Joe 3:1-3 | KingComments | STEP | This chapter gives a complete picture of the events of the last days. First the LORD will deliver His people from their enemies. In a way only God can do, He will bring the enemies together and make them appear together before His judgment seat. He will ensure that every crime committed by Israel’s enemies against His people will receive just retribution ( ). While the enemies are judged, the LORD will be a hiding place for His people. They will live safely with Him ( ). After the exercise of punishment of the nations there will come a time of abundant blessing for Israel ( ). The center from which all blessing comes is the LORD Who will dwell on Zion ( ). This also ensures that the blessing will continue. Over the centuries, Judah and Jerusalem have been trampled, languished and exterminated. Time and again other peoples have taken possession of them. Since May 14, 1948, the state of Israel has arisen, but the pressure of the nations is great and so is their dependence on the United States. It is not yet a people that expects it from the LORD. It still relies on its own strength and the strength of its allies. This acting according to their own insight and the increased pressure will lead them to accept the Antichrist, who comes in his own name and presents himself as Messiah ( ). They will place their hopes in him. The deliverance is expected from him. However, it will be in vain. The nations will go to Jerusalem and besiege the city. The situation becomes totally hopeless, especially for the faithful. The faithful will be threatened in that “time of Jacob’s distress” ( ) by enemies from outside and also by their apostate contemporaries who are following the antichrist. But then the Lord Jesus will come from heaven to set them free. With His appearance, the final turning point in the history of Judah and Jerusalem has arrived. The turn in the fate of Judah and Jerusalem is brought when the need is greatest. After that the time of peace and blessing immediately begins. The following verses show what the LORD is going to do to make that time dawn. The captivity of Judah and Jerusalem and the scattering of the ten tribes still continues. The captivity of Judah and Jerusalem is understood to mean that although there is a state of their own, they are not really free. They are hand and foot tied to the support of the United States, and good relations with the European Union are also essential. Although the Israel of the ten tribes is not mentioned here, they too will share in the results of the Lord Jesus’ actions. They too will be brought back to the land.

‏ Joel 3:1-3

Introduction

This chapter gives a complete picture of the events of the last days. First the LORD will deliver His people from their enemies. In a way only God can do, He will bring the enemies together and make them appear together before His judgment seat. He will ensure that every crime committed by Israel’s enemies against His people will receive just retribution (Joel 3:1-16).

While the enemies are judged, the LORD will be a hiding place for His people. They will live safely with Him (Joel 3:16b-17). After the exercise of punishment of the nations there will come a time of abundant blessing for Israel (Joel 3:18-20). The center from which all blessing comes is the LORD Who will dwell on Zion (Joel 3:21). This also ensures that the blessing will continue.

The Fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem Restored

Over the centuries, Judah and Jerusalem have been trampled, languished and exterminated. Time and again other peoples have taken possession of them. Since May 14, 1948, the state of Israel has arisen, but the pressure of the nations is great and so is their dependence on the United States. It is not yet a people that expects it from the LORD. It still relies on its own strength and the strength of its allies.

This acting according to their own insight and the increased pressure will lead them to accept the Antichrist, who comes in his own name and presents himself as Messiah (Jn 5:43b). They will place their hopes in him. The deliverance is expected from him. However, it will be in vain. The nations will go to Jerusalem and besiege the city. The situation becomes totally hopeless, especially for the faithful. The faithful will be threatened in that “time of Jacob’s distress” (Jer 30:7) by enemies from outside and also by their apostate contemporaries who are following the antichrist.

But then the Lord Jesus will come from heaven to set them free. With His appearance, the final turning point in the history of Judah and Jerusalem has arrived. The turn in the fate of Judah and Jerusalem is brought when the need is greatest. After that the time of peace and blessing immediately begins. The following verses show what the LORD is going to do to make that time dawn.

The captivity of Judah and Jerusalem and the scattering of the ten tribes still continues. The captivity of Judah and Jerusalem is understood to mean that although there is a state of their own, they are not really free. They are hand and foot tied to the support of the United States, and good relations with the European Union are also essential. Although the Israel of the ten tribes is not mentioned here, they too will share in the results of the Lord Jesus’ actions. They too will be brought back to the land.

God Judges the Nations

In Joel 2, the plea for Israel is to ask the LORD to spare His people what the nations will say when He delivers them to reproach (Joel 2:17). They use the words “Your people“ and “Your inheritance“ there. Here the LORD takes over these words as it were and speaks of “My people” and “My inheritance”. What the nations have done to God’s people and inheritance is the charge against them here.

The scattering of God’s people and the division of God’s land is an affront to the property of God. The nations that have taken hold of His people and His inheritance are gathered together by the LORD. He will show them that He has not forgotten all the injustice done to His people and His inheritance. The nations will be requited according to what they have done to God’s people. We also see this in Matthew 25 where the criterion for judgment is also the attitude taken towards the brothers of the Lord (Mt 25:40 ; 45).

The trial takes place in the valley of Jehoshaphat. How God will get the nations there is described in Joel 3:9-12. Jehoshaphat means ‘Yahweh judges’ or ‘the scepter of Yahweh’, or ‘Yahweh pronounces justice’ or ‘Yahweh is Judge’. In the valley with that name, He takes legal action with the nations for His people who were scattered by them, and about His land they have divided.

Where the valley of Jehoshaphat lies is not known. It is unlikely that this is the valley of Beracah, where King Jehoshaphat defeated the enemy (2Chr 20:25-26). That is not near Jerusalem. Since the final judgment will be near Jerusalem, this valley must be somewhere near Jerusalem. Thought has been given to the Kidron Valley, which lies between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives. That is narrow, but possibly it will be widened by the splitting of the Mount of Olives (Zec 14:4). A valley is more often the place where judgment takes place (Isa 22:1 ; 5; Eze 39:11).

People as Merchandise

Here we see another charge. The nations divided among themselves the Judeans who were taken captive in the occupation of Jerusalem by lot and treated them as merchandise (cf. Jdg 5:30; Oba 1:11; Est 3:7). In this way, the nations have treated Israel with appalling disregard for human dignity. They have not sold their ‘slaves’ to become richer through it, not to benefit from it, but only to fulfill their carnal desires.

The enemies of Israel have taken advantage of foreign domination by appropriating the riches and land of Israel. And the conquerors have handed the inhabitants over to the enemies in order to satisfy their lowest passions. They have taken what is God’s in order to enjoy themselves. They have paid the services of a harlot with a Jewish boy.

What Joel describes here has taken place regularly throughout history, among other occasions after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in the year 70. Nearly one and a half million inhabitants of Jerusalem and the surrounding area died in that terrible battle. More than one hundred thousand Jews were captured.

The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus describes that Titus acted with these Jews as follows: ‘All who were under the age of 17 were sold publicly; of the remaining, some were killed instantly, some were sent to the Egyptian mines to work there (which was worse than death), some were withheld to fight with wild animals as a public attraction in the main cities; only the greatest and most beautiful were spared to join the triumphant march to Rome.’

That was how it was then. Jews were sold for a bit of barley. That is how thousands were disposed of. And so the history of this people has been through the ages. Not so long ago they were transported en masse as beasts from all parts of Europe to concentration camps to be gassed there. And history is not over yet. The “time of Jacob’s distress” (Jer 30:7) is yet to come, a time that has not been there from the beginning of the world until then (Mt 24:21). But also the day will come when the LORD will avenge all the evil that has been done to His people.