Joel 3: Judgment on the Nations against Israel

[Preliminary Comments: The prophecy here is bad news for the peoples that have over the years pillaged Israel – Tyre, Sidon, Philistines [v.4] & Egypt & Edom [v.19] – and good news for Israel who the Lord promises to restore [v.2].

i) The Bad News: all the nations that opposed Israel will be held to account [v.2], peoples who sold them into slavery [v.3,6], peoples who stole from the temple in Jerusalem [v.5], peoples who will find God reverses their roles so they will become slaves [v.7,8]. This will not come easily for they will surely resist the will of God, so He counsels them, get ready for a great battle [v.9-12] where they WILL be judged, and death will follow [v.13-15]. Those who oppressed Israel will be left desolate [v.19].

ii) The Good News: Israel will be restored [v.1], they will be brought back from slavery [v.7] and they will triumph over their enemies [v.8]. They will have a new sense of the Lord’s protection [v.16,17,20] and prosperity [v.18], knowing that the Lord has acted to avenge them for the things done against them [v.21]. An amazing chapter of encouragement for Israel.]

v.1-3 A Day of Judgment will come for the world that oppressed Israel

v.1 “In those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, 

v.2 I will gather all nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will put them on trial for what they did to my inheritance, my people Israel, because they scattered my people among the nations and divided up my land. 

v.3 They cast lots for my people and traded boys for prostitutes; they sold girls for wine to drink. 

v.4-6 Specific neighboring peoples who pillaged Israel

v.4 “Now what have you against me, Tyre and Sidon and all you regions of Philistia? Are you repaying me for something I have done? If you are paying me back, I will swiftly and speedily return on your own heads what you have done.

v. 5 For you took my silver and my gold and carried off my finest treasures to your temples. 

v.6 You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, that you might send them far from their homeland. 

v.7,8 God will bring back Israel deal with these peoples with reversed roles

v.7 “See, I am going to rouse them out of the places to which you sold them, and I will return on your own heads what you have done. 

v.8 I will sell your sons and daughters to the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far away.” The LORD has spoken. 

v.9-12 A Call to the nations, get ready for judgment

v.9 Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare for war! Rouse the warriors! Let all the fighting men draw near and attack. 

v.10 Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weakling say, “I am strong!” 

v.11 Come quickly, all you nations from every side, and assemble there. Bring down your warriors, LORD! 

v.12 “Let the nations be roused; let them advance into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will sit to judge all the nations on every side. 

v.13-16 It’s a time of great judgment on them, protecting His people Israel

v.13 Swing the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, trample the grapes, for the winepress is full and the vats overflow— so great is their wickedness!” 

v.14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision. 

v.15 The sun and moon will be darkened, and the stars no longer shine. 

v.16 The LORD will roar from Zion and thunder from Jerusalem; the earth and the heavens will tremble. But the LORD will be a refuge for his people, a stronghold for the people of Israel. 

v.17-21 Outworkings: Security & blessing for Jerusalem, judgment on others

v.17 “Then you will know that I, the LORD your God, dwell in Zion, my holy hill. Jerusalem will be holy; never again will foreigners invade her. 

v.18 “In that day the mountains will drip new wine, and the hills will flow with milk; all the ravines of Judah will run with water. A fountain will flow out of the LORD’s house and will water the valley of acacias.

v.19 But Egypt will be desolate, Edom a desert waste, because of violence done to the people of Judah, in whose land they shed innocent blood. 

v.20 Judah will be inhabited forever and Jerusalem through all generations. 

v.21 Shall I leave their innocent blood unavenged? No, I will not.” The LORD dwells in Zion!

[Additional Comments: As we commented at the beginning of the chapter, a prophecy of bad news for those peoples or nations that had oppressed God’s chosen people, Israel, but good news for Israel who will eventually be restored and brought to a place of complete security with God in their midst.

Now a difficulty with prophecy is invariably that it is difficult to ascertain exactly when it has been fulfilled. Sometimes fulfilment is immediate, sometimes in the far distant future – and sometimes both, i.e. it may have more than one fulfilment. Sometimes, as seems to be the case in these chapters, fulfilment seems stretched out in stages. Jesus, in his exposition of the end times in Matt 24, seems to suggest the same thing.

So in these chapters we have references to what seems to be an end time judgment day that brings blessing to Israel, but then in the midst of it we find one of the blessings is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which the apostle Peter, under the anointing of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, said had happened on that very day.

It would often seem that the fulfilment of prophecy only becomes clear AFTER it has actually happened. How the restoration of Israel to their land in 1947 fits all of this has been the subject of much debate, and how their future will yet work out is not guaranteed.

Yet what we can say through these chapters is that:

a) God WILL judge the nations who have oppressed His people, and

b) Israel (the physical nation or the wider ‘people of God’, the Church) WILL eventually be brought into a place of closeness to God where their security IS guaranteed.

In the meantime, Joel brings to his people, in the midst of a terrible catastrophe, the revelation that THIS is not the end, but God still has plans and purposes for good for them well into the distant future. Similar words of encouragement came both before the Exile (when the impending horror put a question mark over their future) AND after their return to the Land, when the Lord knew He would be silent for over four hundred years before the coming of His Son. Jesus’ words of Matt 24 would give any believer (Jew or Gentile) encouragement after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Romans in AD70. Catastrophes may come and go, but the plans of God will not be thwarted.]

For those who may wish to make a study of this chapter, to perhaps think some more about what you have been reading, use the link below: