“For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, 2 I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into judgment with them there, on behalf of my people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations and have divided up my land, 3 and have cast lots for my people, and have traded a boy for a prostitute, and have sold a girl for wine and have drunk it.
4 “What are you to me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Are you paying me back for something? If you are paying me back, I will return your payment on your own head swiftly and speedily. 5 For you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried my rich treasures into your temples. 6 You have sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks in order to remove them far from their own border. 7 Behold, I will stir them up from the place to which you have sold them, and I will return your payment on your own head. 8 I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, to a nation far away, for the Lord has spoken.”
9 Proclaim this among the nations:
Consecrate for war;
stir up the mighty men.
Let all the men of war draw near;
let them come up.
10 Beat your plowshares into swords,
and your pruning hooks into spears;
let the weak say, “I am a warrior.”
11 Hasten and come,
all you surrounding nations,
and gather yourselves there.
Bring down your warriors, O Lord.
12 Let the nations stir themselves up
and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat;
for there I will sit to judge
all the surrounding nations.
13 Put in the sickle,
for the harvest is ripe.
Go in, tread,
for the winepress is full.
The vats overflow,
for their evil is great.
14 Multitudes, multitudes,
in the valley of decision!
For the day of the Lord is near
in the valley of decision.
15 The sun and the moon are darkened,
and the stars withdraw their shining.
16 The Lord roars from Zion,
and utters his voice from Jerusalem,
and the heavens and the earth quake.
But the Lord is a refuge to his people,
a stronghold to the people of Israel.
The Glorious Future of Judah
17 “So you shall know that I am the Lord your God,
who dwells in Zion, my holy mountain.
And Jerusalem shall be holy,
and strangers shall never again pass through it.
18 “And in that day
the mountains shall drip sweet wine,
and the hills shall flow with milk,
and all the streambeds of Judah
shall flow with water;
and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the Lord
and water the Valley of Shittim.
19 “Egypt shall become a desolation
and Edom a desolate wilderness,
for the violence done to the people of Judah,
because they have shed innocent blood in their land.
20 But Judah shall be inhabited forever,
and Jerusalem to all generations.
21 I will avenge their blood,
blood I have not avenged,
for the Lord dwells in Zion.” Joel 3 ESV
Joel 3
1-16 In those days and at that time - In the preceding chapter we have been looking at the last days, and here we continue with what will be the end of this present evil age. God made a covenant with Abraham, long ago, before the law and the prophets, and it is a unilateral covenant which means He is the initiator and the One that holds it up, the One Who fulfills the terms. He has set Israel apart as His people, those that carried the oracles of His word, and those who recorded God's redemptive history.
6It is not as though God’s word has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7Nor because they are Abraham’s descendants are they all his children. On the contrary, “Through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned.” 8So it is not the children of the flesh who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as offspring.… Romans 9: 6-8
…19Behold, at that time, I will deal with all who afflict you. I will save the lame and gather the scattered; and I will appoint praise and fame for the disgraced throughout the earth. 20At that time I will bring you in; yes, at that time I will gather you. For I will give you fame and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your captives before your very eyes,” says the LORD. Zephaniah 3: 19-20
I will gather all the nations - He sent nations to punish Israel in their apostasy, turning them over to those they were most like, for they did not behave as sons of God, but looked more to the cultures around them. Those that were like them did not believe, did not know God, and they received no light from Israel, for Israel defiled the things of God. The nations that came achieved God's wrath, but did not do so for His purpose, that was not their intent.
…7I said, ‘Surely you will fear Me and accept correction.’ Then her dwelling place would not be cut off despite all for which I punished her. But they rose early to corrupt all their deeds. 8Therefore wait for Me,” declares the LORD, “until the day I rise to testify. For My decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them My indignation— all My burning anger. For all the earth will be consumed by the fire of My jealousy. Zephaniah 3: 7-8
Valley of Jehoshaphat - This looks forward to a future judgment as the nations assemble for battle.
…10They will not gather wood from the countryside or cut it from the forests, for they will use the weapons for fuel. They will loot those who looted them and plunder those who plundered them, declares the Lord GOD. 11And on that day I will give Gog a burial place in Israel, the Valley of the Travelers, east of the Sea. It will block those who travel through, because Gog and all his hordes will be buried there. So it will be called the Valley of Hamon-gog. 12For seven months the house of Israel will be burying them in order to cleanse the land.… Ezekiel 39: 10-12
And bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat ("The Lord Judges," "Yahweh judges") - Remember that this is all occurring in the context of in those days, at that time. God controls the TIME and the PEOPLE (nations) involved in these terminal events of the present evil age (Gal 1:4-note) in this verse even controls the PLACE. - Precept Austin
And My heritage Israel - God views these people as His inheritance.
On behalf of My people and My inheritance, Israel - This verse explains why God is judging on the nations. It is because of His people and His inheritance Israel. While God clearly loves His Church, I fear sometimes many in the Church forget that He also loves Israel and that He has a plan for her that will not be frustrated. Passages such as this reflect God's faithfulness to His covenant promises, even to a people who have often times been unfaithful. Joel had given the basis for God's acting on behalf of His people in giving them the offer of forgiveness if they would repent... - Precept Austin
Have traded a boy for a prostitute - They had no respect for human life, and oddly, those that revere their own lives over others will still lose it. The disregard for other's lives will in the end be against your own.
…10Because of the violence against your brother Jacob, you will be covered with shame and cut off forever. 11On the day you stood aloof while strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gate and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were just like one of them. 12But you should not gloat in that day, your brother’s day of misfortune, nor rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their destruction, nor boast proudly in the day of their distress.… Obadiah 1: 10-12
Gilliland comments that...
Human life was regarded so cheaply that it amounted to little more than a night of immorality or a means of getting drunk. Examples of this type of treatment come to us from Josephus' account of the destruction of Jerusalem in Roman times where we are told that the large numbers of Jewish prisoners of war were disposed of in the following manner as recounted by Josephus in his Book of 9.3.
"He (Titus) chose out the tallest and most beautiful, and reserved them for the triumph; and as for the rest of the multitude that were above seventeen years old, he put them into bonds and sent them to the Egyptian mines. Titus also sent a great number into the provinces, as a present to them, that they might be destroyed upon their theaters, by the sword and by the wild beasts; but those that were under seventeen years of age he sold for slaves."
Though suspected of considerable exaggeration, the statistics given by the historians of these events are quite staggering. At the time of the siege under Titus, Josephus claims Jerusalem to have been a crowded city of 2.7 million persons; his estimate of the captives sent to Egypt is 100,000 and the number of casualties 1,100,000. In the next century the followers of Bar Kochba, in his failed revolt of ad 135, are set by the Roman historian Dio Cassius at 580,000. After these dispersions the markets were glutted by slaves and the price of a Jewish slave was less than the price of a horse..(What the Bible Teaches – Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah) - Precept Austin
Are you paying Me back for something - God is taking what is done to His people personally, as if it is toward Him. All sin is ultimately against God, He never finds it agreeable, it all has to be paid for. There is in this also that men always like to assume God is unfair or unjust, and since He does not bow to their whims then they also like to throw temper tantrums. It is funny in a sense that men think they can get even with God, and often they killed His prophets, God the Son laid down His life at the hands of men, but they have little understanding of eternity. Oh yeah, big man, you showed God. People are delusional, and those that hurt God's people will face a reckoning.
…3For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. 4Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You may be proved right when You speak and blameless when You judge. 5Surely I was brought forth in iniquity; I was sinful when my mother conceived me.… Psalm 51: 3-5
…3As Saul drew near to Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” 5“Who are You, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” He replied.… Acts 9: 3-5
For you have taken My silver and My gold - They have no actual right against God, only in their easily offended minds do they have a case, but truly they are the thieves.
Sell them to the Sabeans - There were all sorts of traders and trade routes, eventually the Silk Road, Spice traders, routes to Egypt and Assyria etc, and interactions occurred early on like when Joseph's brothers sold him to merchants. What they had deemed good for Israel was now brought back upon their own heads.
And they will sell them to the Sabeans, to a distant nation - The Jews would sell them to the Sabeans which was in southern Arabia. There is no Biblical record of this transaction.
The Sabeans were very likely the people from which the Queen of Sheba had come to visit Solomon in 1 Kings 10:1–15.
Beat your plowshares into swords - The nations go up for war, the final battle of Armageddon, but they instead find the judgment of Christ. What happens after Christ judges Israel's enemies is a reverse of this order, we see it in Isaiah 2, where the swords are reverse engineered back into plowshares.
…3And many peoples will come and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways so that we may walk in His paths.” For the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. 4Then He will judge between the nations and arbitrate for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer take up the sword against nation, nor train anymore for war. Isaiah 2: 3-4
Let the weak say, "I am a warrior" - Psych yourself up, shadow box, slap your cheeks, talk trash, but you will still be weak before the Lord's army, no match. It is more delusion, whatever men accomplish here, they are yet still created beings, living in God's creation.
Put in the sickle...The winepress is full - The cup of their transgressions is full, and the day of wrath has come.
…15Then another angel came out of the temple, crying out in a loud voice to the One seated on the cloud, “Swing Your sickle and reap, because the time has come to harvest; for the crop of the earth is ripe.” 16So the One seated on the cloud swung His sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested. 17Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle.… Revelation 14: 15-17
18 Then another angel, the one who has power over fire, came out from the altar; and he called with a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, “Put in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, because her grapes are ripe.”
19 So the angel swung his sickle to the earth and gathered the clusters from the vine of the earth, and threw them into the great wine press of the wrath of God.
20 And the wine press was trodden outside the city, and blood came out from the wine press, up to the horses’ bridles, for a distance of two hundred miles. Revelation 14: 18-20
And so in Joel 2:24 we see the effect of the good hand of the LORD on the nation of Israel for blessing and in Joel 3:11 we see the effect of the heavy hand of the LORD (cf 1 Sa 5:6,9, 7:13) on the nations of the world for judgment.
God's future judgment of the entire world is seen in many OT passages such as
Thus I will punish the world for its evil And the wicked for their iniquity; I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud And abase the haughtiness of the ruthless. 12 I will make mortal man scarcer than pure gold And mankind than the gold of Ophir. 13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, And the earth will be shaken from its place At the fury of the LORD of hosts In the day of His burning anger. (Isaiah 13:11-13-note) - Precept Austin
For their evil is great - God is always opposed to sin, so get over it. He does not have to accept your sin, but He has graciously offered His Son as atonement for it, so turn from your evil ways.
17-21 So you shall know that I am the Lord your God - When God protects and saves Israel, delivering them from the nations, then setting up His Millennial kingdom.
…34And on the west side, which will be 4,500 cubits long, there will be three gates: the gate of Gad, the gate of Asher, and the gate of Naphtali. 35The perimeter of the city will be 18,000 cubits, and from that day on the name of the city will be: THE LORD IS THERE.” Ezekiel 48: 34-35
Strangers shall never again pass through it - People hate the exclusivity of the gospel message, but your name has to be on the list, the city will be kept holy.
…26And into the city will be brought the glory and honor of the nations. 27But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who practices an abomination or a lie, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Revelation 21: 26-27
Valley of Shittim - Shittim was the last camp of Israel before entering the Promised Land; it is in Moab, eastside of the Jordan.
I will avenge their blood -
…18If it is possible on your part, live at peace with everyone. 19Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but leave room for God’s wrath. For it is written: “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, says the Lord.” 20On the contrary, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head.”… Romans 12: 18-20
…2I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man, and He will dwell with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. 4‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,’ and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away.”… Revelation 21: 2-4
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