Joel 3:8

And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah,.... That is, deliver them into their hands, to dispose of them; this is thought to have been literally fulfilled

And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off: for the LORD hath spoken it.

I will sell your sons and your daughters; give them up into the hands of the Jews, who thereby shall have opportunities of disposing of them as they see good; so you did with my people, so I will recompense you. Into the hand of the children of Judah; to the Jews, the posterity and kindred of those you sold. They shall sell them; either as factors for Nebuchadnezzar or Alexander the Great and his successors, or else as merchants trading on their own account, they shall make this one part of their trade, to sell Grecians, Tyrians, &c. Now though we should not have any particular history that relates the transactions of those people in this kind, yet we may rest assured it was done, since God said it should be done; nor can we expect, or is it necessary it should be, that the Jews should by a conquest of these people bring them captives, and sell them: the Zidonians, Tyrians, and Philistines did not so against the Jews, but they bought particular persons out of the hands of Syrians and Assyrians, who took the Jews captives; so when Tyre, and Zidon, and the Philistines shall be captivated by the Babylonish power, or by the Grecian, these shall sell their captives either into the hands or by the hands of the Jews. Sabeans were a people in the parts of Arabia most remote from Tyre and Zidon; they were accounted the ends of the earth, , and spread themselves along by the sea-coast on both sides of the Arabian bay or Red Sea, and passed over that sea, and planted in Africa, and were part of that country which now doth, or lately did belong to the emperor of Abyssinia, who (as the king of Spain in both Indies) glorieth in being king of both Sabeas, and successor to the queen of Sheba; to one or both of these Sabeans did the Jewish men-sellers dispose of those slaves. To a people far off: this may be an elliptic speech, thus to be filled up, and the Sabeans shall sell them (i.e. whom they bought of the Jews) unto another nation far off from the Sabeans; or else it is an additional description of this people and their country, For the Lord hath spoken it; then it was done, whether we know when, or by whom, or how many were sold, or not.

Joe 3:8 And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off: for the LORD hath spoken [it].Ver. 8. And I will sell your sons and your daughters] And so the scene shall be soon altered, and a strange vicissitude easily observed. But when was this done? or was it ever done? Ego putarim factum, etsi scriptura non dicat quando, saith Tarnovius: I suppose it was done, though the Scripture say not when. Others fly to allegories, and understand the text of the conversion of the Gentiles. I like their way best, that say, That which God did for the Church’ s sake, the Church itself is said to do it. For their cruelties to the Jews, God delivered these nations up into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar first (who had a hard tug of it, and had therefore Egypt given him for his wages), and afterwards by Alexander the Great, who took Tyre, and razed it. And this was that great service spoken of Eze 29:18, wherein every head was made bald, and every shoulder bare, in filling up that strait of the sea, which separated it from the continent, before it could be taken. But taken it was, together with Sidon and Philistia; and their children sold as far as Sabaea, which was then counted the utmost part of the known earth, Matthew 12:42 Luke 11:31, being part of Arabia the Happy, or (as some will) the Desert. All this was done for the Jews’ sake, though the world little considereth it. It was enough for them that they knew it to be so, according to this prophecy; and that God did hereby show his high esteem of them, by avenging them of their enemies, and by thus giving men for them, and people for their life, Isaiah 43:4. For the Lord hath spoken it] And will therefore surely do it; neither could their Apollo deliver them out of God’ s hands; though, to prevent his forsaking of them, when besieged by Alexander, the Tyrians chained and nailed that idol of theirs to a post, that they might be sure of it. But all would not do.

(8) I will sell your sons. . . .—The Philistines came under the power of Uzziah and Hezekiah, who may have sold them to the Sabeans on the Persian Gulf, by whom they would have been passed on to India. The Philistines were also sold in great numbers by the Grecian conquerors in the time of the Maccabees.

Verse 8. I will sell your sons] When Alexander took Tyre, he reduced into slavery all the lower people, and the women. Arrian, lib. ii., says that thirty thousand of them were sold. Artaxerxes Ochus destroyed Sidon, and subdued the other cities of Phoenicia. In all these wars, says Calmet, the Jews, who obeyed the Persians, did not neglect to purchase Phoenician slaves, whom they sold again to the Sabeans, or Arabs.

8. You sold the children of Judah into slavery to a nation far off in the North West; I will sell your children into the hand of the Judahites, that they may sell them into slavery to a nation far off in the South East. the men of Sheba] an important commercial nation of Arabia, described as a ‘son’ of Cush, Genesis 10:7, of Yoḳ ?ṭ ?an, Genesis 10:28, and of Yoḳ ?shan son of Ḳ ?eṭ ?urah, Genesis 25:3; celebrated for their wealth in gold, spices, and precious stones, 1 Kings 10:2; 1 Kings 10:10 (the Queen of Sheba), Jeremiah 6:20; Ezekiel 27:22; Isaiah 60:6; Psalms 72:15 (cf. Joe 3:10), and for the trade which their caravans (Job 6:19) carried on, Ezekiel 27:22 f., Ezekiel 38:13. The ancient geographers speak of Sabaeans in the S.W. of Arabia; and recently discovered inscriptions and other monuments shew that they were no mere trading-tribe, but a people inhabiting walled cities, possessing temples and other buildings, and enjoying a settled civilization. Sheba is mentioned also in the Assyrian inscriptions (K.A.T[49][50] pp. 92, 145 f.). The difference in the genealogies of Sheba is to be explained, probably, partly by the fact that (as in other cases) different theories were current respecting its ethnological affinities, partly by the fact that in Genesis 10:7; Genesis 25:3, if not also in Ezekiel 38:13, a Northern colony, in the neighbourhood of Dedan (S.E. of Edom), is referred to. [49] .A.T. … Eb. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das A. T., ed. 2, 1883 (translated under the title The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the O. T. 1885, 1888). The references are to the pagination of the German, which is given on the margin of the English translation. [50] … Eb. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das A. T., ed. 2, 1883 (translated under the title The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the O. T. 1885, 1888). The references are to the pagination of the German, which is given on the margin of the English translation.far off] comp. the corresponding verb (to make to be far off) in Joe 3:6 : note also in Jeremiah 6:20 ‘a far country’ in parallelism with ‘Sheba.’ for Jehovah hath spoken it] a solemn asseverative formula, found also Isaiah 1:2; Isaiah 22:25; Isaiah 25:8; Obadiah 1:18 : so with the mouth of Jehovah, Isaiah 1:20; Isaiah 40:5; Isaiah 58:14; Micah 4:4.

I will sell your sons - God Himself would reverse the injustice of people. The sons of Zion should be restored, the sons of the Phoenicians and of the Philistines sold into distant captivity.

4-8. The prophet turns aside for a moment to address the nations who had been especially hostile to the Jews; he points out their special wrongdoings and promises to them swift and righteous retribution for their crimes.