Joel 3:2

I will also gather all nations,.... Or cause or suffer them to be gathered together against his people; not the Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites, in the times of Jehoshaphat, as Aben Ezra; but

I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.

I will also gather all nations: in the type, it is not simply all nations, but all those nations that have with hostile minds oppressed and scattered Judah; in the antitype, it is all nations that have been enemies to Christ and the church. And will bring them down: this is spoken with respect to the low situation of the place, being a valley, and we descend into low parts; so here they are caused to go down into the valley of Jehoshaphat: much difficulty interpreters find in explaining this; we must look to it as a type to somewhat signified by it, and so apply it. The valley of blessing where Jehoshaphat discomfited mighty and numerous enemies, and then triumphed in God with praises to him, , &c.: so the whole church may be this valley of blessing, and in this God will judge the enemies of his people, and give them occasions of praising God for his righteous judgments; and Jerusalem his church shall see this, as the inhabitants of Jerusalem might see what is done in the valley of Jehoshaphat, if they would be at a little pains to go out of the city. Will plead with them; after the manner of a just and impartial judge I will debate my people’ s cause, and do them right. There; in midst of my church, signified by the valley of Jehoshaphat, the valley of the judgment of God. For my people; Judah, the two tribes, but, as in their history, bearing a type of the church of Christ. For my heritage Israel; purchased and possessed by me ever since they were brought out of Egypt; though many times invaded and injured by their unjust neighbours, who were so much their enemies because they were my peculiar people, and kept to my worship. Whom they have scattered among the nations; either by force driving them out of their habitations, or else carrying them into captivity, and dispersing them in their insolent humour, of which dispersion more follows, ,6,8. And parted my land; divided among themselves the land I gave to my people to hold immediately of me; so it was my land that they divided, their robbery and spoil was sacrilege. Such is the injustice and oppression of persecutors of the church now, and so God will judge them in due time.

Joe 3:2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and [for] my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.Ver. 2. I will also gather all nations] That are adverse to my Church, that I may have my pennyworths of them, and do execution upon them with ease (troubling those troublers of his Israel, 2 Thessalonians 1:6, licet videantur plures et potiores), as he dealt by Jehoshaphat’ s enemies, 2 Chronicles 20:25, and leaving them no more place to escape than those have who are surrounded in a valley by a potent enemy, who hath gotten them into a pound, as the proverb is. And this God will do in the valley of Jehoshaphat (a valley, saith Lyra, Adrichomius, and Montanus, between Jerusalem and Mount Olivet), in the very view of the Church, that the righteous may rejoice when he seeth the vengeance, and wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. So that a man shall say, Verily, there is a reward for the righteous, see Joe 3:4; verily, he is a God that judgeth in the earth, as in the valley of divine judgment (so some render Jehoshaphat here, as if it were an appellative, Chaldeus R. Salmon, Mercer), called, Joe 3:14, the valley of decision, and the words that next follow seem to favour, "and I will plead with them" ( iudicio I judge again), judicially plead with them there, for my people; which word also God useth when he foretelleth the destruction of Gog and Magog in Ezekiel. So that the valley of Jehoshaphat, saith Mercer, is the place wheresoever God shall please to punish the enemies of his people. As for that conceit of Lyra and others, who gather out of this text that this valley near Jerusalem shall be the very place where Christ shall sit to judge the world at the last day, and for confirmation allege Acts 1:11. Mercer judgeth it to be a childish conceit, and Luther asketh where all mankind shall have room to stand in so small a valley? Though others judge it not unlikely that it shall be thereabouts, because Jerusalem is in the middle and about the centre of the earth, and besides, it will be the more for the glory of Christ, to sit there as judge where he himself was judged; but it is probable he will sit in the air, near the earth, whither the elect shall be raptured up to meet the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 4:17, that the devils may be subdued and sentenced in the air, where they have ruled and played Rex, king, Ephesians 2:2, and that the wicked may be doomed on the earth, where they have offended.

(2) The valley of Jehoshaphat.—Some fifty years before Joel prophesied the kingdom of Judah had been menaced by an imposing confederacy of hostile tribes. It was an occasion of great anxiety. A national fast was proclaimed, and after it Jehoshaphat engaged and completely routed the enemy in a valley in the wilderness of Tekoa. (See 2 Chronicles 20) The victory was an occasion of immense exultation, and seems to supply the imagery with which Joel describes the day of the Lord. The name of Jehoshaphat was at some period given to the Kedron Valley, but it is here used rather in its grammatical meaning as the scene of the Divine judgment, the words signifying “the valley where Jehovah judgeth.”

Verse 2. The valley of Jehoshaphat] There is no such valley in the land of Judea; and hence the word must be symbolical. It signifies the judgment of God, or Jehovah judgeth; and may mean some place (as Bp. Newcome imagines) where Nebuchadnezzar should gain a great battle, which would utterly discomfit the ancient enemies of the Jews, and resemble the victory which Jehoshaphat gained over the Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites, 2 Chronicles 20:22-26. And parted my land.] The above nations had frequently entered into the territories of Israel; and divided among themselves the lands they had thus overrun. While the Jews were in captivity, much of the land of Israel was seized on, and occupied by the Philistines, and other nations that bordered on Judea.

2. I will also gather] I will gather: ‘also’ is a misrendering of the Heb. idiom employed (cf. Amos 3:14). the valley of Jehoshaphat] as is shewn by the play upon the name, which, both here and in Joe 3:12, immediately follows, the place is chosen as the scene of Jehovah’s judgement on account of its name (which means “Jah judgeth”). No doubt there was an actual valley, so named after the king, though where it was, is quite uncertain. It may have been the spot (though this is not called a “valley”) in which, according to a tradition reported by the Chronicler (2 Chronicles 20:20-24), the Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites, who invaded Judah in the days of Jehoshaphat, fell upon, and slaughtered one another; or it may have been identical with the “valley of Berachah” (or of Blessing) in which four days afterwards (2 Chronicles 20:26) the victorious Judahites assembled to “bless” Jehovah; or, as Joel seems to have in view some spot nearer Jerusalem than this valley (cf. ib. 2 Chronicles 20:27-28), it may have been the fairly broad and open valley between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, which already in Eusebius’ time[47] (though we know not upon what grounds) bore, as it bears still, the name, “valley of Jehoshaphat.” This valley is elsewhere always called the Wβdy (Heb. naḥ ?al: see on Amos 5:24) of the Kidron (2 Samuel 15:23; 2 Kings 23:4; 2 Kings 23:6 al.), but it seems to be sufficiently wide to have been termed an ‘ηmeḳ ?, especially as even the ‘ravine’ (gai’) of Hinnom (Joshua 15:8), on the S. of Jerusalem, appears to be so designated in Jeremiah 31:40. Happily, nothing turns here upon the identification of the spot meant, the symbolism of the name being alone significant. [47] See the Onomasticon, ed. Lagarde, p. 273.valley] or vale: Heb. ‘ηmeḳ ?, lit. deepening, “a highlander’s word for a valley as he looks down into it, always applied to wide avenues running up into a mountainous country, like the Vale of Elah, the Vale of Hebron, and the Vale of Ajalon” (G. A. Smith, Geogr. p. 384). In both A.V. and R.V. much confusion is occasioned by the same English word “valley” being used unfortunately for both ‘ηmeḳ ? and gai’, though the latter denoted a much narrower opening, such as we should describe as a ravine or glen. For a list of both the ‘ηmeḳ ?s and the gai’s named in the O.T., see Stanley, S. and P. Appendix, §§ 1, 2; and comp. G. A. Smith, l.c. p. 654 f. plead] the reflexive, or reciprocal, conjugation of shβphat, to judge. The play cannot be preserved exactly in English; though one might paraphrase the “valley of Jehoshaphat” by “the valley of God’s judgement,” and say that Jehovah intended to “contend there in judgement with all nations” on behalf of His people.

I will gather all nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat - It may be that the imagery is furnished by that great deliverance which God gave to Jehoshaphat, when “Ammon and Moab and

2. At the time of the restoration Jehovah will gather all nations — All that are guilty of hostility toward the people of God; and that included all the nations known to the prophet, for all had