Chapter 13 JOEL
The book of Joel comes ten years later than the book of Obadiah.
Joel means “Yahweh is God”. Joel appears on the scene at a precise moment in time between the first deportation of Judah to Babylon and the destruction of the Temple in five-eighty-five-BC.
Consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord there … For the day of the Lord is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes. 166
The picture of the invading army as an army of locusts is vivid. Locusts very rarely bother Judea as prevailing winds always take swarms of locusts further North, but locusts in their millions block out the sun and march through the crops like an army would march. History tells us there is a precautionary procedure for such events. At the sound of the warning trumpet, pits and trenches were dug, bags of combustible matter laid in them and set on fire.
Blow the trumpet in Zion; call a solemn assembly167
Like Obadiah, Joel is warning the people it’s too late to change God’s mind. But unlike Obadiah, Joel’s prophesies look beyond the return after seventy-years.
Chapters-two-and-three are picked up and expanded in the New-Testament. Joel speaks in the near future when the invaders will be removed and destroyed themselves, God will restore the land from the devastation the last army has left. But then he jumps to a concept that is way outside their imagination.
“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh… And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood,… And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved”.168
The book of Acts picks up this theme and expands on it. When Peter preaches on the day of Pentecost, he speaks not only of the renewal of Israel but all flesh.
When Jesus appeared to his disciples for the last time in Acts chapter-one, they ask the question ‘Is this the time you are going to restore Israel and Jerusalem’? Jesus replies in so many words, we are not up to Joel chapter-three, yet we are still in chapter-two. The darkness has covered the earth, the temple of my body has been destroyed, it has been restored again. Further, the enemy has been defeated but there is another phase to go through before the end time:
In the meantime, Go back to Jerusalem and wait. When the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will receive power, you will be my witnesses, you will tell people everywhere about me not only in Jerusalem but also in the world.169
The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.170
Figure 45: Micah -where are we? -Time
Figure 46: Outline Joel
166 Joel 1: 14-15
167 Joel 2: 15
168 Joel 2: 29-32
169 Act 1: 8
170Joel 2: 28-32