O grave, where is thy destruction?" As much as to say, And yet this people have a God who is capable of delivering them from even such a state of death, because the powers of death cannot prevail against Him. Since, however, the people resist their deliverance, it is also added that the storm of judgment shall sweep them away. Hence the victory over death here spoken of is merely hypothetical, and assumed to pertain to the Church in general. Oehler.

Death had plucked the crown from the brows of kings, and darkened the eyes of seers, and sealed the lips of prophets, and mocked the skill of man, and crushed the strength of giants; and, as Solomon says, in the war with him, men had found “no discharge.” But how do the fortunes of battle change when Christ, our Champion, the Captain of our salvation, comes into the field! Calling out, “O death, I will be thy plagues! O grave, I will be thy destruction!” He takes the prey from the spoiler; and not only in our souls, washed in His blood and sanctified by His Spirit, redeems the jewel, but the casket too—for that purpose descending into the realms of the grave, with garments rolled in blood. The brow that bled beneath a crown of thorns now wears the diadem of victory; and now, where the eyes of men saw but a ghastly spectacle, a mangled body suspended on a tree, with the setting sun lighting up its dead, defaced, and pallid countenance, faith beholds the triumph of redeeming love—the crowning work and glory of the Son of God; and pointing to that sacred form which has death and the serpent lying crushed beneath its feet, she addresses men and angels, saying, “Sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously: Thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed the enemy in pieces.”

What was once probable is now certain. The heathens had immortality in its shadow; we have the substance. It is not a fancy now, but a certainty. Life and immortality, the objects of a believer’s hope, are clearly brought to light by the Gospel; and that grand old prophecy is fulfilled, was fulfilled on the cross by its expiring, yet rejoicing and conquering victim, “O death, I will be thy plagues! O grave, I will be thy destruction.” The object of this hope, the grandest man can cherish or mind aspire to, allies us to Him who is the same yesterday, to-day, forever; whose life knows no end and His happiness no change. It is not that life which, brief as it is, men dread to lose, and the dying would buy at the price of a fortune; which the woman in the Gospel spent all she had to preserve; which kings account of greater value than their crowns; nobles, than their titles; a miser, than his glittering heaps of gold. The hope of the Christian is immortal life—the purchase of a Saviour’s blood—the boon which God that cannot lie promised before the world began. It is begun on earth, for in the germs and seeds of it he that believeth, as the Bible says, hath eternal life—much as the tree has the leaves and flowers of next year wrapped up in the buds of this. Commenced at the new birth and consummated in the hour of death, it is enjoyed in that world where there is neither woe nor want; nor griefs, nor graves; nor sickness of body, nor sorrow of heart; nor cares, nor sighs, nor sin; where the crown hides no thorn, and the heart bleeds from no secret wound; the sky wears no cloud, and day never darkens into night. Into such blessedness believers enter at death. Such blessedness has their God and Saviour laid up for all those that love Him. What hopes, what happiness like theirs! Now, said one, I can shake hands with death; Save Christ’s, said another, no countenance to me so beautiful as death’s! Enjoying this hope the believer may walk in perpetual sunlight, and go singing on his way to heaven. Under her eye how do all things change—sick-beds, losses, disappointments, bereavements? They throw their furnace-light on the face of Jesus, as sitting by the fire, a refiner, He purifies, not destroys His gold; and the death-struggle itself, with its tossings and groans and pains, appears as the effort of a bird to burst its shell, of the insect to shatter its case and enter on a new and bright existence. Guthrie.

“I congratulate you and myself,” wrote John Foster to a friend, “that life is passing fast away. What a superlatively grand and consoling idea is that of death! Without this radiant idea, this delightful morning star, indicating that the luminary of eternity is going to rise, life would, to my view, darken into midnight melancholy. Oh, the expectation of living here, and living thus always, would be indeed a prospect of overwhelming despair. But thanks to that fatal decree that dooms us to die, thanks to that Gospel which opens the visions of an endless life, and thanks, above all, to that Saviour-friend who has promised to conduct all the faithful through the sacred trance of death into scenes of Paradise and everlasting delight.”

Chap. 14. This short chapter is a fit and striking sequel to the Book of Hosea, almost the entire strain of which sets forth the sins—the ingratitude, incorrigibleness and the coming doom of the apostate children of Israel. But the Lord cannot let this stern message of rebuke and threatening close without one more call to repentance. After so much said of judgment and wrath, a wrong impression as to these points might be left if the book were to close without yet another testimony to His merciful compassion. How tenderly careful not to crush out hope from even the guiltiest bosom, saying, “I will not contend forever, neither will I be always wroth, for the spirit should fail before Me and the souls which I have made” (Isa. 57: 16). Yet again, the strain of this closing chapter really glows with the beauty and joy of God’s restored people when they repose under His shadow and drink at His fountain of bliss—all in charming contrast with the utter blight that falls on the wicked who pasture themselves on wind and chase after the east wind, and whose best delights turn to ashes on their lips. In this point of view, this closing chapter must be taken as a prophecy of the ultimate triumph of the cause and kingdom of God on earth. H. C.

Living throughout the long period of anarchy and disintegration, witnessing and grieving over the degradation and wretchedness of the people, which increased with their determined rejection of all God’s still offered mercies, the prophecies of Hosea are naturally dark and sad. There is throughout a blending of accusation and threatening, of pathetic remonstrance and touching promise. Only this closing chapter is full of the hopeful spirit of that future restoration which it predicts. But it was never fulfilled to the kingdom of Israel. To that people this promise of revival, like all other promises of God, was conditional upon the return indicated in verses 1-3. They returned not, and within five years were captives and forever exiled from their land. Only in the history of the Christian Church, to whom all the promises have descended, has this rich, bright promise of revival been repeatedly fulfilled, as it shall continue to be realized to the end of time. In considering this prophecy, therefore, we have to bear in mind the double reference to the nation of Israel, and to God’s spiritual Israel in all subsequent ages. Under the most beautiful imagery, it suggests the elements of spiritual experience and acting, by which God’s favor is restored and maintained; and it contains God’s own pledge of the richest, sweetest and most satisfying blessings. Than this, therefore, no prophecy of the Old Testament can be more attractive and instructive.

1-3. Return to God by penitent prayer and praise, and by renunciation of evil-doing.** In forsaking God, Israel had broken the two great commandments. They had accepted and worshipped other gods, and had violated the moral laws of the second table. So man has done. Self-worship, or other false worship—that is, a disregard of God’s supreme claims—has led to a disregard of man’s equal claims. By simply returning to God, accepting His control and receiving His grace, the soul is filled with supreme devotion to Him, and so is led to a true neighborly love. Thus the two great commandments are obeyed. So would it have been with Israel had this earnest entreaty of Hosea been responded to. So will it be with every soul truly responding to this tender entreaty.

Touching and instructive are the “words” which the Holy Ghost here supplies to the returning penitent. Take with you words, in place of sacrifices (the calves of the lips, instead of the calves offered for sacrifice) which are now done away, because the reality they vaguely typified is fulfilled. “Words” (in Hebrew things real) refer to heartfelt confessions, expressions of reliance upon God’s mercy and praises for that forgiving and cleansing mercy. These exercises of spirit are implied in the words the returning penitent is here hidden to utter (verse 2). In verse 3 follows the renunciation of the three long besetting sins of Israel. They had sought help from Assyria, instead of depending upon Jehovah. They had transgressed an explicit Divine command (Deut. 17: 16) by procuring horses (for chariots and cavalry) from Egypt. They had worshipped image gods, the work of their own hands. In none of these defences as helpers will they longer trust, for now they realize that they are left Fatherless and helpless. But their new experience assures them that in Jehovah they have still a Father, in whose mercy alone they now hope for help and look for deliverance. Simply, clearly and admirably do these expressions intimate the way of the transgressor’s return to God. The exercises of spirit acceptable to God and the elements of every saving experience are summed up in heartfelt confession of sin, implicit reliance upon God’s mercy, and grateful praise of His grace, joined with the renunciation of human help, and of all idolatrous and worldly self-seeking. B.

1. Return unto the Lord.** More closely, “return quite home to the Lord.” The preposition, denoting the complete attainment of the object sought, points to the entireness of the repentance required. Absolute as the prediction of Israel’s destruction in chap. 13:14-16 at first sight appears, it was, however, still contingent upon Israel’s continued impenitency; as indeed was indicated in verse 13. Even yet it may be averted by a thoroughgoing repentance. “Thy God;” for that relation is not yet finally dissolved. B. C.

Repentance is to forget all but God, to have the soul filled with thoughts of God, to feel that God can do everything, that man must be safe and happy in the arms of God—accursed and undone apart from God. It is to turn away from the world and from sin and from the devil; and, full of love and sorrow—love to the God who saves, sorrow for the sin that destroys—to cleave to the arm of Omnipotence, and to rest in the embrace of redeeming mercy. Stoughton.

God has promised forgiveness to your repentance; but He has not promised to-morrow to your procrastination. Augustine.

3. The returning penitents pledge themselves specifically against three sins: seeking help from Assyria; from the use of horses in war, usually brought from Egypt; and saying any more to what is only the work of their own hands, “Ye are our gods.” The reason given is ample—“In God, the fatherless find mercy”—the helpless and forlorn, like ourselves, find compassion in Him. H. C.

For in Thee the fatherless findeth mercy. God is often said to take especial care of “the fatherless.” He gives particular command “not to afflict any fatherless child” (Ex. 22:22); He doth “execute the judgment of the fatherless” (Deut. 10:18); He is therefore styled “the helper of the fatherless” (Ps. 10:14); and “a Father” to them (Ps. 68:5); and it is delivered as an expression of exceeding great anger toward the people, that “He will not have mercy on their fatherless” (Isa. 9:17). The Israelites, therefore, being now in such a condition as may be well signified by the appellation of “fatherless,” are taught to take with them in their address to God that name, of great efficacy in moving Him to mercy, and even challenging it as a privilege. Pocock.

4. The Lord Himself now speaks in response to their vows and prayers. “Heal them of their backslidings” means restore them both in heart and in the external life. “Will love them freely”—the last most expressive word having the sense of spontaneous—with warm and full heart, even as the blessed God of love is wont to love the truly penitent soul. H. C.

4-8. The responsive expression of God’s love and favor to the returning penitent. With natural images of great variety and beauty, the largest, most precious and satisfying promises are clustered in these anticipatory words of ancient prophecy. Nor must we omit to notice the attractive and endearing characters by which God here introduces Himself. He is the Healer of the otherwise incurably seated disease of apostasy. He is the Father, whose love is free and full, carrying with it not only the utter removal of anger, but the giving of Himself and of all His infinite resources to restore, to beautify and to bless. This giving, and the richness and variety of His resources, are set forth at length in the fine figures contained in the verses following. He likens Himself to the dew, because of its abundance and constancy of silent, invisible force, refreshing and invigorating the inner life of plant and flower. Therefore the dew and rain are always the scriptural emblems of the work of the Holy Spirit. With this promised Divine influence, the quickened soul shall grow upward, like the rapid, luxuriantly productive lily, with its exceeding fragrance and beauty; and, like the deeply rooted cedars of Lebanon, shall be established upon a foundation deep and immovable as the mountain itself. Like the olive-tree (verse 6), which sends up shoots in all directions from its roots, the hidden spiritual life is constantly increasing in force and widening in influence. In this increase and reach, it also resembles the olive, whose “form is so regular, and whose lower branches spread out in so complete and graceful a circle, that it possesses a beauty all its own.” A life thus divinely inwrought, nourished and increasing in force, must have power of communicating itself, and of producing effects upon others. And this is the fact stated in the seventh verse. “They that dwell under his shadow,” that enjoy the refreshing, reviving effect of this spiritual shelter and helping force, shall sprout or shoot forth like the buried corn; they shall put forth or blossom like the vine; and they shall bring forth fruit, like the perfected product of Lebanon’s vine. First, life bursting forth from the seed-germ, then blossoming with the promise, and at length beautiful with fruitage, this process and progress of Divine power is here promised in connection with spiritual force faithfully exerted by living Christian souls.

The eighth verse seems to be a brief summary of all these Divine promises. “Because,” says Jehovah, “Ephraim, or the returning spiritual Israelite, has renounced his idols, I have heard his penitent confession and trust, and have regarded him with favor. To him, like the ever green, sheltering fir-tree (or cypress), I will afford continual protection. From Me, as the ever-living root of spiritual life, shall he bring forth a perpetual fruitage of good.” A parallel expression is found, Ps. 91 : 14, “Because he hath set his love upon Me, therefore will I deliver him; I will set him on high, because he hath known My name.” B.

We have here an answer of peace to the prayers of returning Israel; they seek God’s face, and they shall not seek in vain; God will be sure to meet them in a way of mercy, who return to Him in a way of duty. If we speak to God in good prayers, God will speak to us in good promises; as He answered the angel with good words and comfortable words (Zech. 1 : 13). If we take with us the foregoing words, in our coming to God, we may take home with us these following words for our faith to feast upon; and these answer those. H.

So many times as the believing soul backslides, so many times God brings him back again. He renews His pardons and multiplies them. Yea, for aught I know, there are some saints, and they not long-lived either, that must receive before they enter into life millions of pardons from God for these; and every pardon is an act of grace through the redemption that is in Christ’s blood. Bunyan.

Luther speaks somewhere of passages of Scripture which would be worth fetching from Rome to Wittemberg, crawling on our knees. Should not in our estimation this Gospel message of the Old Testament be included in such a list? Like a threatening tempest dispersed and superseded by a bright sunbeam, is this passage in the prophecy of Hosea; here at the close the most terrible menace is exchanged for the most glorious promise, and unexpectedly the preacher of repentance stands before our eyes as the friendly evangelist. How much is here declared in a few words to Israel, and assuredly not to Israel alone! The healing of that which is the deepest source of all internal and external pain and misery, that inward repugnance of the heart destitute of fellowship with God to seek that which is to be found in Him alone. Compassion which, moved by nothing but itself, feels and exhibits love, not because man is deserving, but bebecause God is so bountiful and kind. Refreshing, such as the field which in the rainless season languished from drought, enjoys in summer when its scorched face is sprinkled with the tender dew. Growth, finally, as beautiful as that of the blooming lily, which uplifts its crowned head in the bright sunshine; as powerful as that of the mountains ascending toward heaven, while their roots are lost in the depths of the earth. And all this is not merely beautiful words; they may become reality, the certainty of which is stamped by every genuine spiritual experience of life; these are blessings within the reach of all who learn to pray with Israel (verse 3), “Thou art our God; for in Thee the fatherless findeth mercy.” Yea, in the humble supplication of the soul stands here, as it were, written down the reply on God’s side; a reply unspeakably invigorating to him who, having descended from his fancied heights, has learned to call upon his God out of the depths. Van O.

5. There are some Christians who have a very distinct perception of the Gospel in its freeness and fulness, but they have ceased to derive from it the comfort they once enjoyed. They need the rain. They have been too neglectful of the secret life of religion, which is its soul. They have been, if not falling into habitual sin, yet treading only the hard round of some outward duties, and avoiding communion of soul with God. This is to grieve the Holy Spirit, and so to lose His seal. What these need is, more earnest prayer for His refreshing influences, and a heart open to welcome them and use them: “I will be as the dew unto Israel; and they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine.” Our souls can only live and grow when the sun and the showers intermingle; when the Spirit’s dew comes by night, and the Gospel brings in the day. Then it shall be with us as the light of the morning when the sun arseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springeth out of the earth, by the clear shining after rain. Ker.

7. “His shadow” is that of God—perhaps suggested by the tacit allusion to the cedars of Lebanon, whose shade is magnificent. The word rendered scent, in the last clause, is memorial—the same used 12 : 5—meaning, they shall be renowned in fame, as the wine of Lebanon which has to this day the highest repute. H. C.

8. “I am as a green pine-tree; from Me is thy fruit found.” In response to Ephraim’s renouncing all other trust, Jehovah asserts His all-sufficiency for His people. He it is that will hear Ephraim’s prayers; that will watch over him, no longer “hiding His face;” that will give him refreshing shade, and supply him with every blessing natural or spiritual. B. C.

9. The prophet’s final exhortation and comprehensive declaration. The wise and prudent shall understand all these inspired teachings; therefore, he exhorts, “Ask wisdom of God, who giveth to all liberally, and it shall be given.” And he sums up these teachings in the declaration, that God’s ways are righteous; that the just—i.e., the justified by faith (as Paul interprets the term), shall walk in them, but the transgressors shall fall therein. This, therefore, is the prophet’s conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep His commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. We only add, as a single impressive suggestion, the solemn fact that this was the last call of God to Israel, containing the tenderest words of entreaty and the richest promises, on condition of repentance and return to God. This call, like all that preceded it, was disregarded; its condition was not fulfilled; and Israel, so long loved and favored of God, was destroyed and scattered over the earth by His judgment. So will it be with every soul that similarly disregards the same loving call of God. The end of such continued impenitence is His irreversible judgment. It brings eternal, remediless doom! B.

“Who is wise, that he may understand these things? a man of understanding, that he may know them?” This solemn proclamation challenges attention to the prophet’s message. It is similar in import to, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”

“For straight are the ways of the Lord, and the righteous shall go on in them, but transgressors shall fall therein.” Since the course of spiritual and moral obedience, prescribed to us by God’s law, must bring us into the most perfect harmony with His own course of procedure in the government of the world, those who faithfully walk therein may confidently expect, not only the Divine aid in their endeavors thus to live, but also the Divine blessing through the orderings of His providence both here and hereafter. “Go on:” the righteous endeavor to walk in them, and find that they really can do so; they move forward steadily, and without meeting with any real obstacle, even to the very end and goal of their journey. “Transgressors,” those who are minded to gainsay God’s revelations and refuse to obey His laws, find in them, as they think, plentiful occasion for doubt, for disbelief, for disobedience; but the Word of God will infallibly avenge itself sooner or later in their utter confusion and overthrow B. C.

God’s ways are altogether right; the just, in the sense of upright, honest and sincere, shall walk in them with peace and gladness through usefulness and honor here to a blissful end hereafter; but transgressors, whom no truth can reach to bless, shall stumble and fall under the very influences that bring salvation to the just.

Such are the lessons of this richly instructive Book of Hosea. We shall need to go fat to find other writings more forcible, more tersely written, more beautiful in their poetic imagery, more burning in their rebukes of sin, and more glowing in their testimonies to the deep compassion and yearning love of God toward sinful man. H. C.

Entering into the promises, Hosea obtained the spirit of hope, the only source out of which a spirit of true hope can ever rise. He repeated them as one who believed in them and rejoiced in them. This spirit of hope appears when he takes the poor, torn, bleeding children of Israel by the hand, and says, “Let us return unto the Lord; He will heal us; He will bind us up.” “Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord.” This spirit of hope is breathed in the exhortation, “Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy: break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, till He come and rain righteousness upon you.” And this spirit of hope blends with the prophet’s final entreaty that Israel would turn to the Lord, because “in Him the fatherless findeth mercy.”

Hope is one of the most beautiful traits of character unfolded in the ministry of Hosea. We honor him for his faithfulness, and love him for his hope. And it was hope that made him strong, brave, patient and loving. It was hope that fitted him to do his work as a minister, which sustained and comforted him as a man. There was hope in his patriotism and hope in his piety, hope for himself and for his countrymen. Nor can we labor and suffer and endure without hope. Without hope we cannot serve God and save men. Without hope our hearts will sink, or they will become callous. Without hope for ourselves we shall give up our work; without hope for others we shall do it harshly, and no love will blend with it to give it beauty.

We thank thee, thou prophet of the living God, for this example of hope, amid the burdens and cares of human life; amid the sins and perils of the nation; amid the backslidings and afflictions of the Church; amid the troubles and sorrows of our own souls! If Judaism was a religion of hope, so is the Gospel: a religion of better and brighter hope—of hope based on fuller, clearer, more explicit promises—of hope in Christ. Stoughton.

THE precise date and duration of the prophetic life of Joel may be conjectured, but cannot be certainly known. He is not named elsewhere in the Old Testament Scriptures. His prophecy seems to be quoted both by Amos (cf. Amos 1:2 with Joel 3:16) and by Isaiah (cf. Isa. 13:6 with Joel 1:15). Amos prophesied at some period within the long reigns of Uzziah of Judah, n.c. 811-759, and of Jeroboam II. of Israel, n.c. 825-784. Hence, if the writings of Joel were in the hands of Amos, he cannot have prophesied later than the reign of Uzziah; he may have been many years earlier. His book shows that he prophesied in Judah, and that the temple worship was then kept up. Remarkably, the book does not notice the kingdom of the Ten Tribes nor the sin of idolatry. The people are exhorted to repentance, to fasting, weeping and rending of the heart. It may be inferred that in such a book idolatry would have been rebuked if it had been then prevalent. Some have argued, from his silence respecting the Syrian power, while he mentions Tyre and Sidon (3:4) as enemies, that he must have lived before their first invasion of Judah in the time of Ahab (reigned n.c. 918-897. See 1 K. chaps. 20-22.) But this cannot be conclusive, since he might know the Syrian kingdom as an enemy, and yet not mention it. Some weight is rightly given to the fact that the compilers of these sacred books have placed Joel between Hosea and Amos. In general, they observed the order of time, and it is safe to assume that, living so near the age of those prophets, they must have known with a fair measure of accuracy when Joel lived and wrote. H. C.

Joel, we may consider, was the earliest prophet of the kingdom of Judah, a contemporary of Hosea in the northern kingdom, and followed in quick succession in Judah by

Isaiah, who quotes a sentence from him (13:6), and by Micah. It is this position which gives such an exceeding interest to two of the predictions contained in his book. B. C.

Many of the Hebrew prophets are rather voices to us than men—voices crying in the past, and saying, “Repent.” Of the men themselves we know nothing but the names. At times we can fix neither their date nor place. Of Joel, for example, we know absolutely nothing but what may be gathered from his prophecy; and that tells us neither when nor where he flourished, save by hints and implications which are still variously read. That he lived in Judah, probably in Jerusalem, we may infer from the facts that he never mentions the northern kingdom of Israel, and that he shows himself familiar with the Temple, the priests, the ordinances of worship; he moves through the sacred city and the temple of the Lord as one who is at home in them, as one who is native and to the manner born. On this point the commentators are pretty well agreed; but no sooner do we ask, “When did Joel live and prophesy?” than we receive the most diverse and contradictory replies. He has been moved along the chronological lines of at least two centuries, and fixed now here, now there, at almost every point. I prefer, on the whole, the theory which holds him to have been the earliest of the prophets whose writings have come down to us. There are hints in his poem, or prophecy, which indicate, I think, that it must have been written in the ninth century before Christ (circa 870-860), more than a hundred years before Isaiah “saw the Lord sitting on His throne, high and lifted up,” and some fifty years after Elijah was carried “by a whirlwind into heaven.”

Joel’s style is that of the earlier age. So marked, indeed, is “the antique vigor and imperativeness of his language," that purely on this ground, Ewald, whose fine critical instinct deserves a respect which his dogmatism often averts, places him without a doubt first in the rank of the earlier prophets, and makes him the contemporary of Joash. The inference is still further confirmed by the prevailing tone and spirit of his prophecy, in which he differs greatly from “the goodly fellowship” to which he belongs. He does not once refer to the idolatrous rites and customs which they perpetually rebuke. Though the Hebrews are a sinful nation, and by their guilt have provoked Divine judgment, yet, in the pages of Joel, Jehovah is still recognized as their God and King; the simple but stately worship of the Temple is maintained, priests and people keep the feasts and observe the ordinances to do them. Now, curiously enough, this exceptional state of general conformity to the law and ritual of Moses obtained in the years which preceded the Aramaean invasion, the earlier years of Joash’s reign, and in hardly any other period to which Joel has been assigned. So that the absence of allusion to foreign wars and invasions, the antique severity of his style, and the religious condition reflected from his pages, combine to indicate the earlier half of King Joash’s reign as the period of Joel’s prophetic activity. Yet we must not dogmatize. All we can say is, that in all probability the son of Pethuel lived in Jerusalem during the reign of Joash; that he aided Jehoiada, the high priest, in urging the citizens to repair the Temple and to recur to the service of Jehovah, and that his prophecy is the oldest in our hands. S. Cox.

Occasion of the Prophecy.

This was a twofold national calamity—drought and locusts. Two questions have been raised by interpreters: 1. Whether locusts and their devastations are actually spoken of, or whether they are to be taken figuratively for the invasion and ravages of hostile armies. 2. Whether the prophet refers to a present calamity or prophecies of a future one. The symbolical interpretation is that which the ancient Jews and Christian fathers generally adopted; but since the Reformation the literal interpretation has been much more in favor. This interpretation was adopted by Luther and Calvin; and almost all the biblical scholars of Germany of the present day are inclined to it. Umbreit wavered between two opinions, and ended in thinking that the prophet meant to include both. The reasons assigned against a literal invasion of locusts may be explained in harmony with a literal interpretation. We know that God used real locusts in punishing the Egyptians (Ex. 10: 12). Locusts are threatened as an instrument of punishment (Deut. 28: 38). Locusts are mentioned as a scourge in Solomon’s prayer (1 K. 8: 37); and Amos describes a plague of locusts (4: 9). It is possible, therefore, that the prophet refers to a visitation of real and actual locusts, which are, at the same time, types of still further scourges. C. Elliott.

That God had already used real locusts as an instrument of punishment, we know by the Egyptian plague (Ex. 10: 12). That real locusts were dreaded by the Israelites, as one of their chief scourges, we know by the prayer of Solomon (1 K. 8: 37) and from the Pentateuch (Deut. 28: 38). Amos describes a real locust plague (4: 6, 9) as having lately occurred (which, indeed, may be the same as that which Joel declares imminent). Joel’s description throughout is confessedly and plainly of a locust scourge; and his comparison of the locusts with men of war certainly suggests, and perhaps proves, that men of war were not designed to be metaphorically represented by them, for he would not have compared the locusts to men if by the locusts he had meant men. B. C. (See Bib. Com., vi. 496.)

Now that travellers and naturalists have made us better acquainted with the phenomena which attend a flight of locusts and the horrible ruin they leave behind them, it is generally admitted that Joel’s description is no whit exaggerated; that we need not invent or supply armies and invasions to account for the terror and misery which his language breathes. Where the locust swarms descend, all vegetation instantly vanishes; they spare neither bark nor root, much less leaf and flower. They darken the air so that the sun, and even men at a little distance, become invisible. They advance in a close military array, which yields to no obstacle of stream or fire. As they advance a peculiar roaring noise is heard, like that of a torrent or a waterfall. No sooner do they settle to eat than, as Volney puts it, the grating sound of their mandibles reminds one of “the foraging of an invisible army.” Indeed, no army of men could well work a devastation so complete as that wrought by an interminable flight of locusts, such as visits the lands of the far East, and even Algeria, to this day. And as the locusts are an adequate explanation of even the strongest phrases of Joel, we need seek no other. S. Cox.

Style of Joel.

Its chief characteristic is perhaps simple vividness. Everything is set before us as though we ourselves saw it. This is alike the character of the description of the desolation of the first chapter, the advance of the locusts in the second, or that more awful gathering in the valley of Jehoshaphat described in the third. The prophet adds detail to detail; each clear, brief, distinct, a picture in itself, yet adding to the effect of the whole. Pusey.

The style and thought of Joel are strikingly characteristic, notwithstanding numerous assonances of detail with other prophets. In the first half we are under the spell of a descriptive poet or word painter, but the prophetic orator asserts himself in the second half. Language and structure are pure, flowing and artistic, but the literary excellence is not an argument for either date, but rather a difficulty in the way of his being either the first or the last of the prophetic authors. Personal traits appear in the detailed delineation of the physical aspects of the disaster, in the contrasting vagueness as to the sins that caused it, and in the predominant and all-possessing engrossment of the seer in the grand conception of the day of the Lord. Elmslie.

Contents of the Book.

There are three predictions in Joel. The first is of the plague of locusts and drought, and the removal, or reversal, of that plague, occupying chap. 1 and chap. 2 to the end of verse 27. The second is of the effusion of the Holy Spirit, typified by the refreshing rain which brought back verdure to the parched fields, contained in the last five verses of chap. 2. (These verses, according to the Hebrew arrangement, form chap. 3.) The third prediction is of the Day of Judgment, typified by the destruction wrought upon the locust scourge, and of the reign of righteousness accompanying and following the judgment. This occupies the remaining chapter. B. C.

Scope of the Prophecy. The situation pictured in the prophecy is the following. The land has been devastated by successive swarms of locusts. A still more terrible visitation is impending. In the intervening pause the prophet appears. With graphic strokes he depicts the bygone disasters, describing them as Divine judgments on the land, and urging the people to repentance (1). He proceeds to paint in still darker tints the more awful vengeance of Heaven that is approaching, and passes over into an overpowering appeal for penitence and instant prayer to God for mercy (2 : 1-17). This first intervention having proved successful, the prophet presents himself to the contrite congregation, and pours forth a comforting reassurance of God’s present pity and future grace (2 : 18-32), and concludes with a majestic picture of the consummation of judgment and triumphant establishment of God’s kingdom on earth (3).

Of these main divisions the first falls into five sub-sections—an introduction, three special appeals, and the conclusion. A calamity of unprecedented magnitude has befallen the land. Swarm after swarm of locusts have stripped it bare (1 : 2-4). The profligate and luxurious are struck by the blow, for the new wine and other means of indulgence are destroyed (1 : 5-7). The religious portion of the community is also stricken, for the materials for sacrifice are cut off, and, as it were, intercourse with Heaven is severed (1 : 8-10). The agricultural classes and the whole body politic are concerned, for the sources of existence are annihilated, and the withered aspect of the blasted fields spreads to men’s faces, and joy is banished from their homes (1 : 11, 12). It is time for the priests to unite the people in a penitential fast and universal prayer for mercy, when already famine gnaws, the seed rots in the blighted soil, pastures and streams are dried up by scorching drought, and the beasts by their distracted movements and cries of agony make appeal to Heaven for compassion (1 : 13-20).

The second division describes a new invasion of locusts, more terrible in itself and in its circumstances, because more manifestly accompanied by the personal presence of the Divine Judge. The utterance falls into five sections, of which the opening one dramatically delineates the first appearance in the distance of the dreaded scourge (2 : 1-3); the second, the sickening horror of their nearer approach (2 : 4-6); the third, their resistless onset and men’s presaging despair (2 : 7-11); the fourth furnishes a promise of escape to sincere repentance (2 : 12-14), and the fifth completes the continuous summons to national contrition and supplication (2 : 15-17).

The third division, opening with a terse historical statement, tacitly assuming that penitence has been done, and declaring God’s forgiveness, proceeds to unroll a new chart of the future. The prophet had foretold the approaching doom of impenitent Israel. He must now unfold the changed character of coming events in view of the great fact of a penitent Israel. The main elements of the programme are depicted in five sections. With repentance and restoration to Divine favor Israel’s relation to the great elements of God’s government is entirely altered. The impending judgment is withdrawn. Their present distress is relieved and passes into plenty and prosperity. In this deliverance the supreme effect of gladness is the assurance of God’s presence with them and His unchanged purpose of grace and glory in them (2:18-27). Therefore the prophecy must proceed. Temporal relief is not enough. Israel is destined for more than physical prosperity. The world’s consummation is drawing on. To play their part in the grand fulfilment of history, Israel must have a holiness beyond that of the present reformation. The nation must become the perfect instrument of God, inhabited by His character, inspired by His aims, entirely consecrated to His service.

Such a new nature must be created, not by Israel’s own act, but by a Divine deed, by a gift from above. The nation must be inspired by God’s Spirit in every individual member. Then will the end of all things be near. With Israel’s complete fitness to the Divine purpose the consummation of the world’s drama must speedily follow. The outpouring of the Spirit is the precursor of judgment. The day of the Lord comes—a day of dread to evil-doers, but of deliverance to all who call on God’s name, and whom God calls (2:28-32). The final act of judgment has, therefore, no menace any longer for God’s people, but directs its violence against the heathen nations, who, persistently impenitent, have remained hostile to Jehovah and His people (3:1-8). With weird colors and terrible dramatic power the destruction of the nations in the valley of Jehoshaphat (Jehovah judgeth) is depicted (3:9-17). And the prophecy concludes with a glowing picture of the happy repose of finished judgment and mercy, in which all God’s enemies are seen to be vanquished, and Israel, prosperous and conferring prosperity, is established forever and ever (3:18-21). Elmslie.

We see the fundamental significance of the prophecies of Joel, in his clear and precise prediction of the coming of the day of the Lord (1:15; 2:1, 2, 12); in the promises of Israel’s future (2:18-27; 3:16-21); in the prediction of the effusion of the Holy Spirit (2:28, 29). These predictions subsequent prophets take up and expand. The promises of future blessings to God’s people, in Joel, evidently refer to Messianic times. The gift of the Spirit, in its fulness, to the covenant people, is a prominent feature of the Messianic age, or of the New Covenant—a feature fully presented in the prophecies of Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Zechariah. The Apostle Peter saw its fulfilment in the miracle of Pentecost (Acts 2:17). As many prophecies are germinant, that miracle may be considered the first instalment of its fulfilment. Its final accomplishment is not yet. The Holy Spirit is still poured out, reviving the Church, and convincing the world of sin. The present dispensation is that of the Spirit. Christ went away that He might send the Comforter (John 16:7). C. Elliott.

Nothing is more striking in the Old Testament Scriptures than the unity that pervades them. As we read them in their historical succession, we find that each founds itself on those which went before it, and carries their contents, the principles and truths they enunciate, a little further onward. There are no cataclysms, no sudden breaks and no beginnings in the Bible; the traces of a gradual and orderly development may be found on every page. And here is an illustration and a proof—Joel founds himself on Moses. The earliest of the written prophets simply develops germs of thought planted by the first and greatest of the prophets, insomuch that we cannot comprehend Joel save as we first study Moses. Joel was most truly inspired of God; but he was inspired to interpret and apply, to expand and develop principles which had long since been given by God to Moses, the man of God, and not to disclose principles which had no place in Hebrew thought before he spoke. It was “no new commandment” which he brought to the men of his generation, “but an old commandment” which they had had from the beginning. And again, it was a new commandment, for the threatenings and promises of the old commandment took new force and meaning from his lips, and from the events which illustrated them afresh and brought them home to every man’s door. And it will help us, not only in our study of Joel, but in studying any or all of the prophets—it may even give us some glimpses into a modus operandi of inspiration, if we mark a little in detail what materials Joel draws from the teaching of Moses, and how he handles these materials and weaves them into new forms. (Cf. Lev. 26 and Deut. 28.) When he looked round on his own time and the facts of his time, seeking to interpret them, to get at the Divine thought and intention in them, searching what and what manner of thing they signified, he saw the very judgments with which Moses had menaced the disobedient. All the trees and fruit of the land were consumed by locusts. The people had carried much seed out into the field and brought but little in, for the grain had rotted under the clods. They had planted vines and dressed them, but had neither gathered the grapes nor drunk the wine; olive-trees were in all their borders, but they did not anoint themselves with oil. The field was laid waste, the ground lamented, the new wine was dried up, the oil languished. The husbandmen blenched over the wheat and over the barley, because the harvest of the field had perished; the vine-dresser wailed because the vine was dried up, and the fig-tree sickened, and the pomegranate, the palm, and the apple-tree withered and blackened beneath the locusts and the drought. These were the very miseries which Moses had predicted for the disobedient. How, then, could Joel, or any student and lover of Moses, fail to infer that these miseries were the consequence of disobedience? that they were judgments on the sins of the people? and yet Divine judgments, sent in mercy, to induce repentance and amendment? Kindling his lamp at the sacred fire which burned on the ancient Mosaic altar, he threw its full light on the age in which he lived, and even sent its rays streaming faintly into the darkness of the future, defining little perhaps, yet giving us hints and glimpses which will not mislead us so long as we follow them with inquiring and faithful hearts. S. Cox.

Perhaps, if we look for an expression to characterize Joel, we cannot find a better than the prophet of repentance. The judgments on which he dwells are motives to repentance, showing its need. The promises which follow are also motives, showing its blessed consequences. He understood repentance to be a spiritual and a personal duty. Though he lived under a dispensation of forms and shadows, he did not rest in them, but could and did tear off the garment, to get at the spirit which it clothed. He knew God could be satisfied with nothing less than the offering of the heart; that it was vain to rend the mantle, if the breast it covered were not pierced by pungent sorrow for offences done to the Holy One; that repentance was a change of mind, a turning of the soul to God; that it was a duty which could not be performed by representation, or in the mass; but by each alone, one by one, by the children alone, and the parents alone, the bridegroom alone, and the bride alone, and the priests alone; and seeing in this the enlightened conviction of the prophet’s own soul—a conviction so enlightened that it looks like an anticipation of Gospel sentiments, may we not, must we not, conceive of this son of Pethuel as a man who himself was performing the duty, whose own heart was rent, while fasting, weeping and mourning, he led the train of sorrowful suppliants to the altar of a merciful God? Stoughton.