Mining the Minors: Joel (8)

A couple of weeks ago we pointed out that we should not expect to find the church on earth during the great tribulation, and especially not to find the church in Jerusalem when the Lord judges the armies of the northerner and drives him from Palestine. Joel’s prophecy has almost nothing to say about godly Gentiles, dead, alive or in resurrection bodies. Reading us into earlier portions of the book is highly questionable.

That changes with today’s reading. It’s subtle, but I think we are definitely there, though even the most careful students of Joel would not have been able to easily identify us prior to the writing of Revelation near the end of the first century.

6. The Judgment of the Nations [Part 2]

Joel 3:9-10 — Plowshares into Swords

“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. Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, ‘I am a warrior.’ ”

As the Lord calls the surrounding nations to war against Israel, he instills in them a baseless confidence, inviting the weak to say, “I am a warrior” despite all evidence to the contrary. Indeed, anyone invading Israel in a coming day will need a major shot of hubris and delusional thinking. After all, the people of God have declared the disastrous outcome of this final invasion in synagogues and churches for centuries, broadcast it via the airwaves all over our world, and have printed and distributed between five and seven billion copies of the book that contains these prophecies in the years since the invention of the printing press. The Bible has been read orders of magnitude more times than any other book in human history. You find the account of Christ’s glorious return in Old and New Testament alike.

At least nobody can ever say the Lord doesn’t give his enemies every possible chance to change their minds.

The phrases “plowshares into swords” and “pruning hooks into spears” reverse the familiar formulation about conditions during the millennial reign of Christ found in Isaiah and Micah (discussed in detail here and here). Both prophets ministered during the 8th century BC, so the timeline we have suggested for Joel’s prophecy puts him well downstream of both. Either he has reworked the expressions deliberately, or perhaps these images were simply well known adages in Israel.

Joel 3:11-12 — Sitting in Judgment

“Hasten and come, all you surrounding nations, and gather yourselves there. Bring down your warriors, O Lord. 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.”

Despite the size of the gathered armies, this final battle will not be much of a contest. Psalm 45 addresses Messiah during his second advent (“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever”) and appeals to him to “Gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one”, implying that when the Lord Jesus returns he will be directly involved in destroying his enemies. This is born out by the “robe dipped in blood” in John’s description of the rider on the white horse in Revelation. On the other hand, the effortlessness of his victory is something Paul emphasizes for us: “Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.” What a glorious picture. All that our Lord has to do to assure his conquest of the nations is to show up.

Rather than riding a horse into battle, Joel pictures the king in repose, seated to render judgment. The two images are not contradictory but complementary. Taken together, they give us a full picture of various aspects of the Lord’s glorious return.

Here also we find the appeal to “Bring down your warriors, O Lord.” In Revelation, John also tells us, “The armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.” If we want to find the church in Joel this is where we should be looking, at the warriors who will accompany the rider on the white horse. Remember, the very same passage in Revelation interprets the image of fine linen as “the righteous deeds of the saints”. If we are correctly understanding Paul’s “So we will always be with the Lord” in 1 Thessalonians, our presence with him at his glorious return to earth should not come as a shock, except maybe to those of us who expect to spend the great tribulation running from the beast and his minions.

Joel 3:13 — Harvesting the Earth

“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.”

We will get into the sickle and harvest imagery in more detail when we discuss how the writers of the New Testament make use of Joel. For now, let it suffice to say that Revelation 14 explores the harvest of the earth more fully. Two individuals in Revelation hold sickles, “one like a son of man” (v14) and “another angel” (v18). I take it this command is directed to the latter. Concerning the winepress, John writes, “Blood flowed from the winepress, as high as a horse’s bridle, for 1,600 stadia.” The picture is truly horrific and richly deserved.

Joel 3:14-15 — The Valley of Decision

“Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.”

The decision in question will be the Lord’s, not the multitudes in the valley. Their fate will be sealed the moment they choose to participate. The word translated “decision” is literally a threshing instrument or a trench, which may be deliberate wordplay simultaneously taking in both the harvest and the valley in which it takes place. The force of the word is the announcement of a judicial verdict rather than the mulling of choices.

The word “near”, as in “the day of the Lord is near”, does not suggest the day is still to come, but that it is now at hand. It connotes the idea of proximity rather than long-held anticipation.

Concerning the darkening of sun, moon and stars, Isaiah uses similar language to describe the judgment of Babylon. We saw indications last week that Babylon will be involved in this final gathering, suggesting that Isaiah may have been foretelling not only the historical conquest of the Babylonian Empire by the Medes and Persians referenced in Daniel, but also this climactic event. The same holds true for Ezekiel’s prophecy of Egypt’s doom. Joel too mentions the destruction of Egypt in these final verses, implying that there may also be multiple levels of fulfillment to Ezekiel’s prophecy. Matthew 24 also mentions sun, moon and stars in a similar context.

Joel 3:16 — The Earth Quakes

“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.”

In association with the Lord’s battle cry, both heavens and earth quake. We cannot comment on the heavenly effects, but this language also takes us back to Isaiah’s oracle against Babylon in chapter 13 (“Therefore I will make the heavens tremble and the earth will be shaken out of its place”). Jeremiah 50 and 51 contain similar descriptions of Babylon’s demise. Haggai too speaks of the shaking of heaven and earth in association with the glory of the Lord and the destruction of the nations. We find the names of the same nations under judgment in all these prophecies: Egypt, Edom, Babylon, Sidon and so on.

In all of this, the Lord will preserve for himself a godly remnant in Israel. The Lord will be a refuge and a stronghold to them. We will see the aftermath of this judgment of the nations by God’s people and on behalf of God’s people in Joel’s final verses next week.