Return, Healing, Restored Fruitfulness, and the Way of Wisdom

Hos 14:4-8 “I will heal their apostasy, will love them freely: for my wrath has turned away from it. Hos 14:5. I will be like dew for Israel: it shall blossom like the lily, and strike its roots like Lebanon. Hos 14:6. Its shoots shall go forth, and its splendour shall become like the olive-tree, and its smell like Lebanon. Hos 14:7. They that dwell in its shadow shall give life to corn again; and shall blossom like the vine: whose glory is like the wine of Lebanon.

Hos 14:8. Ephraim: What have I further with the idols? I hear, and look upon him: I, like a bursting cypress, in me is thy fruit found. ” The Lord promises first of all to heal their apostasy, i. e. , all the injuries which have been inflicted by their apostasy from Him, and to love them with perfect spontaneity ( nedâbhâh an adverbial accusative, promta animi voluntate ), since His anger, which was kindled on account of its idolatry, had now turned away from it ( mimmennū , i.

e. , from Israel). The reading mimmennı̄ (from me), which the Babylonian Codices have after the Masora, appears to have originated in a misunderstanding of Jer 2:35. This love of the Lord will manifest itself in abundant blessing. Jehovah will be to Israel a refreshing, enlivening dew (cf. Isa 26:19), through which it will blossom splendidly, strike deep roots, and spread its shoots far and wide.

“Like the lily:” the fragrant white lily, which is very common in Palestine, and grows without cultivation, and “which is unsurpassed in its fecundity, often producing fifty bulbs from a single root” (Pliny h. n. xxi. 5). “Strike roots like Lebanon,” i. e. , not merely the deeply rooted forest of Lebanon, but the mountain itself, as one of the “foundations of the earth” (Mic 6:2).

The deeper the roots, the more the branches spread and cover themselves with splendid green foliage, like the evergreen and fruitful olive-tree (Jer 11:16; Ps. 52:10). The smell is like Lebanon, which is rendered fragrant by its cedars and spices (Sol 4:11). The meaning of the several features in the picture has been well explained by Rosenmüller thus: “The rooting indicates stability: the spreading of the branches , propagation and the multitude of inhabitants; the splendour of the olive , beauty and glory, and that constant and lasting; the fragrance , hilarity and loveliness.

” In Hos 14:7 a somewhat different turn is given to the figure. The comparison of the growth and flourishing of Israel to the lily and to a tree, that strikes deep roots and spreads its green branches far and wide, passes imperceptibly into the idea that Israel is itself the tree beneath whose shade the members of the nation flourish with freshness and vigour.

ישׁוּבוּ is to be connected adverbially with יהיּוּ. Those who sit beneath the shade of Israel, the tree that is bursting into leaf, will revive corn, i. e. , cause it to return to life, or produce it for nourishment, satiety, and strengthening. Yea, they themselves will sprout like the vine, whose remembrance is, i. e. , which has a renown, like the wine of Lebanon, which has been celebrated from time immemorial (cf.

Plin. h. n. xiv. 7; Oedmann, Verbm. Sammlung aus der Naturkunde , ii. p. 193; and Rosenmüller, Bibl. Althk. iv. 1, p. 217). The divine promise closes in Hos 14:9 with an appeal to Israel to renounce idols altogether, and hold fast by the Lord alone as the source of its life. Ephraim is a vocative, and is followed immediately by what the Lord has to say to Ephraim, so that we may supply memento in thought.

מה־לּי עוד לע, what have I yet to do with idols? (for this phrase, compare Jer 2:18); that is to say, not “I have now to contend with thee on account of the idols (Schmieder), nor “do not place them by my side any more” (Ros.) ; but, “I will have nothing more to do with idols,” which also implies that Ephraim is to have nothing more to do with them. To this there is appended a notice of what God has done and will do for Israel, to which greater prominence is given by the emphatic אני: I , I hearken ( ‛ânı̄thı̄ a prophetic perfect), and look upon him.

שׁוּר, to look about for a person, to be anxious about him, or care for him, as in Job 24:15. The suffix refers to Ephraim. In the last clause, God compares Himself to a cypress becoming green, not only to denote the shelter which He will afford to the people, but as the true tree of life, on which the nation finds its fruits - a fruit which nourishes and invigorates the spiritual life of the nation.

The salvation which this promise sets before the people when they shall return to the Lord, is indeed depicted, according to the circumstances and peculiar views prevailing under the Old Testament, as earthly growth and prosperity; but its real nature is such, that it will receive a spiritual fulfilment in those Israelites alone who are brought to belief in Jesus Christ.

Hos 14:4-8 “I will heal their apostasy, will love them freely: for my wrath has turned away from it. Hos 14:5. I will be like dew for Israel: it shall blossom like the lily, and strike its roots like Lebanon. Hos 14:6. Its shoots shall go forth, and its splendour shall become like the olive-tree, and its smell like Lebanon. Hos 14:7. They that dwell in its shadow shall give life to corn again; and shall blossom like the vine: whose glory is like the wine of Lebanon.

Hos 14:8. Ephraim: What have I further with the idols? I hear, and look upon him: I, like a bursting cypress, in me is thy fruit found. ” The Lord promises first of all to heal their apostasy, i. e. , all the injuries which have been inflicted by their apostasy from Him, and to love them with perfect spontaneity ( nedâbhâh an adverbial accusative, promta animi voluntate ), since His anger, which was kindled on account of its idolatry, had now turned away from it ( mimmennū , i.

e. , from Israel). The reading mimmennı̄ (from me), which the Babylonian Codices have after the Masora, appears to have originated in a misunderstanding of Jer 2:35. This love of the Lord will manifest itself in abundant blessing. Jehovah will be to Israel a refreshing, enlivening dew (cf. Isa 26:19), through which it will blossom splendidly, strike deep roots, and spread its shoots far and wide.

“Like the lily:” the fragrant white lily, which is very common in Palestine, and grows without cultivation, and “which is unsurpassed in its fecundity, often producing fifty bulbs from a single root” (Pliny h. n. xxi. 5). “Strike roots like Lebanon,” i. e. , not merely the deeply rooted forest of Lebanon, but the mountain itself, as one of the “foundations of the earth” (Mic 6:2).

The deeper the roots, the more the branches spread and cover themselves with splendid green foliage, like the evergreen and fruitful olive-tree (Jer 11:16; Ps. 52:10). The smell is like Lebanon, which is rendered fragrant by its cedars and spices (Sol 4:11). The meaning of the several features in the picture has been well explained by Rosenmüller thus: “The rooting indicates stability: the spreading of the branches , propagation and the multitude of inhabitants; the splendour of the olive , beauty and glory, and that constant and lasting; the fragrance , hilarity and loveliness.

” In Hos 14:7 a somewhat different turn is given to the figure. The comparison of the growth and flourishing of Israel to the lily and to a tree, that strikes deep roots and spreads its green branches far and wide, passes imperceptibly into the idea that Israel is itself the tree beneath whose shade the members of the nation flourish with freshness and vigour.

ישׁוּבוּ is to be connected adverbially with יהיּוּ. Those who sit beneath the shade of Israel, the tree that is bursting into leaf, will revive corn, i. e. , cause it to return to life, or produce it for nourishment, satiety, and strengthening. Yea, they themselves will sprout like the vine, whose remembrance is, i. e. , which has a renown, like the wine of Lebanon, which has been celebrated from time immemorial (cf.

Plin. h. n. xiv. 7; Oedmann, Verbm. Sammlung aus der Naturkunde , ii. p. 193; and Rosenmüller, Bibl. Althk. iv. 1, p. 217). The divine promise closes in Hos 14:9 with an appeal to Israel to renounce idols altogether, and hold fast by the Lord alone as the source of its life. Ephraim is a vocative, and is followed immediately by what the Lord has to say to Ephraim, so that we may supply memento in thought.

מה־לּי עוד לע, what have I yet to do with idols? (for this phrase, compare Jer 2:18); that is to say, not “I have now to contend with thee on account of the idols (Schmieder), nor “do not place them by my side any more” (Ros.) ; but, “I will have nothing more to do with idols,” which also implies that Ephraim is to have nothing more to do with them. To this there is appended a notice of what God has done and will do for Israel, to which greater prominence is given by the emphatic אני: I , I hearken ( ‛ânı̄thı̄ a prophetic perfect), and look upon him.

שׁוּר, to look about for a person, to be anxious about him, or care for him, as in Job 24:15. The suffix refers to Ephraim. In the last clause, God compares Himself to a cypress becoming green, not only to denote the shelter which He will afford to the people, but as the true tree of life, on which the nation finds its fruits - a fruit which nourishes and invigorates the spiritual life of the nation.

The salvation which this promise sets before the people when they shall return to the Lord, is indeed depicted, according to the circumstances and peculiar views prevailing under the Old Testament, as earthly growth and prosperity; but its real nature is such, that it will receive a spiritual fulfilment in those Israelites alone who are brought to belief in Jesus Christ.

Hos 14:4-8 “I will heal their apostasy, will love them freely: for my wrath has turned away from it. Hos 14:5. I will be like dew for Israel: it shall blossom like the lily, and strike its roots like Lebanon. Hos 14:6. Its shoots shall go forth, and its splendour shall become like the olive-tree, and its smell like Lebanon. Hos 14:7. They that dwell in its shadow shall give life to corn again; and shall blossom like the vine: whose glory is like the wine of Lebanon.

Hos 14:8. Ephraim: What have I further with the idols? I hear, and look upon him: I, like a bursting cypress, in me is thy fruit found. ” The Lord promises first of all to heal their apostasy, i. e. , all the injuries which have been inflicted by their apostasy from Him, and to love them with perfect spontaneity ( nedâbhâh an adverbial accusative, promta animi voluntate ), since His anger, which was kindled on account of its idolatry, had now turned away from it ( mimmennū , i.

e. , from Israel). The reading mimmennı̄ (from me), which the Babylonian Codices have after the Masora, appears to have originated in a misunderstanding of Jer 2:35. This love of the Lord will manifest itself in abundant blessing. Jehovah will be to Israel a refreshing, enlivening dew (cf. Isa 26:19), through which it will blossom splendidly, strike deep roots, and spread its shoots far and wide.

“Like the lily:” the fragrant white lily, which is very common in Palestine, and grows without cultivation, and “which is unsurpassed in its fecundity, often producing fifty bulbs from a single root” (Pliny h. n. xxi. 5). “Strike roots like Lebanon,” i. e. , not merely the deeply rooted forest of Lebanon, but the mountain itself, as one of the “foundations of the earth” (Mic 6:2).

The deeper the roots, the more the branches spread and cover themselves with splendid green foliage, like the evergreen and fruitful olive-tree (Jer 11:16; Ps. 52:10). The smell is like Lebanon, which is rendered fragrant by its cedars and spices (Sol 4:11). The meaning of the several features in the picture has been well explained by Rosenmüller thus: “The rooting indicates stability: the spreading of the branches , propagation and the multitude of inhabitants; the splendour of the olive , beauty and glory, and that constant and lasting; the fragrance , hilarity and loveliness.

” In Hos 14:7 a somewhat different turn is given to the figure. The comparison of the growth and flourishing of Israel to the lily and to a tree, that strikes deep roots and spreads its green branches far and wide, passes imperceptibly into the idea that Israel is itself the tree beneath whose shade the members of the nation flourish with freshness and vigour.

ישׁוּבוּ is to be connected adverbially with יהיּוּ. Those who sit beneath the shade of Israel, the tree that is bursting into leaf, will revive corn, i. e. , cause it to return to life, or produce it for nourishment, satiety, and strengthening. Yea, they themselves will sprout like the vine, whose remembrance is, i. e. , which has a renown, like the wine of Lebanon, which has been celebrated from time immemorial (cf.

Plin. h. n. xiv. 7; Oedmann, Verbm. Sammlung aus der Naturkunde , ii. p. 193; and Rosenmüller, Bibl. Althk. iv. 1, p. 217). The divine promise closes in Hos 14:9 with an appeal to Israel to renounce idols altogether, and hold fast by the Lord alone as the source of its life. Ephraim is a vocative, and is followed immediately by what the Lord has to say to Ephraim, so that we may supply memento in thought.

מה־לּי עוד לע, what have I yet to do with idols? (for this phrase, compare Jer 2:18); that is to say, not “I have now to contend with thee on account of the idols (Schmieder), nor “do not place them by my side any more” (Ros.) ; but, “I will have nothing more to do with idols,” which also implies that Ephraim is to have nothing more to do with them. To this there is appended a notice of what God has done and will do for Israel, to which greater prominence is given by the emphatic אני: I , I hearken ( ‛ânı̄thı̄ a prophetic perfect), and look upon him.

שׁוּר, to look about for a person, to be anxious about him, or care for him, as in Job 24:15. The suffix refers to Ephraim. In the last clause, God compares Himself to a cypress becoming green, not only to denote the shelter which He will afford to the people, but as the true tree of life, on which the nation finds its fruits - a fruit which nourishes and invigorates the spiritual life of the nation.

The salvation which this promise sets before the people when they shall return to the Lord, is indeed depicted, according to the circumstances and peculiar views prevailing under the Old Testament, as earthly growth and prosperity; but its real nature is such, that it will receive a spiritual fulfilment in those Israelites alone who are brought to belief in Jesus Christ.

Hos 14:9 Hos 14:9 (Hebrew_Bible_v_10) contains the epilogue to the whole book. “Who is wise, that he may understand this? understanding, that he may discern it? For the ways of Jehovah are straight, and the righteous walk therein: but the rebellious stumble in them. ” The pronoun אלּה and the suffix to ידעם refer to everything that the prophet has laid before the people in his book for warning, for reproof, for correction, for chastening in righteousness.

He concludes by summing up the whole substance of his teaching in the one general sentence, which points back to Deu 32:4 : The ways of the Lord are straight. “The ways of Jehovah” ( darkhē Yehōvâh ) are the ways taken by God in the guidance and government of men; not only the ways which He prescribes for them, but also His guidance of them. These ways lead some to life and others to death, according to the different attitudes which men assume towards God, as Moses announced to all the Israelites that they would (Deu 30:19-20), and as the Apostle Paul assured the church at Corinth that the gospel of Jesus also would (1Co 1:18).

Person and Times of the Prophet Joel. - Joel (יואל, i. e. , whose God is Jehovah, Ἰωήλ) is distinguished from other men of the same name, which occurs very frequently (e. g. , 1Sa 8:2; 1Ch 4:35; 1Ch 5:4; 1Ch 8:12; 1Ch 6:21; 1Ch 7:3; 2Ch 29:12; Neh 11:9), by the epithet “son of Pethuel ” (פּתוּאל, the open-heartedness or sincerity of God). Nothing is known of the circumstances connected with his life, since the traditional legends as to his springing from Bethom (Βηθών, al.

Θεβυράν in Ps. Epiph.) , or Bethomeron in the tribe of Reuben ( Ps. Doroth. ), are quite unsupported. All that can be inferred with any certainty from his writings is, that he lived in Judah, and in all probability prophesied in Jerusalem. The date of his ministry is also a disputed point; though so much is certain, namely, that he did not live in the reign of Manasseh or Josiah, or even later, as some suppose, but was one of the earliest of the twelve minor prophets.

For even Amos (Amo 1:2) commences his prophecy with a passage from Joel (Joe 3:16), and closes it with the same promises, adopting in Joel 9:13 the beautiful imagery of Joel, of the mountains dripping with new wine, and the hills overflowing (Joe 3:18). And Isaiah, again, in his description of the coming judgment in ch. 13, had Joel in his mind; and in v. 6 he actually borrows a sentence from his prophecy (Joe 1:15), which is so peculiar that the agreement cannot be an accidental one.

Consequently, Joel prophesied before Amos, i. e. , before the twenty-seven years of the contemporaneous reigns of Uzziah and Jeroboam II. How long before, can only be inferred with any degree of probability from the historical circumstances to which he refers in his prophecy. The only enemies that he mentions besides Egypt and Edom (Joe 3:19), as those whom the Lord would punish for the hostility they had shown towards the people of God, are Tyre and Zidon, and the coasts of Philistia (Joe 3:4); but not the Syrians, who planned an expedition against Jerusalem after the conquest of Gath, which cost Joash not only the treasures of the temple and palace, but his own life also (2Ki 12:18.

; 2Ch 24:23.) , on account of which Amos predicted the destruction of the kingdom of Syria, and the transportation of the people to Assyria (Amo 1:3-5). But inasmuch as this expedition of the Syrians was not “directed against the Philistines, so that only a single detachment made a passing raid into Judah on their return,” as Hengstenberg supposes, but was a direct attack upon the kingdom of Judah, to which the city of Gath, that Rehoboam had fortified, may still have belonged (see at 2Ki 12:18-19), and inflicted a very severe defeat upon Judah, Joel would surely have mentioned the Syrians along with the other enemies of Judah, if he had prophesied after that event.

And even if the absence of any reference to the hostility of the Syrians towards Judah is not strictly conclusive when taken by itself, it acquires great importance from the fact that the whole character of Joel’s prophecy points to the times before Amos and Hosea. We neither meet with any allusion to the sins which Hosea and Amos condemn on the part of Judah, and which brought about the Assyrian judgment; nor is idolatry, as it prevailed under Joram, Ahaziah, and Athaliah, ever mentioned at all; but, on the contrary, the Jehovah-worship, which Jehoiada the high priest restored when Joash ascended the throne (2Ki 11:17.

; 2Ch 23:16.) , is presupposed with all its well-regulated and priestly ceremonial. These circumstances speak very decidedly in favour of the conclusion that the first thirty years of the reign of Joash, during which the king had Jehoiada the high priest for his adviser, are to be regarded as the period of Joel’s ministry. No well-founded objection can be brought against this on account of the position which his book occupies among the minor prophets, since there is no ground for the opinion that the writings of the twelve minor prophets are arranged with a strict regard to chronology.

2. The Book of Joel. - The writings of Joel contain a connected prophetic proclamation, which is divided into two equal halves by Joe 2:18 and Joe 2:19 . In the first half the prophet depicts a terrible devastation of Judah by locusts and scorching heat; and describing this judgment as the harbinger, or rather as the dawn, of Jehovah’s great day of judgment, summons the people of all ranks to a general day of penitence, fasting, and prayer, in the sanctuary upon Zion, that the Lord may have compassion upon His nation (Joel 1:2-2:17).

In the second half there follows, as the divine answer to the call of the people to repentance, the promise that the Lord will destroy the army of locusts, and bestow a rich harvest blessing upon the land by sending early and latter rain (Joe 2:19-27), and then in the future pour out His Spirit upon all flesh (Joe 2:28-32), and sit in judgment upon all nations, who have scattered His people and divided His land among them, and reward them according to their deeds; but that He will shelter His people from Zion, and glorify His land by rivers of abundant blessing (ch. 3).

These two halves are connected together by the statement that Jehovah manifests the jealousy of love for His land, and pity towards His people, and answers them (Joe 2:18-19). So far the commentators are all agreed as to the contents of the book. But there are differences of opinion, more especially as to the true interpretation of the first half, - namely, whether the description of the terrible devastation by locusts is to be understood literally or allegorically.

The decision of this question depends upon the reply that is given to the prior question, whether Joel 1:2-2:17 contains a description of a present or a future judgment. If we observe, first of all, that the statement in Joe 2:18 and Joe 2:19 , by which the promise is introduced, is expressed in four successive imperfects with Vav. consec. (the standing form for historical narratives), there can be no doubt whatever that this remark contains a historical announcement of what has taken place on the part of the Lord in consequence of the penitential cry of the people.

And if this be established, it follows still further that the first half of our book cannot contain the prediction of a strictly future judgment, but must describe a calamity which has at any rate in part already begun. This is confirmed by the fact that the prophet from the very outset (Joe 1:2-4) described the devastation of the land by locusts as a present calamity, on the ground of which he summons the people to repentance.

As Joel begins with an appeal to the old men, to see whether such things have happened in their own days, or the days of their fathers, and to relate them to their children and children’s children, and then describes the thing itself with simple perfects, יתר הגּזם אכל וגו, it is perfectly obvious that he is not speaking of something that is to take place in the future, but of a divine judgment that has been inflicted already. It is true that the prophets frequently employ preterites in their description of future events, but there is no analogous example that can be found of such a use of them as we find here in Joe 1:2-4; and the remark made by Hengstenberg, to the effect that we find the preterites employed in exactly the same manner in ch.

3, is simply incorrect. But if Joel had an existing calamity before his eye, and depicts it in Joe 1:2. , the question in dispute from time immemorial, whether the description is to be understood allegorically or literally, is settled in favour of the literal view. “An allegory must contain some significant marks of its being so. Where these are wanting, it is arbitrary to assume that it is an allegory at all.

” And we have no such marks here, as we shall show in our exposition in detail. “As it is a fact established by the unanimous testimony of the most credible witnesses, that wherever swarms of locusts descend, all the vegetation in the fields immediately vanishes, just as if a curtain had been rolled up; that they spare neither the juicy bark of woody plants, nor the roots below the ground; that their cloud-like swarms darken the air, and render the sun and even men at a little distance off invisible; that their innumerable and closely compact army advances in military array in a straight course, most obstinately maintained; that it cannot be turned back or dispersed, either by natural obstacles or human force; that on its approach a loud roaring noise is heard like the rushing of a torrent, a waterfall, or a strong wind; that they no sooner settle to eat, than you hear on all sides the grating sound of their mandibles, and, as Volney expresses it, might fancy that you heard the foraging of an invisible army; - if we compare these and other natural observations with the statements of Joel, we shall find everywhere the most faithful picture, and nowhere any hyperbole requiring for its justification and explanation that the army of locusts should be paraphrased into an army of men; more especially as the devastation of a country by an army of locusts is far more terrible than that of an ordinary army; and there is no allusion, either expressed or hinted at, to a massacre among the people.

And if we consider, still further, that the migratory locusts ( Acridium migratorium , in Oken, Allg. Naturgesch. v. 3, p. 1514ff.) find their grave sometimes in dry and barren steppes, and sometimes in lakes and seas, it is impossible to comprehend how the promise in Joe 2:20 - one part of the army now devastating Judah shall be hurled into the southern desert, the van into the Dead Sea, and the rear into the Mediterranean - can harmonize with the allegorical view” (Delitzsch).

The only thing that appears to favour the idea that the locusts are used figuratively to represent hostile armies, is the circumstance that Joel discerns in the devastation of the locusts as depicted by him, the drawing near or coming of the day of the Lord (Joe 1:15; Joe 2:1), connected with the fact that Isaiah speaks of the judgment upon Baal, which was accomplished by a hostile army, in the words of Joel (Joe 1:15; see Isa 13:6). But on closer examination, this appearance does not rise into reality.

It is true that by the “day of Jehovah” we cannot understand a different judgment from the devastation of the locusts, since such a supposition would be irreconcilable with Joe 2:1. But the expression, “for the day of Jehovah is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty does it come,” shows that the prophet did not so completely identify the day of the Lord with the plague of locusts, as that it was exhausted by it, but that he merely saw in this the approach of the great day of judgment, i.

e. , merely one element of the judgment, which falls in the course of ages upon the ungodly, and will be completed in the last judgment. One factor in the universal judgment is the judgment pronounced upon Babylon, and carried out by the Medes; so that it by no means follows from the occurrence of the words of Joel in the prophecy of Isaiah, that the latter put an allegorical interpretation upon Joel’s description of the devastation by the locusts.

But even if there are no conclusive indications or hints, that can be adduced in support of the allegorical interpretation, it cannot be denied, on the other hand, that the description, as a whole, contains something more than a poetical painting of one particular instance of the devastation of Judah by a more terrible swarm of locusts than had ever been known before; that is to say, that it bears an ideal character surpassing the reality, - a fact which is overlooked by such commentators as can find nothing more in the account than the description of a very remarkable plague. The introduction, “Hear this, ye old men; and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land: hath this been in your days, or in the days of your fathers?

Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children the following generation” (Joe 1:2-3); and the lamentation in v. 9, that the meat-offering and drink-offering have been destroyed from the house of Jehovah; and still more, the picture of the day of the Lord as a day of darkness and of gloominess like the morning red spread over the mountains; a great people and a strong, such as has not been from all eternity, and after which there will be none like to for ever and ever (Joe 2:2), - unquestionably show that Joel not only regarded the plague of locusts that came upon Judah in the light of divine revelation, and as a sign, but described it as the breaking of the Lord’s great day of judgment, or that in the advance of the locusts he saw the army of God, at whose head Jehovah marched as captain, and caused His voice, the terrible voice of the Judge of the universe, to be heard in the thunder (Joe 2:11), and that he predicted this coming of the Lord, before which the earth trembles, the heavens shake, and sun, moon, and stars lose their brightness (Joe 2:10), as His coming to judge the world.

This proclamation, however, was no production of mere poetical exaggeration, but had its source in the inspiration of the Spirit of God, which enlightened the prophet; so that in the terrible devastation that had fallen upon Judah he discerned one feature of the day of judgment of the Lord, and on the ground of the judgment of God that had been thus experienced, proclaimed that the coming of the Lord to judgment upon the whole world was near at hand. The medium through which this was conveyed to his mind was meditation upon the history of the olden time, more especially upon the judgments through which Jehovah had effected the redemption of His people out of Egypt, in connection with the punishment with which Moses threatened the transgressors of the law (Deu 28:38-39, Deu 28:42), - namely, that locusts should devour their seed, their plants, their fields, and their fruits.

Hengstenberg has correctly observed, that the words of Joel in Joe 2:10, “There have not been ever the like,” are borrowed from Exo 10:14; but it is not in these words alone that the prophet points to the Egyptian plague of locusts. In the very introduction to his prophecy (Joe 1:2-3), viz. , the question whether such a thing has occurred, and the charge, Tell it to your children, etc.

, there is an unmistakeable allusion to Exo 10:2, where the Lord charges Moses to tell Pharaoh that He will do signs, in order that Pharaoh may relate it to his son and his son’s son, and then announces the plague of locusts in these words: “that thy fathers and thy fathers’ fathers have not seen such things since their existence upon the earth” (Exo 10:6). As the basis of this judgment of God which fell upon Egypt in the olden time, and by virtue of a higher illumination, Joel discerned in the similar judgment that had burst upon Judah in his own time, a type of the coming of Jehovah’s great day of judgment, and made it the substratum of his prophecy of the judgment of the wrath of the Lord which would come upon Judah, to terrify the sinners out of their self-security, and impel them by earnest repentance, fasting, and prayer, to implore the divine mercy for deliverance from utter destruction.

This description of the coming day of Jehovah, i. e. , of the judgment of the world, for which the judgment inflicted upon Judah of the devastation by locusts prepared the way, after the foretype of these occurrences of both the olden and present time, is no allegory, however, in which the heathen nations, by whom the judgments upon the covenant nation that had gone further and further from its God would be executed in the time to come, are represented as swarms of locusts coming one after another and devastating the land of Judah; but it has just the same reality as the plague of locusts through which God once sought to humble the pride of the Egyptian Pharaoh.

We are no more at liberty to turn the locusts in the prophecy before us into hostile armies, than to pronounce the locusts by which Egypt was devastated, allegorical figures representing enemies or troops of hostile cavalry. Such a metamorphosis as this is warranted neither by the vision in Amo 7:1-3, where Amos is said to have seen the divine judgment under the figure of a swarm of locusts; nor by that described in Rev 9:3.

, where locusts which come out of the bottomless pit are commanded neither to hurt the grass nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only to torment men with their scorpion-stings: for even in these visions the locusts are not figurative, representing hostile nations; but on the basis of the Egyptian plague of locusts and of Joel’s prophecy, they stand in Amos as a figurative representation of the devastation of the land, and in the Apocalypse as the symbol of a supernatural plague inflicted upon the ungodly. Lastly, another decisive objection to the allegorical interpretation is to be found in the circumstance, that neither in the first nor in the second half of his book does Joel predict the particular judgments which God will inflict in the course of time, partly upon His degenerate people, and partly upon the hostile powers of the world, but that he simply announces the judgment of God upon Judah and the nations of the world in its totality, as the great and terrible day of the Lord, without unfolding more minutely or even suggesting the particular facts in which it will be historically realized.

In this respect, the ideality of his prophecy is maintained throughout; and the only speciality given to it is, that in the first half the judgment upon the covenant people is proclaimed, and in the second the judgment upon the heathen nations: the former as the groundwork of a call to repentance; the latter as the final separation between the church of the Lord and its opponents. And this separation between the covenant nation and the powers of the world is founded on fact.

The judgment only falls upon the covenant nation when it is unfaithful to its divine calling, when it falls away from its God, and that not to destroy and annihilate it, but to lead it back by means of chastisement to the Lord its God. If it hearken to the voice of its God, who speaks to it in judgments, the Lord repents of the evil, and turns the calamity into salvation and blessing.

It was Joel’s mission to proclaim this truth in Judah, and turn the sinful nation to its God. To this end he proclaimed to the people, that the Lord was coming to judgment in the devastation that the locusts had spread over the land, and by depicting the great and terrible day of the Lord, called upon them to turn to their God with all their heart. This call to repentance was not without effect.

The Lord was jealous for His land, and spared His people (Joe 2:18), and sent His prophets to proclaim the removal of the judgment and the bestowal of a bountiful earthly ad spiritual blessing: viz. , for the time immediately ensuing the destruction of the army of locusts, the sending of the teacher for righteousness, and a plentiful fall of rain for the fruitful supply of the fruits of the ground (Joe 2:19, Joe 2:27); and in the more remote future, the pouring out of His Spirit upon the whole congregation, and on the day of the judgment upon all nations the deliverance and preservation of His faithful worshippers; and finally, after the judgment, the transformation and eternal glory of Zion (Joel 2:28-3:21).

Here, again, the ideality of the prophetic announcement is maintained throughout, although a distinction is made between the inferior blessing in the immediate future, and the higher benediction of the church of God at a more distant period. The outpouring of the Spirit of God upon all flesh is followed, without any intervening link, by the announcement of the coming of the terrible day of the Lord, as a day of judgment upon all nations, including those who have shown themselves hostile to Judah, either in Joel’s own time or a little while before.

The nations are gathered together in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and there judged by Jehovah through His mighty heroes; but the sons of Israel are delivered and sheltered by their God. Here, again, all the separate judgments, which fall upon the nations of the world that are hostile to God, during the many centuries of the gradual development of the kingdom of God upon earth, are summed up in one grand judicial act on the day of Jehovah, through which the separation is completely effected between the church of the Lord and its foes, the ungodly power of the world annihilated, and the kingdom of God perfected; but without the slightest hint, that both the judgment upon the nations and the glorification of the kingdom of God will be fulfilled through a succession of separate judgments.

The book of Joel, therefore, contains two prophetic addresses, which are not only connected together as one work by the historical remark in Joe 2:18-19 , but which stand in the closest relation to each other, so far as their contents are concerned, though the one was not delivered to the people directly after the other, but the first during the devastation by the locusts, to lead the people to observe the judgment of God and to assemble together in the temple for a service of penitence and prayer; and the second not till after the priests had appointed a day of fasting, penitence, and prayer, in the house of the Lord, in consequence of His solemn call to repentance, and in the name of the people had prayed to the Lord to pity and spare His inheritance. The committal of these addresses to writing did not take place, at any rate, till after the destruction of the army of the locusts, when the land began to recover from the devastation that it had suffered.

But whether Joel committed these addresses to writings just as he delivered them to the congregation, and merely linked them together into one single work by introducing the historical remark that unites them, or whether he merely inserted in his written work the essential contents of several addresses delivered after this divine judgment, and worked them up into one connected prophecy, it is impossible to decide with certainty. But there is no doubt whatever as to the composition of the written work by the prophet himself.

- For the different commentaries upon the book of Joel, see my Introduction to the Old Testament . An unparalleled devastation of the land of Judah by several successive swarms of locusts, which destroyed all the seedlings, all field and garden fruits, all plants and trees, and which was accompanied by scorching heat, induced the prophet to utter a loud lamentation at this unparalleled judgment of God, and an earnest call to all classes of the nation to offer prayer to the Lord in the temple, together with fasting, mourning, and weeping, that He might avert the judgment.

In the first chapter, the lamentation has reference chiefly to the ruin of the land (Joel 1:2-20); in the second, the judgment is depicted as a foretype and harbinger of the approaching day of the Lord, which the congregation is to anticipate by a day of public fasting, repentance, and prayer (Joel 2:1-17); so that ch. 1 describes rather the magnitude of the judgment, and ch.

2:1-17 its significance in relation to the covenant nation. After an appeal to lay to heart the devastation by swarms of locusts, which has fallen upon the land (Joe 1:2-4), the prophet summons the following to utter lamentation over this calamity: first the drunkards, who are to awake (Joe 1:5-7); then the congregation generally, which is to mourn with penitence (Joe 1:8-12); and then the priests, who are to appoint a service of repentance (Joe 1:13-18).

For each of these appeals he gives, as a reason, a further description of the horrible calamity, corresponding to the particular appeal; and finally, he sums up his lamentation in a prayer for the deliverance of the land from destruction (Joe 1:19, Joe 1:20). Joe 1:1-4 Joe 1:1 contains the heading to the book, and has already been noticed in the introduction.

Joe 1:2. “Hear this, ye old men; and attend, all ye inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing indeed happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers? Joe 1:1. Ye shall tell your sons of it, and your sons their sons, and their sons the next generation. Joe 1:4. The leavings of the gnawer the multiplier ate, and the leavings of the multiplier the licker ate, and the leavings of the licker the devourer ate.

” Not only for the purpose of calling the attention of the hearers to his address, but still more to set forth the event of which he is about to speak as something unheard of - a thing that has never happened before, and therefore is a judgment inflicted by God - the prophet commences with the question addressed to the old men, whose memory went the furthest back, and to all the inhabitants of Judah, whether they had ever experienced anything of the kind, or heard of such a thing from their fathers; and with the command to relate it to their children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. “The inhabitants of the land” are the inhabitants of Judah, as it was only with this kingdom that Joel was occupied (cf.

Joe 1:14 and Joe 2:1). זאת is the occurrence related in Joe 1:4, which is represented by the question “Has this been in your days? ” as a fact just experienced. Yether haggâzâm , the leavings of the gnawer, i. e. , whatever the gnawer leaves unconsumed of either vegetables or plants. The four names given to the locusts, viz. , gâzâm , 'arbeh , yeleq , and châsil , are not the names applied in natural history to four distinct species, or four different generations of locusts; nor does Joel describe the swarms of two successive years, so that “ gâzâm is the migratory locust, which visits Palestine chiefly in the autumn, 'arbeh the young brood, yeleq the young locust in the last stage of its transformation, or before changing its skin for the fourth time, and châsı̄l the perfect locust after this last change, so that as the brood sprang from the gâzâm , châsı̄l would be equivalent to gâzâm ” (Credner).

This explanation is not only at variance with Joe 2:25, where gâzâm stands last, after châsı̄l , but is founded generally merely upon a false interpretation of Nah 3:15-16 (see the passage) and Jer 51:27, where the adjective sâmâr ( horridus , horrible), appended to yeleq , from sâmâr , to shudder, by no means refers to the rough, horny, wing-sheath of the young locusts, and cannot be sustained from the usage of the language, It is impossible to point out any difference in usage between gâzâm and châsı̄l , or between these two words and 'arbeh . The word gâzâm , from gâzâm , to cut off (in Arabic, Ethiopic, and the Rabb.)

, occurs only in this passage, in Joe 2:25, and in Amo 4:9, where it is applied to a swarm of flying locusts, which leave the vine, fig-tree, and olive, perfectly bare, as it is well known that all locusts do, when, as in Amos, the vegetables and field fruits have been already destroyed. 'Arbeh , from râbhâh , to be many, is the common name of the locust, and indeed in all probability of the migratory locust, because this always appears in innumerable swarms.

Châsı̄l , from châsal , to eat off, designates the locust ( hâ'arbeh ), according to Deu 28:38, by its habit of eating off the field crops and tree fruits, and is therefore used in 1Ki 8:37; 2Ch 6:28; Psa 78:46, as synonymous with hâ'arbeh , and in Isa 33:4 in its stead. Yeleq , from yâlaq = lâqaq , to lick, to lick off, occurs in Psa 105:34 as equivalent to 'arbeh , and in Nahum as synonymous with it; and indeed it there refers expressly to the Egyptian plague of locusts, so that young locusts without wings cannot possibly be thought of.

Haggâzâm the gnawer, hayyeleq the licker, hechâsı̄l the devourer, are therefore simply poetical epithets applied to the 'arbeh , which never occur in simple plain prose, but are confined to the loftier (rhetorical and poetical) style. Moreover, the assumption that Joel is speaking of swarms of locusts of two successive years, is neither required by Joe 2:25 (see the comm.

on this verse), nor reconcilable with the contents of the verse itself. If the 'arbeh eats what the gâzâm has left, and the yeleq what is left by the 'arbeh , we cannot possibly think of the field and garden fruits of two successive years, because the fruits of the second year are not the leavings of the previous year, but have grown afresh in the year itself.

The thought is rather this: one swarm of locusts after another has invaded the land, and completely devoured its fruit. The use of several different words, and the division of the locusts into four successive swarms, of which each devours what has been left by its precursor, belong to the rhetorical drapery and individualizing of the thought. The only thing that has any real significance is the number four, as the four kinds of punishment in Jer 15:3, and the four destructive judgments in Eze 14:21, clearly show.

The number four, “the stamp of oecumenicity” (Kliefoth), indicates here the spread of the judgment over the whole of Judah in all directions.

Person and Times of the Prophet Joel. - Joel (יואל, i. e. , whose God is Jehovah, Ἰωήλ) is distinguished from other men of the same name, which occurs very frequently (e. g. , 1Sa 8:2; 1Ch 4:35; 1Ch 5:4; 1Ch 8:12; 1Ch 6:21; 1Ch 7:3; 2Ch 29:12; Neh 11:9), by the epithet “son of Pethuel ” (פּתוּאל, the open-heartedness or sincerity of God). Nothing is known of the circumstances connected with his life, since the traditional legends as to his springing from Bethom (Βηθών, al.

Θεβυράν in Ps. Epiph.) , or Bethomeron in the tribe of Reuben ( Ps. Doroth. ), are quite unsupported. All that can be inferred with any certainty from his writings is, that he lived in Judah, and in all probability prophesied in Jerusalem. The date of his ministry is also a disputed point; though so much is certain, namely, that he did not live in the reign of Manasseh or Josiah, or even later, as some suppose, but was one of the earliest of the twelve minor prophets.

For even Amos (Amo 1:2) commences his prophecy with a passage from Joel (Joe 3:16), and closes it with the same promises, adopting in Joel 9:13 the beautiful imagery of Joel, of the mountains dripping with new wine, and the hills overflowing (Joe 3:18). And Isaiah, again, in his description of the coming judgment in ch. 13, had Joel in his mind; and in v. 6 he actually borrows a sentence from his prophecy (Joe 1:15), which is so peculiar that the agreement cannot be an accidental one.

Consequently, Joel prophesied before Amos, i. e. , before the twenty-seven years of the contemporaneous reigns of Uzziah and Jeroboam II. How long before, can only be inferred with any degree of probability from the historical circumstances to which he refers in his prophecy. The only enemies that he mentions besides Egypt and Edom (Joe 3:19), as those whom the Lord would punish for the hostility they had shown towards the people of God, are Tyre and Zidon, and the coasts of Philistia (Joe 3:4); but not the Syrians, who planned an expedition against Jerusalem after the conquest of Gath, which cost Joash not only the treasures of the temple and palace, but his own life also (2Ki 12:18.

; 2Ch 24:23.) , on account of which Amos predicted the destruction of the kingdom of Syria, and the transportation of the people to Assyria (Amo 1:3-5). But inasmuch as this expedition of the Syrians was not “directed against the Philistines, so that only a single detachment made a passing raid into Judah on their return,” as Hengstenberg supposes, but was a direct attack upon the kingdom of Judah, to which the city of Gath, that Rehoboam had fortified, may still have belonged (see at 2Ki 12:18-19), and inflicted a very severe defeat upon Judah, Joel would surely have mentioned the Syrians along with the other enemies of Judah, if he had prophesied after that event.

And even if the absence of any reference to the hostility of the Syrians towards Judah is not strictly conclusive when taken by itself, it acquires great importance from the fact that the whole character of Joel’s prophecy points to the times before Amos and Hosea. We neither meet with any allusion to the sins which Hosea and Amos condemn on the part of Judah, and which brought about the Assyrian judgment; nor is idolatry, as it prevailed under Joram, Ahaziah, and Athaliah, ever mentioned at all; but, on the contrary, the Jehovah-worship, which Jehoiada the high priest restored when Joash ascended the throne (2Ki 11:17.

; 2Ch 23:16.) , is presupposed with all its well-regulated and priestly ceremonial. These circumstances speak very decidedly in favour of the conclusion that the first thirty years of the reign of Joash, during which the king had Jehoiada the high priest for his adviser, are to be regarded as the period of Joel’s ministry. No well-founded objection can be brought against this on account of the position which his book occupies among the minor prophets, since there is no ground for the opinion that the writings of the twelve minor prophets are arranged with a strict regard to chronology.

2. The Book of Joel. - The writings of Joel contain a connected prophetic proclamation, which is divided into two equal halves by Joe 2:18 and Joe 2:19 . In the first half the prophet depicts a terrible devastation of Judah by locusts and scorching heat; and describing this judgment as the harbinger, or rather as the dawn, of Jehovah’s great day of judgment, summons the people of all ranks to a general day of penitence, fasting, and prayer, in the sanctuary upon Zion, that the Lord may have compassion upon His nation (Joel 1:2-2:17).

In the second half there follows, as the divine answer to the call of the people to repentance, the promise that the Lord will destroy the army of locusts, and bestow a rich harvest blessing upon the land by sending early and latter rain (Joe 2:19-27), and then in the future pour out His Spirit upon all flesh (Joe 2:28-32), and sit in judgment upon all nations, who have scattered His people and divided His land among them, and reward them according to their deeds; but that He will shelter His people from Zion, and glorify His land by rivers of abundant blessing (ch. 3).

These two halves are connected together by the statement that Jehovah manifests the jealousy of love for His land, and pity towards His people, and answers them (Joe 2:18-19). So far the commentators are all agreed as to the contents of the book. But there are differences of opinion, more especially as to the true interpretation of the first half, - namely, whether the description of the terrible devastation by locusts is to be understood literally or allegorically.

The decision of this question depends upon the reply that is given to the prior question, whether Joel 1:2-2:17 contains a description of a present or a future judgment. If we observe, first of all, that the statement in Joe 2:18 and Joe 2:19 , by which the promise is introduced, is expressed in four successive imperfects with Vav. consec. (the standing form for historical narratives), there can be no doubt whatever that this remark contains a historical announcement of what has taken place on the part of the Lord in consequence of the penitential cry of the people.

And if this be established, it follows still further that the first half of our book cannot contain the prediction of a strictly future judgment, but must describe a calamity which has at any rate in part already begun. This is confirmed by the fact that the prophet from the very outset (Joe 1:2-4) described the devastation of the land by locusts as a present calamity, on the ground of which he summons the people to repentance.

As Joel begins with an appeal to the old men, to see whether such things have happened in their own days, or the days of their fathers, and to relate them to their children and children’s children, and then describes the thing itself with simple perfects, יתר הגּזם אכל וגו, it is perfectly obvious that he is not speaking of something that is to take place in the future, but of a divine judgment that has been inflicted already. It is true that the prophets frequently employ preterites in their description of future events, but there is no analogous example that can be found of such a use of them as we find here in Joe 1:2-4; and the remark made by Hengstenberg, to the effect that we find the preterites employed in exactly the same manner in ch.

3, is simply incorrect. But if Joel had an existing calamity before his eye, and depicts it in Joe 1:2. , the question in dispute from time immemorial, whether the description is to be understood allegorically or literally, is settled in favour of the literal view. “An allegory must contain some significant marks of its being so. Where these are wanting, it is arbitrary to assume that it is an allegory at all.

” And we have no such marks here, as we shall show in our exposition in detail. “As it is a fact established by the unanimous testimony of the most credible witnesses, that wherever swarms of locusts descend, all the vegetation in the fields immediately vanishes, just as if a curtain had been rolled up; that they spare neither the juicy bark of woody plants, nor the roots below the ground; that their cloud-like swarms darken the air, and render the sun and even men at a little distance off invisible; that their innumerable and closely compact army advances in military array in a straight course, most obstinately maintained; that it cannot be turned back or dispersed, either by natural obstacles or human force; that on its approach a loud roaring noise is heard like the rushing of a torrent, a waterfall, or a strong wind; that they no sooner settle to eat, than you hear on all sides the grating sound of their mandibles, and, as Volney expresses it, might fancy that you heard the foraging of an invisible army; - if we compare these and other natural observations with the statements of Joel, we shall find everywhere the most faithful picture, and nowhere any hyperbole requiring for its justification and explanation that the army of locusts should be paraphrased into an army of men; more especially as the devastation of a country by an army of locusts is far more terrible than that of an ordinary army; and there is no allusion, either expressed or hinted at, to a massacre among the people.

And if we consider, still further, that the migratory locusts ( Acridium migratorium , in Oken, Allg. Naturgesch. v. 3, p. 1514ff.) find their grave sometimes in dry and barren steppes, and sometimes in lakes and seas, it is impossible to comprehend how the promise in Joe 2:20 - one part of the army now devastating Judah shall be hurled into the southern desert, the van into the Dead Sea, and the rear into the Mediterranean - can harmonize with the allegorical view” (Delitzsch).

The only thing that appears to favour the idea that the locusts are used figuratively to represent hostile armies, is the circumstance that Joel discerns in the devastation of the locusts as depicted by him, the drawing near or coming of the day of the Lord (Joe 1:15; Joe 2:1), connected with the fact that Isaiah speaks of the judgment upon Baal, which was accomplished by a hostile army, in the words of Joel (Joe 1:15; see Isa 13:6). But on closer examination, this appearance does not rise into reality.

It is true that by the “day of Jehovah” we cannot understand a different judgment from the devastation of the locusts, since such a supposition would be irreconcilable with Joe 2:1. But the expression, “for the day of Jehovah is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty does it come,” shows that the prophet did not so completely identify the day of the Lord with the plague of locusts, as that it was exhausted by it, but that he merely saw in this the approach of the great day of judgment, i.

e. , merely one element of the judgment, which falls in the course of ages upon the ungodly, and will be completed in the last judgment. One factor in the universal judgment is the judgment pronounced upon Babylon, and carried out by the Medes; so that it by no means follows from the occurrence of the words of Joel in the prophecy of Isaiah, that the latter put an allegorical interpretation upon Joel’s description of the devastation by the locusts.

But even if there are no conclusive indications or hints, that can be adduced in support of the allegorical interpretation, it cannot be denied, on the other hand, that the description, as a whole, contains something more than a poetical painting of one particular instance of the devastation of Judah by a more terrible swarm of locusts than had ever been known before; that is to say, that it bears an ideal character surpassing the reality, - a fact which is overlooked by such commentators as can find nothing more in the account than the description of a very remarkable plague. The introduction, “Hear this, ye old men; and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land: hath this been in your days, or in the days of your fathers?

Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children the following generation” (Joe 1:2-3); and the lamentation in v. 9, that the meat-offering and drink-offering have been destroyed from the house of Jehovah; and still more, the picture of the day of the Lord as a day of darkness and of gloominess like the morning red spread over the mountains; a great people and a strong, such as has not been from all eternity, and after which there will be none like to for ever and ever (Joe 2:2), - unquestionably show that Joel not only regarded the plague of locusts that came upon Judah in the light of divine revelation, and as a sign, but described it as the breaking of the Lord’s great day of judgment, or that in the advance of the locusts he saw the army of God, at whose head Jehovah marched as captain, and caused His voice, the terrible voice of the Judge of the universe, to be heard in the thunder (Joe 2:11), and that he predicted this coming of the Lord, before which the earth trembles, the heavens shake, and sun, moon, and stars lose their brightness (Joe 2:10), as His coming to judge the world.

This proclamation, however, was no production of mere poetical exaggeration, but had its source in the inspiration of the Spirit of God, which enlightened the prophet; so that in the terrible devastation that had fallen upon Judah he discerned one feature of the day of judgment of the Lord, and on the ground of the judgment of God that had been thus experienced, proclaimed that the coming of the Lord to judgment upon the whole world was near at hand. The medium through which this was conveyed to his mind was meditation upon the history of the olden time, more especially upon the judgments through which Jehovah had effected the redemption of His people out of Egypt, in connection with the punishment with which Moses threatened the transgressors of the law (Deu 28:38-39, Deu 28:42), - namely, that locusts should devour their seed, their plants, their fields, and their fruits.

Hengstenberg has correctly observed, that the words of Joel in Joe 2:10, “There have not been ever the like,” are borrowed from Exo 10:14; but it is not in these words alone that the prophet points to the Egyptian plague of locusts. In the very introduction to his prophecy (Joe 1:2-3), viz. , the question whether such a thing has occurred, and the charge, Tell it to your children, etc.

, there is an unmistakeable allusion to Exo 10:2, where the Lord charges Moses to tell Pharaoh that He will do signs, in order that Pharaoh may relate it to his son and his son’s son, and then announces the plague of locusts in these words: “that thy fathers and thy fathers’ fathers have not seen such things since their existence upon the earth” (Exo 10:6). As the basis of this judgment of God which fell upon Egypt in the olden time, and by virtue of a higher illumination, Joel discerned in the similar judgment that had burst upon Judah in his own time, a type of the coming of Jehovah’s great day of judgment, and made it the substratum of his prophecy of the judgment of the wrath of the Lord which would come upon Judah, to terrify the sinners out of their self-security, and impel them by earnest repentance, fasting, and prayer, to implore the divine mercy for deliverance from utter destruction.

This description of the coming day of Jehovah, i. e. , of the judgment of the world, for which the judgment inflicted upon Judah of the devastation by locusts prepared the way, after the foretype of these occurrences of both the olden and present time, is no allegory, however, in which the heathen nations, by whom the judgments upon the covenant nation that had gone further and further from its God would be executed in the time to come, are represented as swarms of locusts coming one after another and devastating the land of Judah; but it has just the same reality as the plague of locusts through which God once sought to humble the pride of the Egyptian Pharaoh.

We are no more at liberty to turn the locusts in the prophecy before us into hostile armies, than to pronounce the locusts by which Egypt was devastated, allegorical figures representing enemies or troops of hostile cavalry. Such a metamorphosis as this is warranted neither by the vision in Amo 7:1-3, where Amos is said to have seen the divine judgment under the figure of a swarm of locusts; nor by that described in Rev 9:3.

, where locusts which come out of the bottomless pit are commanded neither to hurt the grass nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only to torment men with their scorpion-stings: for even in these visions the locusts are not figurative, representing hostile nations; but on the basis of the Egyptian plague of locusts and of Joel’s prophecy, they stand in Amos as a figurative representation of the devastation of the land, and in the Apocalypse as the symbol of a supernatural plague inflicted upon the ungodly. Lastly, another decisive objection to the allegorical interpretation is to be found in the circumstance, that neither in the first nor in the second half of his book does Joel predict the particular judgments which God will inflict in the course of time, partly upon His degenerate people, and partly upon the hostile powers of the world, but that he simply announces the judgment of God upon Judah and the nations of the world in its totality, as the great and terrible day of the Lord, without unfolding more minutely or even suggesting the particular facts in which it will be historically realized.

In this respect, the ideality of his prophecy is maintained throughout; and the only speciality given to it is, that in the first half the judgment upon the covenant people is proclaimed, and in the second the judgment upon the heathen nations: the former as the groundwork of a call to repentance; the latter as the final separation between the church of the Lord and its opponents. And this separation between the covenant nation and the powers of the world is founded on fact.

The judgment only falls upon the covenant nation when it is unfaithful to its divine calling, when it falls away from its God, and that not to destroy and annihilate it, but to lead it back by means of chastisement to the Lord its God. If it hearken to the voice of its God, who speaks to it in judgments, the Lord repents of the evil, and turns the calamity into salvation and blessing.

It was Joel’s mission to proclaim this truth in Judah, and turn the sinful nation to its God. To this end he proclaimed to the people, that the Lord was coming to judgment in the devastation that the locusts had spread over the land, and by depicting the great and terrible day of the Lord, called upon them to turn to their God with all their heart. This call to repentance was not without effect.

The Lord was jealous for His land, and spared His people (Joe 2:18), and sent His prophets to proclaim the removal of the judgment and the bestowal of a bountiful earthly ad spiritual blessing: viz. , for the time immediately ensuing the destruction of the army of locusts, the sending of the teacher for righteousness, and a plentiful fall of rain for the fruitful supply of the fruits of the ground (Joe 2:19, Joe 2:27); and in the more remote future, the pouring out of His Spirit upon the whole congregation, and on the day of the judgment upon all nations the deliverance and preservation of His faithful worshippers; and finally, after the judgment, the transformation and eternal glory of Zion (Joel 2:28-3:21).

Here, again, the ideality of the prophetic announcement is maintained throughout, although a distinction is made between the inferior blessing in the immediate future, and the higher benediction of the church of God at a more distant period. The outpouring of the Spirit of God upon all flesh is followed, without any intervening link, by the announcement of the coming of the terrible day of the Lord, as a day of judgment upon all nations, including those who have shown themselves hostile to Judah, either in Joel’s own time or a little while before.

The nations are gathered together in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and there judged by Jehovah through His mighty heroes; but the sons of Israel are delivered and sheltered by their God. Here, again, all the separate judgments, which fall upon the nations of the world that are hostile to God, during the many centuries of the gradual development of the kingdom of God upon earth, are summed up in one grand judicial act on the day of Jehovah, through which the separation is completely effected between the church of the Lord and its foes, the ungodly power of the world annihilated, and the kingdom of God perfected; but without the slightest hint, that both the judgment upon the nations and the glorification of the kingdom of God will be fulfilled through a succession of separate judgments.

The book of Joel, therefore, contains two prophetic addresses, which are not only connected together as one work by the historical remark in Joe 2:18-19 , but which stand in the closest relation to each other, so far as their contents are concerned, though the one was not delivered to the people directly after the other, but the first during the devastation by the locusts, to lead the people to observe the judgment of God and to assemble together in the temple for a service of penitence and prayer; and the second not till after the priests had appointed a day of fasting, penitence, and prayer, in the house of the Lord, in consequence of His solemn call to repentance, and in the name of the people had prayed to the Lord to pity and spare His inheritance. The committal of these addresses to writing did not take place, at any rate, till after the destruction of the army of the locusts, when the land began to recover from the devastation that it had suffered.

But whether Joel committed these addresses to writings just as he delivered them to the congregation, and merely linked them together into one single work by introducing the historical remark that unites them, or whether he merely inserted in his written work the essential contents of several addresses delivered after this divine judgment, and worked them up into one connected prophecy, it is impossible to decide with certainty. But there is no doubt whatever as to the composition of the written work by the prophet himself.

- For the different commentaries upon the book of Joel, see my Introduction to the Old Testament . An unparalleled devastation of the land of Judah by several successive swarms of locusts, which destroyed all the seedlings, all field and garden fruits, all plants and trees, and which was accompanied by scorching heat, induced the prophet to utter a loud lamentation at this unparalleled judgment of God, and an earnest call to all classes of the nation to offer prayer to the Lord in the temple, together with fasting, mourning, and weeping, that He might avert the judgment.

In the first chapter, the lamentation has reference chiefly to the ruin of the land (Joel 1:2-20); in the second, the judgment is depicted as a foretype and harbinger of the approaching day of the Lord, which the congregation is to anticipate by a day of public fasting, repentance, and prayer (Joel 2:1-17); so that ch. 1 describes rather the magnitude of the judgment, and ch.

2:1-17 its significance in relation to the covenant nation. After an appeal to lay to heart the devastation by swarms of locusts, which has fallen upon the land (Joe 1:2-4), the prophet summons the following to utter lamentation over this calamity: first the drunkards, who are to awake (Joe 1:5-7); then the congregation generally, which is to mourn with penitence (Joe 1:8-12); and then the priests, who are to appoint a service of repentance (Joe 1:13-18).

For each of these appeals he gives, as a reason, a further description of the horrible calamity, corresponding to the particular appeal; and finally, he sums up his lamentation in a prayer for the deliverance of the land from destruction (Joe 1:19, Joe 1:20). Joe 1:1-4 Joe 1:1 contains the heading to the book, and has already been noticed in the introduction.

Joe 1:2. “Hear this, ye old men; and attend, all ye inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing indeed happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers? Joe 1:1. Ye shall tell your sons of it, and your sons their sons, and their sons the next generation. Joe 1:4. The leavings of the gnawer the multiplier ate, and the leavings of the multiplier the licker ate, and the leavings of the licker the devourer ate.

” Not only for the purpose of calling the attention of the hearers to his address, but still more to set forth the event of which he is about to speak as something unheard of - a thing that has never happened before, and therefore is a judgment inflicted by God - the prophet commences with the question addressed to the old men, whose memory went the furthest back, and to all the inhabitants of Judah, whether they had ever experienced anything of the kind, or heard of such a thing from their fathers; and with the command to relate it to their children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. “The inhabitants of the land” are the inhabitants of Judah, as it was only with this kingdom that Joel was occupied (cf.

Joe 1:14 and Joe 2:1). זאת is the occurrence related in Joe 1:4, which is represented by the question “Has this been in your days? ” as a fact just experienced. Yether haggâzâm , the leavings of the gnawer, i. e. , whatever the gnawer leaves unconsumed of either vegetables or plants. The four names given to the locusts, viz. , gâzâm , 'arbeh , yeleq , and châsil , are not the names applied in natural history to four distinct species, or four different generations of locusts; nor does Joel describe the swarms of two successive years, so that “ gâzâm is the migratory locust, which visits Palestine chiefly in the autumn, 'arbeh the young brood, yeleq the young locust in the last stage of its transformation, or before changing its skin for the fourth time, and châsı̄l the perfect locust after this last change, so that as the brood sprang from the gâzâm , châsı̄l would be equivalent to gâzâm ” (Credner).

This explanation is not only at variance with Joe 2:25, where gâzâm stands last, after châsı̄l , but is founded generally merely upon a false interpretation of Nah 3:15-16 (see the passage) and Jer 51:27, where the adjective sâmâr ( horridus , horrible), appended to yeleq , from sâmâr , to shudder, by no means refers to the rough, horny, wing-sheath of the young locusts, and cannot be sustained from the usage of the language, It is impossible to point out any difference in usage between gâzâm and châsı̄l , or between these two words and 'arbeh . The word gâzâm , from gâzâm , to cut off (in Arabic, Ethiopic, and the Rabb.)

, occurs only in this passage, in Joe 2:25, and in Amo 4:9, where it is applied to a swarm of flying locusts, which leave the vine, fig-tree, and olive, perfectly bare, as it is well known that all locusts do, when, as in Amos, the vegetables and field fruits have been already destroyed. 'Arbeh , from râbhâh , to be many, is the common name of the locust, and indeed in all probability of the migratory locust, because this always appears in innumerable swarms.

Châsı̄l , from châsal , to eat off, designates the locust ( hâ'arbeh ), according to Deu 28:38, by its habit of eating off the field crops and tree fruits, and is therefore used in 1Ki 8:37; 2Ch 6:28; Psa 78:46, as synonymous with hâ'arbeh , and in Isa 33:4 in its stead. Yeleq , from yâlaq = lâqaq , to lick, to lick off, occurs in Psa 105:34 as equivalent to 'arbeh , and in Nahum as synonymous with it; and indeed it there refers expressly to the Egyptian plague of locusts, so that young locusts without wings cannot possibly be thought of.

Haggâzâm the gnawer, hayyeleq the licker, hechâsı̄l the devourer, are therefore simply poetical epithets applied to the 'arbeh , which never occur in simple plain prose, but are confined to the loftier (rhetorical and poetical) style. Moreover, the assumption that Joel is speaking of swarms of locusts of two successive years, is neither required by Joe 2:25 (see the comm.

on this verse), nor reconcilable with the contents of the verse itself. If the 'arbeh eats what the gâzâm has left, and the yeleq what is left by the 'arbeh , we cannot possibly think of the field and garden fruits of two successive years, because the fruits of the second year are not the leavings of the previous year, but have grown afresh in the year itself.

The thought is rather this: one swarm of locusts after another has invaded the land, and completely devoured its fruit. The use of several different words, and the division of the locusts into four successive swarms, of which each devours what has been left by its precursor, belong to the rhetorical drapery and individualizing of the thought. The only thing that has any real significance is the number four, as the four kinds of punishment in Jer 15:3, and the four destructive judgments in Eze 14:21, clearly show.

The number four, “the stamp of oecumenicity” (Kliefoth), indicates here the spread of the judgment over the whole of Judah in all directions.

Person and Times of the Prophet Joel. - Joel (יואל, i. e. , whose God is Jehovah, Ἰωήλ) is distinguished from other men of the same name, which occurs very frequently (e. g. , 1Sa 8:2; 1Ch 4:35; 1Ch 5:4; 1Ch 8:12; 1Ch 6:21; 1Ch 7:3; 2Ch 29:12; Neh 11:9), by the epithet “son of Pethuel ” (פּתוּאל, the open-heartedness or sincerity of God). Nothing is known of the circumstances connected with his life, since the traditional legends as to his springing from Bethom (Βηθών, al.

Θεβυράν in Ps. Epiph.) , or Bethomeron in the tribe of Reuben ( Ps. Doroth. ), are quite unsupported. All that can be inferred with any certainty from his writings is, that he lived in Judah, and in all probability prophesied in Jerusalem. The date of his ministry is also a disputed point; though so much is certain, namely, that he did not live in the reign of Manasseh or Josiah, or even later, as some suppose, but was one of the earliest of the twelve minor prophets.

For even Amos (Amo 1:2) commences his prophecy with a passage from Joel (Joe 3:16), and closes it with the same promises, adopting in Joel 9:13 the beautiful imagery of Joel, of the mountains dripping with new wine, and the hills overflowing (Joe 3:18). And Isaiah, again, in his description of the coming judgment in ch. 13, had Joel in his mind; and in v. 6 he actually borrows a sentence from his prophecy (Joe 1:15), which is so peculiar that the agreement cannot be an accidental one.

Consequently, Joel prophesied before Amos, i. e. , before the twenty-seven years of the contemporaneous reigns of Uzziah and Jeroboam II. How long before, can only be inferred with any degree of probability from the historical circumstances to which he refers in his prophecy. The only enemies that he mentions besides Egypt and Edom (Joe 3:19), as those whom the Lord would punish for the hostility they had shown towards the people of God, are Tyre and Zidon, and the coasts of Philistia (Joe 3:4); but not the Syrians, who planned an expedition against Jerusalem after the conquest of Gath, which cost Joash not only the treasures of the temple and palace, but his own life also (2Ki 12:18.

; 2Ch 24:23.) , on account of which Amos predicted the destruction of the kingdom of Syria, and the transportation of the people to Assyria (Amo 1:3-5). But inasmuch as this expedition of the Syrians was not “directed against the Philistines, so that only a single detachment made a passing raid into Judah on their return,” as Hengstenberg supposes, but was a direct attack upon the kingdom of Judah, to which the city of Gath, that Rehoboam had fortified, may still have belonged (see at 2Ki 12:18-19), and inflicted a very severe defeat upon Judah, Joel would surely have mentioned the Syrians along with the other enemies of Judah, if he had prophesied after that event.

And even if the absence of any reference to the hostility of the Syrians towards Judah is not strictly conclusive when taken by itself, it acquires great importance from the fact that the whole character of Joel’s prophecy points to the times before Amos and Hosea. We neither meet with any allusion to the sins which Hosea and Amos condemn on the part of Judah, and which brought about the Assyrian judgment; nor is idolatry, as it prevailed under Joram, Ahaziah, and Athaliah, ever mentioned at all; but, on the contrary, the Jehovah-worship, which Jehoiada the high priest restored when Joash ascended the throne (2Ki 11:17.

; 2Ch 23:16.) , is presupposed with all its well-regulated and priestly ceremonial. These circumstances speak very decidedly in favour of the conclusion that the first thirty years of the reign of Joash, during which the king had Jehoiada the high priest for his adviser, are to be regarded as the period of Joel’s ministry. No well-founded objection can be brought against this on account of the position which his book occupies among the minor prophets, since there is no ground for the opinion that the writings of the twelve minor prophets are arranged with a strict regard to chronology.

2. The Book of Joel. - The writings of Joel contain a connected prophetic proclamation, which is divided into two equal halves by Joe 2:18 and Joe 2:19 . In the first half the prophet depicts a terrible devastation of Judah by locusts and scorching heat; and describing this judgment as the harbinger, or rather as the dawn, of Jehovah’s great day of judgment, summons the people of all ranks to a general day of penitence, fasting, and prayer, in the sanctuary upon Zion, that the Lord may have compassion upon His nation (Joel 1:2-2:17).

In the second half there follows, as the divine answer to the call of the people to repentance, the promise that the Lord will destroy the army of locusts, and bestow a rich harvest blessing upon the land by sending early and latter rain (Joe 2:19-27), and then in the future pour out His Spirit upon all flesh (Joe 2:28-32), and sit in judgment upon all nations, who have scattered His people and divided His land among them, and reward them according to their deeds; but that He will shelter His people from Zion, and glorify His land by rivers of abundant blessing (ch. 3).

These two halves are connected together by the statement that Jehovah manifests the jealousy of love for His land, and pity towards His people, and answers them (Joe 2:18-19). So far the commentators are all agreed as to the contents of the book. But there are differences of opinion, more especially as to the true interpretation of the first half, - namely, whether the description of the terrible devastation by locusts is to be understood literally or allegorically.

The decision of this question depends upon the reply that is given to the prior question, whether Joel 1:2-2:17 contains a description of a present or a future judgment. If we observe, first of all, that the statement in Joe 2:18 and Joe 2:19 , by which the promise is introduced, is expressed in four successive imperfects with Vav. consec. (the standing form for historical narratives), there can be no doubt whatever that this remark contains a historical announcement of what has taken place on the part of the Lord in consequence of the penitential cry of the people.

And if this be established, it follows still further that the first half of our book cannot contain the prediction of a strictly future judgment, but must describe a calamity which has at any rate in part already begun. This is confirmed by the fact that the prophet from the very outset (Joe 1:2-4) described the devastation of the land by locusts as a present calamity, on the ground of which he summons the people to repentance.

As Joel begins with an appeal to the old men, to see whether such things have happened in their own days, or the days of their fathers, and to relate them to their children and children’s children, and then describes the thing itself with simple perfects, יתר הגּזם אכל וגו, it is perfectly obvious that he is not speaking of something that is to take place in the future, but of a divine judgment that has been inflicted already. It is true that the prophets frequently employ preterites in their description of future events, but there is no analogous example that can be found of such a use of them as we find here in Joe 1:2-4; and the remark made by Hengstenberg, to the effect that we find the preterites employed in exactly the same manner in ch.

3, is simply incorrect. But if Joel had an existing calamity before his eye, and depicts it in Joe 1:2. , the question in dispute from time immemorial, whether the description is to be understood allegorically or literally, is settled in favour of the literal view. “An allegory must contain some significant marks of its being so. Where these are wanting, it is arbitrary to assume that it is an allegory at all.

” And we have no such marks here, as we shall show in our exposition in detail. “As it is a fact established by the unanimous testimony of the most credible witnesses, that wherever swarms of locusts descend, all the vegetation in the fields immediately vanishes, just as if a curtain had been rolled up; that they spare neither the juicy bark of woody plants, nor the roots below the ground; that their cloud-like swarms darken the air, and render the sun and even men at a little distance off invisible; that their innumerable and closely compact army advances in military array in a straight course, most obstinately maintained; that it cannot be turned back or dispersed, either by natural obstacles or human force; that on its approach a loud roaring noise is heard like the rushing of a torrent, a waterfall, or a strong wind; that they no sooner settle to eat, than you hear on all sides the grating sound of their mandibles, and, as Volney expresses it, might fancy that you heard the foraging of an invisible army; - if we compare these and other natural observations with the statements of Joel, we shall find everywhere the most faithful picture, and nowhere any hyperbole requiring for its justification and explanation that the army of locusts should be paraphrased into an army of men; more especially as the devastation of a country by an army of locusts is far more terrible than that of an ordinary army; and there is no allusion, either expressed or hinted at, to a massacre among the people.

And if we consider, still further, that the migratory locusts ( Acridium migratorium , in Oken, Allg. Naturgesch. v. 3, p. 1514ff.) find their grave sometimes in dry and barren steppes, and sometimes in lakes and seas, it is impossible to comprehend how the promise in Joe 2:20 - one part of the army now devastating Judah shall be hurled into the southern desert, the van into the Dead Sea, and the rear into the Mediterranean - can harmonize with the allegorical view” (Delitzsch).

The only thing that appears to favour the idea that the locusts are used figuratively to represent hostile armies, is the circumstance that Joel discerns in the devastation of the locusts as depicted by him, the drawing near or coming of the day of the Lord (Joe 1:15; Joe 2:1), connected with the fact that Isaiah speaks of the judgment upon Baal, which was accomplished by a hostile army, in the words of Joel (Joe 1:15; see Isa 13:6). But on closer examination, this appearance does not rise into reality.

It is true that by the “day of Jehovah” we cannot understand a different judgment from the devastation of the locusts, since such a supposition would be irreconcilable with Joe 2:1. But the expression, “for the day of Jehovah is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty does it come,” shows that the prophet did not so completely identify the day of the Lord with the plague of locusts, as that it was exhausted by it, but that he merely saw in this the approach of the great day of judgment, i.

e. , merely one element of the judgment, which falls in the course of ages upon the ungodly, and will be completed in the last judgment. One factor in the universal judgment is the judgment pronounced upon Babylon, and carried out by the Medes; so that it by no means follows from the occurrence of the words of Joel in the prophecy of Isaiah, that the latter put an allegorical interpretation upon Joel’s description of the devastation by the locusts.

But even if there are no conclusive indications or hints, that can be adduced in support of the allegorical interpretation, it cannot be denied, on the other hand, that the description, as a whole, contains something more than a poetical painting of one particular instance of the devastation of Judah by a more terrible swarm of locusts than had ever been known before; that is to say, that it bears an ideal character surpassing the reality, - a fact which is overlooked by such commentators as can find nothing more in the account than the description of a very remarkable plague. The introduction, “Hear this, ye old men; and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land: hath this been in your days, or in the days of your fathers?

Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children the following generation” (Joe 1:2-3); and the lamentation in v. 9, that the meat-offering and drink-offering have been destroyed from the house of Jehovah; and still more, the picture of the day of the Lord as a day of darkness and of gloominess like the morning red spread over the mountains; a great people and a strong, such as has not been from all eternity, and after which there will be none like to for ever and ever (Joe 2:2), - unquestionably show that Joel not only regarded the plague of locusts that came upon Judah in the light of divine revelation, and as a sign, but described it as the breaking of the Lord’s great day of judgment, or that in the advance of the locusts he saw the army of God, at whose head Jehovah marched as captain, and caused His voice, the terrible voice of the Judge of the universe, to be heard in the thunder (Joe 2:11), and that he predicted this coming of the Lord, before which the earth trembles, the heavens shake, and sun, moon, and stars lose their brightness (Joe 2:10), as His coming to judge the world.

This proclamation, however, was no production of mere poetical exaggeration, but had its source in the inspiration of the Spirit of God, which enlightened the prophet; so that in the terrible devastation that had fallen upon Judah he discerned one feature of the day of judgment of the Lord, and on the ground of the judgment of God that had been thus experienced, proclaimed that the coming of the Lord to judgment upon the whole world was near at hand. The medium through which this was conveyed to his mind was meditation upon the history of the olden time, more especially upon the judgments through which Jehovah had effected the redemption of His people out of Egypt, in connection with the punishment with which Moses threatened the transgressors of the law (Deu 28:38-39, Deu 28:42), - namely, that locusts should devour their seed, their plants, their fields, and their fruits.

Hengstenberg has correctly observed, that the words of Joel in Joe 2:10, “There have not been ever the like,” are borrowed from Exo 10:14; but it is not in these words alone that the prophet points to the Egyptian plague of locusts. In the very introduction to his prophecy (Joe 1:2-3), viz. , the question whether such a thing has occurred, and the charge, Tell it to your children, etc.

, there is an unmistakeable allusion to Exo 10:2, where the Lord charges Moses to tell Pharaoh that He will do signs, in order that Pharaoh may relate it to his son and his son’s son, and then announces the plague of locusts in these words: “that thy fathers and thy fathers’ fathers have not seen such things since their existence upon the earth” (Exo 10:6). As the basis of this judgment of God which fell upon Egypt in the olden time, and by virtue of a higher illumination, Joel discerned in the similar judgment that had burst upon Judah in his own time, a type of the coming of Jehovah’s great day of judgment, and made it the substratum of his prophecy of the judgment of the wrath of the Lord which would come upon Judah, to terrify the sinners out of their self-security, and impel them by earnest repentance, fasting, and prayer, to implore the divine mercy for deliverance from utter destruction.

This description of the coming day of Jehovah, i. e. , of the judgment of the world, for which the judgment inflicted upon Judah of the devastation by locusts prepared the way, after the foretype of these occurrences of both the olden and present time, is no allegory, however, in which the heathen nations, by whom the judgments upon the covenant nation that had gone further and further from its God would be executed in the time to come, are represented as swarms of locusts coming one after another and devastating the land of Judah; but it has just the same reality as the plague of locusts through which God once sought to humble the pride of the Egyptian Pharaoh.

We are no more at liberty to turn the locusts in the prophecy before us into hostile armies, than to pronounce the locusts by which Egypt was devastated, allegorical figures representing enemies or troops of hostile cavalry. Such a metamorphosis as this is warranted neither by the vision in Amo 7:1-3, where Amos is said to have seen the divine judgment under the figure of a swarm of locusts; nor by that described in Rev 9:3.

, where locusts which come out of the bottomless pit are commanded neither to hurt the grass nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only to torment men with their scorpion-stings: for even in these visions the locusts are not figurative, representing hostile nations; but on the basis of the Egyptian plague of locusts and of Joel’s prophecy, they stand in Amos as a figurative representation of the devastation of the land, and in the Apocalypse as the symbol of a supernatural plague inflicted upon the ungodly. Lastly, another decisive objection to the allegorical interpretation is to be found in the circumstance, that neither in the first nor in the second half of his book does Joel predict the particular judgments which God will inflict in the course of time, partly upon His degenerate people, and partly upon the hostile powers of the world, but that he simply announces the judgment of God upon Judah and the nations of the world in its totality, as the great and terrible day of the Lord, without unfolding more minutely or even suggesting the particular facts in which it will be historically realized.

In this respect, the ideality of his prophecy is maintained throughout; and the only speciality given to it is, that in the first half the judgment upon the covenant people is proclaimed, and in the second the judgment upon the heathen nations: the former as the groundwork of a call to repentance; the latter as the final separation between the church of the Lord and its opponents. And this separation between the covenant nation and the powers of the world is founded on fact.

The judgment only falls upon the covenant nation when it is unfaithful to its divine calling, when it falls away from its God, and that not to destroy and annihilate it, but to lead it back by means of chastisement to the Lord its God. If it hearken to the voice of its God, who speaks to it in judgments, the Lord repents of the evil, and turns the calamity into salvation and blessing.

It was Joel’s mission to proclaim this truth in Judah, and turn the sinful nation to its God. To this end he proclaimed to the people, that the Lord was coming to judgment in the devastation that the locusts had spread over the land, and by depicting the great and terrible day of the Lord, called upon them to turn to their God with all their heart. This call to repentance was not without effect.

The Lord was jealous for His land, and spared His people (Joe 2:18), and sent His prophets to proclaim the removal of the judgment and the bestowal of a bountiful earthly ad spiritual blessing: viz. , for the time immediately ensuing the destruction of the army of locusts, the sending of the teacher for righteousness, and a plentiful fall of rain for the fruitful supply of the fruits of the ground (Joe 2:19, Joe 2:27); and in the more remote future, the pouring out of His Spirit upon the whole congregation, and on the day of the judgment upon all nations the deliverance and preservation of His faithful worshippers; and finally, after the judgment, the transformation and eternal glory of Zion (Joel 2:28-3:21).

Here, again, the ideality of the prophetic announcement is maintained throughout, although a distinction is made between the inferior blessing in the immediate future, and the higher benediction of the church of God at a more distant period. The outpouring of the Spirit of God upon all flesh is followed, without any intervening link, by the announcement of the coming of the terrible day of the Lord, as a day of judgment upon all nations, including those who have shown themselves hostile to Judah, either in Joel’s own time or a little while before.

The nations are gathered together in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and there judged by Jehovah through His mighty heroes; but the sons of Israel are delivered and sheltered by their God. Here, again, all the separate judgments, which fall upon the nations of the world that are hostile to God, during the many centuries of the gradual development of the kingdom of God upon earth, are summed up in one grand judicial act on the day of Jehovah, through which the separation is completely effected between the church of the Lord and its foes, the ungodly power of the world annihilated, and the kingdom of God perfected; but without the slightest hint, that both the judgment upon the nations and the glorification of the kingdom of God will be fulfilled through a succession of separate judgments.

The book of Joel, therefore, contains two prophetic addresses, which are not only connected together as one work by the historical remark in Joe 2:18-19 , but which stand in the closest relation to each other, so far as their contents are concerned, though the one was not delivered to the people directly after the other, but the first during the devastation by the locusts, to lead the people to observe the judgment of God and to assemble together in the temple for a service of penitence and prayer; and the second not till after the priests had appointed a day of fasting, penitence, and prayer, in the house of the Lord, in consequence of His solemn call to repentance, and in the name of the people had prayed to the Lord to pity and spare His inheritance. The committal of these addresses to writing did not take place, at any rate, till after the destruction of the army of the locusts, when the land began to recover from the devastation that it had suffered.

But whether Joel committed these addresses to writings just as he delivered them to the congregation, and merely linked them together into one single work by introducing the historical remark that unites them, or whether he merely inserted in his written work the essential contents of several addresses delivered after this divine judgment, and worked them up into one connected prophecy, it is impossible to decide with certainty. But there is no doubt whatever as to the composition of the written work by the prophet himself.

- For the different commentaries upon the book of Joel, see my Introduction to the Old Testament . An unparalleled devastation of the land of Judah by several successive swarms of locusts, which destroyed all the seedlings, all field and garden fruits, all plants and trees, and which was accompanied by scorching heat, induced the prophet to utter a loud lamentation at this unparalleled judgment of God, and an earnest call to all classes of the nation to offer prayer to the Lord in the temple, together with fasting, mourning, and weeping, that He might avert the judgment.

In the first chapter, the lamentation has reference chiefly to the ruin of the land (Joel 1:2-20); in the second, the judgment is depicted as a foretype and harbinger of the approaching day of the Lord, which the congregation is to anticipate by a day of public fasting, repentance, and prayer (Joel 2:1-17); so that ch. 1 describes rather the magnitude of the judgment, and ch.

2:1-17 its significance in relation to the covenant nation. After an appeal to lay to heart the devastation by swarms of locusts, which has fallen upon the land (Joe 1:2-4), the prophet summons the following to utter lamentation over this calamity: first the drunkards, who are to awake (Joe 1:5-7); then the congregation generally, which is to mourn with penitence (Joe 1:8-12); and then the priests, who are to appoint a service of repentance (Joe 1:13-18).

For each of these appeals he gives, as a reason, a further description of the horrible calamity, corresponding to the particular appeal; and finally, he sums up his lamentation in a prayer for the deliverance of the land from destruction (Joe 1:19, Joe 1:20). Joe 1:1-4 Joe 1:1 contains the heading to the book, and has already been noticed in the introduction.

Joe 1:2. “Hear this, ye old men; and attend, all ye inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing indeed happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers? Joe 1:1. Ye shall tell your sons of it, and your sons their sons, and their sons the next generation. Joe 1:4. The leavings of the gnawer the multiplier ate, and the leavings of the multiplier the licker ate, and the leavings of the licker the devourer ate.

” Not only for the purpose of calling the attention of the hearers to his address, but still more to set forth the event of which he is about to speak as something unheard of - a thing that has never happened before, and therefore is a judgment inflicted by God - the prophet commences with the question addressed to the old men, whose memory went the furthest back, and to all the inhabitants of Judah, whether they had ever experienced anything of the kind, or heard of such a thing from their fathers; and with the command to relate it to their children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. “The inhabitants of the land” are the inhabitants of Judah, as it was only with this kingdom that Joel was occupied (cf.

Joe 1:14 and Joe 2:1). זאת is the occurrence related in Joe 1:4, which is represented by the question “Has this been in your days? ” as a fact just experienced. Yether haggâzâm , the leavings of the gnawer, i. e. , whatever the gnawer leaves unconsumed of either vegetables or plants. The four names given to the locusts, viz. , gâzâm , 'arbeh , yeleq , and châsil , are not the names applied in natural history to four distinct species, or four different generations of locusts; nor does Joel describe the swarms of two successive years, so that “ gâzâm is the migratory locust, which visits Palestine chiefly in the autumn, 'arbeh the young brood, yeleq the young locust in the last stage of its transformation, or before changing its skin for the fourth time, and châsı̄l the perfect locust after this last change, so that as the brood sprang from the gâzâm , châsı̄l would be equivalent to gâzâm ” (Credner).

This explanation is not only at variance with Joe 2:25, where gâzâm stands last, after châsı̄l , but is founded generally merely upon a false interpretation of Nah 3:15-16 (see the passage) and Jer 51:27, where the adjective sâmâr ( horridus , horrible), appended to yeleq , from sâmâr , to shudder, by no means refers to the rough, horny, wing-sheath of the young locusts, and cannot be sustained from the usage of the language, It is impossible to point out any difference in usage between gâzâm and châsı̄l , or between these two words and 'arbeh . The word gâzâm , from gâzâm , to cut off (in Arabic, Ethiopic, and the Rabb.)

, occurs only in this passage, in Joe 2:25, and in Amo 4:9, where it is applied to a swarm of flying locusts, which leave the vine, fig-tree, and olive, perfectly bare, as it is well known that all locusts do, when, as in Amos, the vegetables and field fruits have been already destroyed. 'Arbeh , from râbhâh , to be many, is the common name of the locust, and indeed in all probability of the migratory locust, because this always appears in innumerable swarms.

Châsı̄l , from châsal , to eat off, designates the locust ( hâ'arbeh ), according to Deu 28:38, by its habit of eating off the field crops and tree fruits, and is therefore used in 1Ki 8:37; 2Ch 6:28; Psa 78:46, as synonymous with hâ'arbeh , and in Isa 33:4 in its stead. Yeleq , from yâlaq = lâqaq , to lick, to lick off, occurs in Psa 105:34 as equivalent to 'arbeh , and in Nahum as synonymous with it; and indeed it there refers expressly to the Egyptian plague of locusts, so that young locusts without wings cannot possibly be thought of.

Haggâzâm the gnawer, hayyeleq the licker, hechâsı̄l the devourer, are therefore simply poetical epithets applied to the 'arbeh , which never occur in simple plain prose, but are confined to the loftier (rhetorical and poetical) style. Moreover, the assumption that Joel is speaking of swarms of locusts of two successive years, is neither required by Joe 2:25 (see the comm.

on this verse), nor reconcilable with the contents of the verse itself. If the 'arbeh eats what the gâzâm has left, and the yeleq what is left by the 'arbeh , we cannot possibly think of the field and garden fruits of two successive years, because the fruits of the second year are not the leavings of the previous year, but have grown afresh in the year itself.

The thought is rather this: one swarm of locusts after another has invaded the land, and completely devoured its fruit. The use of several different words, and the division of the locusts into four successive swarms, of which each devours what has been left by its precursor, belong to the rhetorical drapery and individualizing of the thought. The only thing that has any real significance is the number four, as the four kinds of punishment in Jer 15:3, and the four destructive judgments in Eze 14:21, clearly show.

The number four, “the stamp of oecumenicity” (Kliefoth), indicates here the spread of the judgment over the whole of Judah in all directions.