Joel

Joel spoke to the people of Judah and Jerusalem at a time of national disaster. A vast plague of locusts had swept over the land, followed by drought and fire, and the fields, vineyards and orchards were stripped bare. The book names no king, so its date is uncertain, but its message is clear. Joel saw the plague as more than bad luck or a hard season. It was a warning from God and a preview of something greater, “the day of the LORD,” and it called for a whole nation to turn back to him.

For a farming people, locusts meant ruin. Joel describes wave after wave: “What the locust swarm has left the great locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left the young locusts have eaten” (1:4). The vines and fig trees are stripped to bare white branches, the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up and the oil fails (1:7, 10). Even the temple feels it, because “grain offerings and drink offerings are cut off from the house of the LORD” (1:9). The cattle moan, the streams dry up and fire burns the pastures (1:18–20).

Chapter 1 calls every group in the nation to respond. The elders are to tell their children and grandchildren what has happened (1:2–3). Drunkards are to wake up and weep, for the new wine is gone. Farmers and vine growers are to despair, and the priests are to put on sackcloth and lead the people: “Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly… and cry out to the LORD” (1:14). The reason is urgent: “Alas for that day! For the day of the LORD is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty” (1:15). The chapter ends with Joel himself crying out to God (1:19–20).

Chapter 2:1–27 sounds the alarm again: “Blow the trumpet in Zion” (2:1). An army advances, “a large and mighty army,” before which the land is like the garden of Eden and behind which it is a desert waste (2:2–3). It charges like warriors, climbs the walls and enters the houses, and at its head is the LORD himself (2:11). Then comes the heart of the book: “‘Even now,’ declares the LORD, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.’ Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love” (2:12–13). The words echo God’s own description of himself to Moses (Exodus 34:6). The whole community, from the elders to nursing infants and newlyweds, is to gather while the priests pray, “Spare your people, LORD” (2:16–17).

The LORD answers. “Then the LORD was jealous for his land and took pity on his people” (2:18). He promises to drive the invader away, to send the autumn and spring rains, and to fill the threshing floors with grain and the vats with new wine and oil (2:19–24). “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten” (2:25). The people will eat until they are full and praise his name, and they will know “that I am in Israel, that I am the LORD your God, and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed” (2:27).

Chapters 2:28–3:21 look further ahead. “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions” (2:28). The Spirit will come on men and women, old and young, even servants, and there will be signs in the sky before “the great and dreadful day of the LORD” (2:31). “And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved” (2:32). Chapter 3 turns to the nations that scattered God’s people and sold them as slaves. God gathers them to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, a name meaning “the LORD judges,” and calls them to battle with a reversal of Isaiah’s and Micah’s words: “Beat your plowshares into swords” (3:10; compare Isaiah 2:4; Micah 4:3). “Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision!” (3:14). The LORD roars from Zion, yet he is “a refuge for his people” (3:16). The book ends with streams flowing from the LORD’s house, Judah inhabited forever, and the words “The LORD dwells in Zion!” (3:18–21).

Several themes run through the book. The day of the LORD: the phrase appears five times (1:15; 2:1, 11, 31; 3:14), a day of judgment on sin that is also a day of rescue for those who turn to God. Repentance from the heart: God wants torn hearts, not torn clothes (2:13). God’s character: he is gracious, compassionate and ready to relent, and his answer to repentance is generous restoration. The Spirit for all: the gift once given to a few prophets is promised to all God’s people. Judgment and refuge: the same LORD who judges the nations shelters his people.

The New Testament gives Joel a central place. On the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came on the first believers, Peter stood up and said, “This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel,” and quoted 2:28–32 (Acts 2:16–21). Paul quoted 2:32, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved,” to show that salvation is open to Jew and Gentile alike (Romans 10:12–13). The book of Revelation draws on Joel’s pictures of locusts like horses prepared for battle (Revelation 9:7–9; Joel 2:4–5) and of the harvest and the winepress of judgment (Revelation 14:14–20; Joel 3:13).

Readers understand some parts of Joel in different ways. The army of chapter 2 is read by many as the same locust plague described more vividly, by others as a human army such as Assyria or Babylon pictured as locusts, and by others as an end-time army; some see the plague as a picture pointing to all three. The date is debated, from the 800s B.C. to after the exile (see the Date card). The outpouring of the Spirit (2:28–32) is seen by some as fulfilled at Pentecost, as Peter said, and by others as begun at Pentecost and completed in the future; readers also differ on whether the signs in the sun and moon are literal or figurative language for God’s great acts. The Valley of Jehoshaphat may be a symbolic name or a real place; since the 300s A.D. it has often been identified with the Kidron Valley beside Jerusalem. This outline simply follows the text.