Mining the Minors: Joel (7)

A (very) few regular readers made gentle remarks concerning my commentary on earlier books in this study to the effect that — putting it politely — my pace compares unfavorably to the meanderings of an octogenarian snail. Suitably chastened, I have tried with the last few prophets to cover a little more territory per instalment. I intended to deal with Joel 3:1-16 today, as that makes for better division of the subject matter. Despite best efforts, after working through the questions raised by the first eight verses that is definitely not going to happen.

Alas, the best laid plans.

Anyway, we’re getting to some very interesting and controversial predictions concerning the end times, and I’d like to give those due consideration, so we’ll split the judgment of the nations into a two-week study.

6. The Judgment of the Nations [Part 1]

Joel 3:1-2a — The Valley of Jehoshaphat

“For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into judgment with them there …”

Location, Location, Location

So far, scholars have failed to identify the location of the Valley of Jehoshaphat with any great degree of precision. Early Jewish tradition (the Midrash Tehillim) denies its existence entirely. The most common line of thought locates it in the wilderness about 11 miles from Jerusalem, where Jehoshaphat defeated the Moabite and Edomite armies. Others suggest it is an alternate designation for the Kidron Valley, between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives. Still others point to the etymology of the word Jehoshaphat (“YHWH judges”) and posit it as a euphemism for some indeterminate location (usually Megiddo, though there are good reasons to reject that).

For our purposes, the context of Joel (“the Lord roars from Zion”, “strangers shall never pass through [Jerusalem] again”) and what appears to be a parallel passage in Zechariah (“I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle”) seem to require proximity to Jerusalem, but we cannot be dogmatic.

Which Nations?

When the Lord says he will gather “all the nations”, we find ourselves asking “all which nations”. Manifestly, Joel is not referring to every possible nation in the world at the time of the end. (Currently, there are 195.) I would be surprised, for example, to find tribulation Canadians coming up against Jerusalem in significant numbers. (At the rate the MAID program is killing us there will be no Canadians left in Canada by the middle of the next decade.) I’d be even more surprised if the United States remains intact long enough to betray their “greatest ally in the Middle East”. By this point in Joel’s narrative, the “locust horde” of chapters 1 and 2 will have been driven into the eastern and western seas or into a “parched and desolate land”, so we can narrow the field somewhat by ruling out “the northerner” and any of his allies.

We should further limit our field of candidates by noting that the nations referred to in these verses are charged with scattering God’s people throughout the world and dividing up Judah/Israel. From Joel’s perspective, that indicts Assyria. (Then again, is Joel speaking historically, or is he looking forward to indignities still to take place, like those perpetrated on Judah by Babylon, Rome, or some future national entity or entities?)

Joel will go on to single out Tyre, Sidon and Philistia, all nations or city-states to the west and north of Israel along the coast of the Mediterranean. Today, we know these geographic areas as Lebanon and the Occupied Palestinian Territory in the Gaza Strip. In verse 11, it is “all you surrounding nations”, which further reduces the possibilities. Among these Egypt and Edom (today, Jordan), to Israel’s south and east, are explicitly named.

Adding in Zechariah and Revelation

To complicate matters, earlier in our studies we tentatively identified this final faceoff in the Valley of Jehoshaphat with the sixth bowl judgment of Revelation 16, which mentions the drying up of the Euphrates to accommodate the “kings from the east” (“east” in relation to Jerusalem, that is) in some association with the “kings of the whole world”. That prophecy also specifically notes that in this final judgment “God remembered Babylon the great”, so we would be remiss to forget what God remembers. Ground troops from Iraq (literal Babylon’s modern home) would also find it easier to make their way west over a dried-up Euphrates, and there’s no reason they could not walk to Israel. Abraham did, and he didn’t have tanks, supply trucks and air cover attending him.

So then, there is no compelling reason to assume the “kings of the east” must necessarily be identified with India or China, as some writers did in the seventies. This still leaves us with a plethora of options, especially when we understand Joel is describing a gathering of end-times nations in language intelligible to readers in the sixth century BC. The problems associated with identifying specific ethnic groups and geographic locations across the centuries are touched on in this post.

We are also encountering for the nth time that enigmatic quality in the prophetic word that opted to put phrases like “the year of the Lord’s favor” and the “day of vengeance of our God” side by side when they speak of eras separated by thousands of years. Can we legitimately identify this gathering of nations with the gatherings in Revelation and/or Zechariah, or are there other factors of which we are ignorant that limit our current ability to distinguish separate events? Only time will tell.

Joel 3:2b-8 — The Scatterers’ Comeuppance

“… on behalf of my people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations and have divided up my land, 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.

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. For you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried my rich treasures into your temples. You have sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks in order to remove them far from their own border. 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. 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.”

Buying and Selling

The reference to “Greeks” is actually to Ionia, its only mention in the OT. In Joel’s day, there were plenty of city-states in the area now called Greece, but no unified Greek nation to speak of, let alone an empire. Historically, Jews in exile were “scattered abroad”, as James puts it. They were driven everywhere in the known world, Greece included.

Again, we could read this passage as an indictment of past sins against Israel by the nation-states of Tyre and Sidon in association with the Philistines, assuming we could find such in scripture or history, which evils some say God has already judged in times past. Or, we could speculate that Joel is referring to future abuses of Israelis by Lebanese or Palestinians, for which God will punish the perpetrators.

Alternatively, perhaps the Lord is simply citing a few samples of the sorts of things done to his people over the centuries for which he is finally calling the nations to account at the end of the age; the list of culprits may not be comprehensive. The retribution is definitely future, but the anti-Semitic spirit has tainted all of history, prior to and after the cross. The sins in question involve forced exile, occupation, robbery and human trafficking. Both the northern and southern kingdoms were/are victims.

Abel to Zechariah

There is an instinctive, visceral pushback against this latter sort of judgment if we presume God to be visiting punishment on the living for the sins of the dead. However, we must remember God is exquisitely fair in his dealings. Consider Matthew 23, where he calls first century religious leaders to account for “all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah”. If that sounds unreasonable, remember that the men of that cursed generation would themselves go on to imprison the saints, murder James, pelt Stephen with rocks until he died, persecute believers to the death and try innumerable times to end the life of Paul. They did everything their ancestors did for hundreds of years, except at an accelerated speed and many times more often. In doing so, they testified they were true “sons of their fathers”, filling up their measure or matching them in guilt, making them the perfects objects of the wrath of God.

So then, does the Lord wait to execute his judgment for the generation that deserves it most acutely? It isn’t the craziest notion I’ve ever entertained.

The judgment of the sheep and the goats speaks to this sort of assessment of the nations. Often conflated with the judgment of individuals at the great white throne, it is evident in context that this future judgment is specifically related to the way individuals from the gathered nations have treated the Lord’s “brothers”, which I take to refer to the persecuted Jewish nation across history and through the great tribulation period. (Contrast this with other future judgments, based on thoughts, deeds and words, or on the service of believers to Christ.)

It is hardly inconsistent with the established character of God to suggest that any who escape the Valley of Jehoshaphat judgment will nevertheless find themselves called upon to answer to Christ for their dealings with respect to Israel.

Sold to the Sabeans

Another objection to a future application of this passage is that it makes Christ out to endorse slavery during his millennial reign as a way of paying back future Tyre, Sidon and Philistia for their treatment of his Jewish brothers and sisters. (“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.”) Historically speaking, Sheba (the Sabeans) is thought to be one of two early Arabic tribes, so presumably their distant offspring would indeed be “a nation far away”.

Our generation claims to find the institution of slavery epically distasteful, perhaps the ultimate sin (after racism, of course, or maybe sexual harassment in the workplace). Nevertheless, if we set aside our uninformed preconceptions about what the millennial reign of Christ might look like close up, and simply examine the scriptures concerning this time period, I think we will find it bears little resemblance to the eternal state described in Revelation 21 and 22 — the primary evidence being that the millennium culminates in Satanic rebellion. The enemies of Christ will find themselves under a rod of iron.

As Psalm 2 puts it, the wrath of the Son is quickly kindled. Those who do not “kiss the Son” will perish on the way. Given the number of dead by the end of the great tribulation, being sold to the Sabeans may one day be considered eminently preferable to a quick and grisly demise, once which can hardly be called undeserved.