Joel 3:14

Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision,.... The same with the valley of Jehoshaphat before mentioned; which shows that not any valley of that name is intended, but a certain place so called

Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision. Multitudes, multitudes , [hªmoniym].

Multitudes, multitudes; whether prediction or exclamation with wonder, it is doubled to intimate the mighty, numerous armies contending one against another, and thrashing each other, overthrowing numberless men between the conquered and conqueror. So each kingdom was overthrown successively. The Assyrian overthrown by Arbaces and Pul-belochus, conspiring against Sardanapalus, where the multitudes were so great that the blood of the slain is by Diodorus Siculus reported to have coloured the water of a river, and the number of the conspirators’ army before Nineveh is said to be four hundred thousand. After this we meet Sennacherib’ s mighty hosts against Egypt and the Philistines, to neither of which could he march but either through part of Judea or very near to it, and after this he hath one hundred and eighty-five thousand slain in one night before Jerusalem; beside Necho’ s army marching toward Carchemish, and Nebuchadnezzar’ s army in pursuit of the routed Egyptian, and the armies of Alexander the Great, and after these the armies of the Seleucid and the Lagidee. In the valley of decision; where God, having by wise providence gathered them, did by just determination of the victory decide their quarrels, and by the conqueror punished the conquered for their sins against God and his people. The day of the Lord; the day of vengeance and righteous recompences upon enemies, is near: if it begin in the punishment of Nineveh and the Assyrian kingdom, by the cutting off Sennacherib’ s army, it was in Joel’ s time, not above sixty-four years, supposing Joel prophesied in Jeroboam the Second’ s time; and probably not quite twenty years to this day of the Lord if Joel prophesied this in Hezekiah’ s time, or after the captivating of the ten tribes by Shalmaneser, which was A.M. 3283, and Sennacherib’ s overthrow was 3294, eleven years after the deportation, as Archbishop Usher in his Annals.

Joe 3:14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD [is] near in the valley of decision.Ver. 14. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision] Or concision, as Jerome and Tremellius, or of threshing, as Piscator, in reference to Jehoshaphat, who once threshed the Moabites and Ammonites there. These multitudes are thither summoned ( Turbae, Turbae adeste), or are there laid dead, even heaps upon heaps, with those Philistines, Judges 15:16. So Aben Ezra senseth it, and thence the name of the valley of concision, or decision: to show that their having passed a definitive sentence upon the Church’ s enemies, and a very severe one too, such as was that kind of punishment, to put men under harrows of iron, &c., 2 Samuel 12:31 Amos 1:3, would now finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, Romans 9:28, idque cito et certo, as sure and as soon as if that day of slaughter were at next door by. For the day of the Lord is near] Lyra understands it of the last day, which cannot be far off; and Diodati was of the same mind; for upon the next words,

(14) Multitudes.—The command has gone forth; it is obeyed; and the prophet stands aghast at the vast multitudes assembling in the valley of decision, the place of judgment.

Verse 14. Multitudes, multitudes] המנים המנים hamonim, hamonim, crowds upon crowds, in the valley of decision, or excision: the same as the valley of Jehoshaphat, the place where God is to execute judgment on his enemies.

14. The prophet already hears in spirit the distant hum of the multitudes thronging tumultously in the valley of decision. Multitudes] The Hebrew term is more picturesque than the English one, and suggests the confused noise or hum of a great throng. Cf. Isaiah 17:12 a (where the word uproar is the same, and roar and roaring are the corresponding verb). the valley of decision] Another name of the ‘valley of Jah’s judgement’ (Joe 3:2; Joe 3:12), so called on account of the ‘decision’ to be executed in it. The word rendered decision is cognate with those rendered decided in 1 Kings 20:40, and determined in Isaiah 10:23; Isaiah 28:22, and identical with that rendered determined in Isaiah 10:22 and Job 14:5 (properly something cut sharply off, de-cision, de-termination). The word ḥ ?ârûtz means, however, also a sharp threshing-board (see on Amos 1:3): hence A.V. marg. (following the explanation which David Kimchi seems to prefer) threshing; and so Credner, and a few other moderns, supposing the allusion to be to the cruel method of treating captives mentioned in Amos 1:3 : but there is nothing to suggest that sense here; nor does Joe 3:12 (in which the figure of the wine-press follows that of the harvest) at all lead up to it. for the day of Jehovah is near, &c.] cf. Joe 1:15, Joe 2:1. The clause states the reason why the “valley of decision” is thus filled with the nations: because, namely, the great ‘day of Jehovah’ is immediately at hand.

The prophet continues, as in amazement at the great throng assembling upon one another, “multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision,” as though, whichever way he looked, there were yet more of

9-16. After this condemnation of the bitterest enemies of the chosen people the prophet returns to the announcement broken off in Joe 3:3.