Mining the Minors: Joel (1)

In attempting to the put the Minor Prophets in chronological order, dating Joel’s prophecy is one of the bigger challenges. Other prophets leave unambiguous internal evidence that help us date what they wrote; like, for example, dropping the name of a specific king, or mentioning the fall of Nineveh (which we can date to 612 B.C. from secular history) as either historical or else still future.

Joel doesn’t do that, at least not in any way most scholars deem conclusive.

The Early Date Arguments

We can reasonably conclude Joel’s prophecy is pre-exilic (though a post-exilic Joel would not pose a problem for the doctrine of inspiration in the same way a post-exilic Isaiah would), but beyond that, not much can be said with confidence. The Enduring Word Commentary goes with a date of 835 BC, while Israel was still a nation, during the reign of Athaliah in Judah. Others place it as early as the reign of Ahab in the days of Elijah. Chuck Swindoll places Joel’s prophecy just after Athaliah’s death, when Joash was still a boy. He writes, “But because Joash was too young to rule, the priest Jehoida ruled in his place until he came of age. So if Joel prophesied during this caretaking period, it would make sense that he mentioned no official king.”

This might be a compelling argument if all other Minor Prophets dated their prophecies from the reign of a particular king, but many do not, including Jonah, Nahum and Habakkuk.

Swindoll’s other argument for an early date is equally inconclusive. He writes, “The book of Joel also makes ample mention of priests, temple rituals, and nations, such as Phoenicia, Philistia, Egypt, and Edom, that were prominent in the late ninth century BC.” But this too is meaningless. The priests and temple rituals were in play right up until 586 BC. The Phoenicians were present and accounted for up until 300 BC. The Philistines were absorbed into the Neo-Babylonian Empire of Nebuchadnezzar around the same time as Judah in 586 BC. Egypt was prominent throughout the Assyrian and Babylonian periods. Finally, the timing of Edom’s desolation in Joel is ambiguous, to say the least, and may actually be an end-times reference to whatever ethnic people group will be living in the land formerly occupied by the descendants of Esau. Nothing about these practices or nations narrows the window to the late ninth century BC in the way Swindoll is suggesting.

Literal Locusts at the Time of the Prophecy

David Guzik reasons that the plague of locusts described in 1:4 and the consequences described thereafter were literal events occurring at the time Joel prophesied. I find this line of thinking debatable. For one, we have no such locust plague described in Kings, Chronicles or any of the later books that contain history. That’s no iron-clad guarantee Guzik’s reasoning is wrong, but one would think a literal infestation of locusts so severe that the prophet would say to his readers, “Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation” would surely merit at least a tiny little historical footnote in scripture.

I believe Joel is looking forward to a then-future devastation of Judah. Why? Because he begins with these words, “Hear this, you elders; give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?” Unless I am gravely mistaken, that question is rhetorical, and the intended answer is “No, such a thing has never happened in our days or in the days of our fathers.” In other words, the locust infestation, literal or figurative, was not occurring at the time of Joel’s prophetic ministry. He was looking forward to some future event.

We should not be misled by the fact that Joel speaks in the present tense to describe the locust infestation. That has no bearing whatsoever on the timing of the prophecy’s fulfilment. If we look carefully at the rest of the book, we will see that the prophet frequently speaks in the present tense even when talking about events to take place in the far-flung future (see, for example, 2:1-11 or 3:14-16). These are events that we would ordinarily locate in the great tribulation period, or even during the millennial reign of Christ, yet Joel narrates them in the present tense. There are even a couple of verses in chapter 2 where the prophet speaks of demonstrably future events in the past tense.

From these examples, I conclude that chapter 1’s description of a locust infestation in the present tense tells us nothing definitive about its timing, let alone whether it is literal or figurative.

Judah, Jerusalem and Israel

Joel wrote about the future of Judah and Jerusalem, both good and bad, and pleaded with its leaders, then-present or future, to return to their God. He makes no mention of the northern kingdom, which to me makes the 835 BC date even more unlikely. His only three references to “Israel” come during passages that strongly suggest he is referring to the regathered nation of a distant future, rather to the ten-tribe national entity dispersed into the nations by Assyria. He even mentions an exile as though it is already a historical fact, though it is impossible to be sure which exile he is referring to because of the aforementioned ambiguous tenses in his writing.

The Day of the Lord

Swindoll writes, “The book of Joel’s importance to the canon of Scripture stems from its being the first to develop an oft-mentioned biblical idea: the day of the Lord.” This is an interesting position to take, and I think it unlikely.

First problem: There are multiple days of the Lord. Isaiah 13 prophesies a “day of the Lord” that is historical, and concerned the demise of Babylon to the Medo-Persian Empire, which Isaiah specifically mentions in the context. We find these events mentioned in passing in Daniel 5. Amos prophesies a “day of the Lord” that is manifestly concerned with the destruction of Damascus and Samaria by the Assyrians.

So then, it is idle to speak of the “day of the Lord” as an “oft-mentioned biblical idea” unless we recognize that not all mentions of the day of the Lord point to the same object of his wrath or the same time period. The words “day of the Lord” simply indicate that God is going to get personally active in judgment against a certain nation or nations at some future date, near or far. In and of itself, the phrase tells us nothing about when, how or against whom. We have to get that information from the specific context in which it is mentioned.

Second problem: Joel’s teaching on the day of the Lord is well developed and detailed. To me, this argues for a later date for Joel rather than an earlier one. Generally speaking, revelation is progressive, in the sense that God usually gives hints and shadows in the earlier books, and fleshes out teaching more fully as time goes by. If we limit our discussion of the day of the Lord to a judgment first of Judah, and then of the nations gathered against her — and one that must take place geographically in Jerusalem, as Joel’s prophecy requires — then Zephaniah is the only prophet we have come across in our chronological studies to date who mentions the same day of the Lord as Joel. Zephaniah actually has two “days of the Lord”, one that concerns Judah’s fall to Babylon, and then multiple references in chapter 3 to “that day”, all of which must be future.

Zephaniah’s references to this second, future “day of the Lord” are quite consistent with Joel’s, but nowhere near as fully developed and detailed. To me, that argues for Joel being a contemporary of Zephaniah, or perhaps prophesying a few years afterward.

Joel and Zephaniah

If Joel really wrote around 835 BC, then his writing was highly influential. Other prophets use similar phrasing, which means either they are alluding to Joel, or Joel wrote later than they did and was alluding to them. One such example comes from Zephaniah, who describes the day of the Lord as “a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness”. Joel says the same thing about the day of the Lord word for word in 2:2. The difference is that Zephaniah’s reference is to the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon, while Joel’s is manifestly future.

My conclusion: Joel is riffing on Zephaniah, not the other way round. All of this leads me to feel most comfortable with a later date for Joel, preferably one between Zephaniah’s prophecy (let’s call that 632 BC, give or take) and the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC.

Joel 1:1 — The Word of the Lord

“The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel:”

Joel means “YHWH is God.” There are as many as twelve Joels named in the Old Testament during various periods, but no historical mentions of Joel son of Pethuel. What is important is that the word of the Lord came to him. We can believe that or not, but the claim forces us to confront this issue: If God was speaking to him, then one day national Israel will be restored not merely to its former glory under Solomon, but to far greater glory.

I take much of Joel’s prophecy literally, but there are strong indications here and there that he is using poetic language, perhaps more so than the average Old Testament prophet. His prophecies may also be legitimately applied in unexpected figurative ways, as Peter did in his sermon at Pentecost.