Then the vision widens in the second chapter. The locusts appear no longer as a scourge of literal insects; they become typical of an invading army. This hostile army invades the land from the North and makes the land a wilderness. The alarm is sounded in Zion ; the repentance of the people follows. Then comes the great change in this picture of desolation and despair. The day of the Lord is announced. He acts in behalf of His people. He delivers them from the northern Army; He restores what the locusts had devoured; the land is restored and the latter rain is given. At the close of the second chapter stands the prophecy which predicts spiritual blessings through the outpouring of the Spirit of God upon all flesh, a prophecy which has not yet been completely fulfilled, which is not now in process of fulfillment, but which will be accomplished in the day of the Lord. The last chapter is the great finale of this symphony of prophecy. Here the judgment of the nations is vividly portrayed; what the day of the Lord will bring, and what will follow in blessing is the final theme.

Joel ("Jehovah is God") gives no indication of the time of his prophecy, but his subject is the Day of the Lord with its great and sore judgments. A devastating invasion of insects had left the land of Israel famine - stricken; and Joel uses this as a vivid illustration of the invasion of Israel in the last days by the King of the North and his confederate armies, who, though proud, fierce, and ungodly, are yet the means God will use for the punishment of His people Israel. Covering the land like swarming parasites, they will at least accomplish the bringing of Israel to her knees before God. And when this end is reached, the Lord Himself will judge these Gentile nations unsparingly, and deliver the afflicted children of Judah and Israel.

JOEL, from the ruin caused by various insects, warns of the northern army and its devastations, partially then, fully in the last days of this age, followed by the day of Jehovah, as a ground on both sides for humiliation before Him; and predicts the outpouring of the Spirit, deliverance in Zion, and the general judgment of the nations.

The grand subject of our prophet is the day of Jehovah, and this in all its extent, but with special application to the Jews, and above all to Jerusalem. At the same time Joel shares the habit of all the prophets, one may say, in taking some present fact, or that which was close at hand, as a groundwork for what was future. Thus the prophecy had an immediate bearing or a practical aim not far off, while along with it we see how far the Spirit of God is from confining Himself to what was either actually at work or of a transient nature. No prophecy of scripture is of its own solution; it is constructed so as not to be. To limit it to the past would be an oversight; to set aside the future would destroy the most momentous object God has in it. Thus if to deny the past be an error, to deny the future is a still greater one. The one would have cut off somewhat of interest and profit then; the other shuts out its permanent witness to God's glory. In both respects divine wisdom is most apparent. He provided that which was a warning or encouragement to His people when the prophet was in view of the circumstances which surrounded him; but He pointed onward to a time that was not yet arrived, when the just results of what was in His own mind will be made good and manifest. Now those results never can be till the kingdom of God come in power and glory. It is impossible that the Spirit of God could be satisfied with anything which either has been among men or is now. All that man has achieved, all that exists, although there be a witness in various ways of what God is toward man, affords alas! still larger and more constant evidence of the failure of man to use aright what God has given him. We shall find these general principles fully borne out, not only in Joel but in all the prophets; for they are invariable.

Joel, taking occasion of a famine, announces the day of Jehovah upon Jerusalem; a call to repentance in order for blessing; announcement of the gift of the Spirit; the judgment of the nations, and the re-establishment of Zion. It is not specially Antichrist who makes havoc in Jerusalem, but rather the Assyrian.

Joel (the Lord is at hand). In this book we have no historical data or chronological notes whatever to guide us as to the place or time when the prophecy was uttered. But judging from the internal character of the book, and also from the fact that the closing words of our prophet (Joel 3:16) are the opening words of Amos (Amos 1:2), we gather that Joel uttered "the word of the Lord" in Judea, perhaps Jerusalem, and further, as preceding Amos, must have been one of the earliest of the Judah prophets, probably about 800 B.C. The then present circumstances of Judah, the harvests utterly destroyed, the sacrifices withheld from the house of the Lord, while famine and desolation wrapped the land and all classes of the people in mourning owing to the dreadful ravages of countless swarms of locusts and other insects, form the text on which Joel enlarges and announces "the day of the Lord."

Judah and Jerusalem — people and city — are specially remembered for millennial blessing (Joel 3:1, 20). "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh" (Joel 2:28) is a blessed intimation that grace will overstep the narrow limits of Judaism in the happy years at hand. The descriptive powers of our prophet (see Joel 2) are unequalled by anything found in Scripture or elsewhere.

The prophecy of Joel draws a wide circle from the calamity of his days up to time when the people of God will be oppressed and restored and blessed at the day of Christ. So Joel may be correctly called the prophet of the day of Jehovah. This day of Jehovah is mentioned five times (see paragraph 3. Peculiarities).

The great locust plague and the drought were a punishment of Jehovah. Already Moses and Solomon had prophesied such forms of judgement (Deut. 28:38-39 and 1 Kings 8:37). But the people of Israel would not recognize the hand of Jehovah in it. This is why, in chapter 1, the prophet calls the old men and the priests to lamentation and to repentance.

Chapter 2 shows an extended view. Here we see not only the locusts but an army of enemies invading the land from the north and destroying it. An alarm is sounded in mount Zion and the people repent. Now comes the day of Jehovah in which He Himself saves His people from the army of the north. The land is not only blessed outwardly by the early and the latter rain but the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon all flesh. Although Peter in Acts 2:16-21 repeats these words of Joel's verbally the final fulfilment of this prophecy is yet to come.

Of the minor Prophets, Joel is judged to be the earliest in connection with Judah, though there are no dates given in the prophecy itself. The key-note of the prophecy is 'the day of Jehovah,' which is five times mentioned in connection with the future judgements, which will bring in the full blessing of Israel and the earth, when the Lord also will have His portion, a meat offering, and a drink offering for Himself.

Joel 1. The Prophet takes occasion by the devastation wrought in his day by an army of insects to call the priests, the princes, and the people to a fast, and a solemn assembly in the house of the Lord, there to cry unto Jehovah. Then he adds, "Alas for the day! for the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come." Here it is destruction, open judgement, as in the day when God will judge the world in righteousness. The army of insects was but a precursor, but as a present thing, instead of joy and gladness being in the house of God, God was judging. The prophet said 'is at hand;' but God's long-suffering deferred its full execution, and defers it still.

Joel 2. The day of Jehovah is nigh at hand, and the trumpet is to sound an alarm of war: cf. Num. 10:9. The army of insects is still alluded to, but it looks forward to the future, when God will bring His judgements upon the land. The army is His, and the camp is His: the day of Jehovah. is great and very terrible. The people are called to repentance, to rend their hearts and not their garments, for God is merciful and gracious. The trumpet was to be blown in Zion for a solemn assembly: cf. Num. 10:7. Priests and all are called to weep and pray. God will hear, and will destroy their enemies, especially the northern army (Joel 2:20, elsewhere alluded to as Assyria) and He will bring His people into great blessing. When they repent, the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon them and upon all flesh. This was quoted by Peter in Acts 2:16-21, but the nation did not then repent, it was only a remnant that turned to the Lord and entered into the blessing that God was bestowing — not outward and visible benefits as it will be in the future. There will also be signs in the heavens and in the earth before the great and terrible day of the Lord. There were some such omens, according to the historians, before the destruction of Jerusalem, so this passage, quoted in Acts 2, may have had a partial fulfilment then, though it remains to be fully verified in a future day.

Of the minor Prophets, Joel is judged to be the earliest in connection with Judah, though there are no dates given in the prophecy itself. The key-note of the prophecy is 'the day of Jehovah,' which is five times mentioned in connection with the future judgements, which will bring in the full blessing of Israel and the earth, when the Lord also will have His portion, a meat offering, and a drink offering for Himself.