Joel 3

Joel 3:1-8

The gracious promises which closed the foregoing chapter is here enlarged

upon. Here is a precaution, 1. Of God’s reckoning with the mennies of his people for all the injuries that they had done them, ver. 1-8. 2. Of God’s judging all nations whom the measure of their inquiry is full, and appearing publicly to the everlasting confusion of all impenitence powers, and the everlasting comfort of all his faithful servants, ver. 9-17. 3. Of the precaution God has made for the refreshment of his people, for their safety and purity, when their enemies shall be made desolate, ver. 18-21. These promises were not of private interpretation only, but were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of this scripture might have hope. 1. FOR behold, in those days, and in that time when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, 2. I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoftaphat, and I will plead with them there for my people, and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land. 3. And they have cast loss for my people, and have given a boy for a banan, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink. 4. Yea, and what have ye to do? with me, O Tyre and Zalom, and all the coasts of Palestine? Will ye render me a recompense? And if ye recompense me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompense upon your own head. 5. Because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temple my goodly pleasant things. 6. The children also of Judah, and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border. 7. Behold, I will raise them out of the place whither ye have sold them, and will return your recompense upon your own head. 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. The sufferings of God’s people, and the destruction of their enemies, have their appointed periods. 1. In those days of the Messiah, I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem; many of them by the preaching of the gospel being called into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, from the bondage of corruption, more intolerable than that of Egypt or Chaldea. Perhaps also this may have respect to their recovery from their present dispersion. 2. Their enemies shall be reckoned with, v. 2. which some apply to Semeachers and the Afghians, and suppose the days spoken of to refer to the recovery of the dispersed Jews, who had fled or been taken prisoners on that invasion. Others apply it to the Romans and neighbouring nations, who had deverely wafted God’s heritage: and some imagine they see in this prophecy the destruction of the Turkish and papal powers, af- 4 F 1v. Chod. 2a. 16. Ver. 3a. Zach. 4iv. 4. Rev. 5vi. 16. 5 Acts ix. 4. 6 Luke xviii. 8. 7 Heb. De- Sectio. 8 Heb. The sons of the Genians. 9 Ver. 4. Rev. xvi. 10. 10 Sam. xv. 15. Vol. 6. Suius-Ched Sue.

fembled to make war against the Saints of the most High, after all their former persecutions of them, whose quarrel God will now signally espouse, and avenge their wrongs.

3. The charges lying against these enemies of his people are, for their cruelty, robbery, insult, and oppression. They scattered them among the nations; seized and sold them for slaves, particularly to the Gretions, v. 6. removing them far from their own land, which they parted among themselves; either Titus preceded it out to his soldiers, or the neighbouring nations each seized that portion which lay contiguous to them: and they have left his for my people; in such vast numbers were they taken captive, and their value so small, that their conquerors gave a boy for the hire of an barbit, and a girl for wine, that they might drink. Thus in drinking and whoring they squandered the prey they had taken, the common vices of persecutors. God’s zeal and show they had plundered; what he had given to his people, and regarded still as his own: and his forefant things, perhaps the vessels or treasures of his land, they had carried to the temple of their idols, adding sacrilege and impiety to robbery. Well may God therefore expound the men, if they have you to do with me, O Tyre and Zidon, and all the myths of Palestine? which may be put for all the enemies of Christ’s church and people in every age. What have you to do with me? how dare you distress my people; what provocation have they given? will you render me a recompense? Have they done you any injury, which you would thus retaliate? no: they were quiet in the land, and had never justly offended them. Note, (1.) No: forearms of temper, or amidsthenes of disposition, can soften the enmity of the wicked. (2.) We must not think it strange if we receive the greatest unkindness from those whom we have ever studied to oblige.

4. God threatens them to return their wickedness into their own bosom. If ye recompense me, pretending to retaliate wrongs they had received from God’s people; I will justify and speedily return your recompense upon your own head, and give tribulation to those that troubled them. Whilst God recovered his own children from the places whither they had dispersed and sold them, he will fill the children of these his enemies into the hands of the men of Judah; and they, in just retaliation of the wrongs they have received, shall fill them to the Sultans, to a people for ye. And for this the veracity of God is engaged; the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it: the accomplishment of which prophecy some refer to the days of the Marcellines; others, to the future destruction of the persecuting powers of Popeye or Mahomedism: certain however it is, that all the enemies of Christ’s church and people shall at the last be made their foothold.

1 Ms. viii. p. 16th Samich. Ch. ii. 4. III. vi. 3. On Stephen, E Zech. vii. § § Or, The Lord shall bring above, Ver. 4. b Mar. viii. pp. Rev. xii. 11. 19. 1st Chom. vs. 14. § Or chowlsring. ¶ Chap. ii. vs. 15. ¶ Jer. xxv. pp. Chap. ii. 11. Am. i. ¶ ¶ 16th. ii. 6. ¶ 16th. Plots of report, or basment. ¶ Chap. ii. ¶ ¶ 16th. vii. 41. ¶ 16th. xxx. ¶ 2nd. xxx. 41. Rev. xx. ¶

9. ¶ ‘Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles: prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near, let them come up. 10. Bear your plow-frames into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears: ’ let the weak say, I am strong. 11. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and garner yourselves together round about: thither § cause thy mighty ones to come down, O LORD. 12. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. 13. ’ Put ye in the fickle, for the harvest is ripe; come, get ye down, for the perch is full, the fats overflow, for their wickedness is great. 14. ’ Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision. 15. ’ The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining: 16. The LORD also shall ’ roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem, and ’ the heavens and the earth shall shale; but the LORD will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. 17. So ’ shall ye know that I am the LORD your God dwelling in Zion, ’ my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and ’ there shall no strangers pass through her any more.

Joel 3:9-17

Commentators greatly differ about the times referred to in this prophecy. Some suppose it fulfilled in the destruction of Sennacherib, or the Affyrians, or Antiochus; others, that it looks forward to more distant ages, and foretell the ruin of all the antichristian persecuting powers, whether pagan, papal, or Mahometan; and many expressions in the Remeleines, which seem to speak of that event, are borrowed from hence. Some still carry the accomplishment farther, and read in it the great day of final judgment, when the wicked shall be cast into hell, and the Saints of God shall receive the kingdom of their father.

1. A distance is sent to all God’s enemies. Let them collect their forces; muller their armies; furnish themselves with weapons; encourage each other for the conflict, v. 10. unite

their assembled legions; hasten to the field of battle, v. 11. rouse up their courage, and stand in array. Multitudes, multitudes, innumerable the hell in the valley of decision, the same as the valley of Jehoshaphat; which may not mark any particular place, but the end for which they are assembled, Jehoshaphat signifying the judgment of the Lord, who will there plead with, condemn, and destroy his enemies; and the day is near, v. 14.

They who refer this to the daughter of the antichristian powers, Rev. xvi. 14, 16. xix. 18—21. suppose they will in the latter day be gathered together in the land of Judah, to make war on the Saints of the most High, and by some eminent stroke of vengeance from God be utterly confound.

Applying it to the day of judgment, we may learn, (1.) That it is near, uncertain when, but surely approaching: highly therefore doth it concern us to be always ready. (2.) That day will fix our final state, whether for happiness or misery eternal, according to the unerring decisions of the God of truth and judgment.

2. At the prophet’s prayer the executioners of vengeance appear. Cause thy mighty men to come down, O Lord; either the holy angels, or the Christian princes under Christ their leader, going down to the valley of decision, to join battle with their foes. Put ye in the fickle, for the harvest is ripe; come, get ye down, for the perch is full, the fats overflow; their enemies are ripe for judgment, See Rev. xvi. 18—20. xix. 15—20. and the reason is given, because their wickedness is great.

3. To the impenitent sinner, or antichristian foe, that day will be full of horror. The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining; as will be literally the case in the great day of judgment, when these luminaries shall be extinguished. Or figuratively it refers to the kings and princes of the earth, who shall be cast down before the armies of the living God. When the Lord shall rove out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; appearing on the behalf of his church and people, and spreading terror and dismay among their enemies: and the heavens and earth shall shake; the mighty will tremble before him; or as at the day of final judgment it will be seen, when the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the earth shall be burnt up. Wear to the wicked, who then shall find no shisters, no rock to hide, no mountain to cover their guilty heads.

4. The people of God will triumph and rejoice, for the Lord shall be the hope of his people; he that had ever been the object of their hope and trust, will not then disappoint them, but will be their refuge in that day of evil: and the strength of the children of Israel; supporting them through all their conflicts, and crowning them at last with victory. So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God, by happy experience of his power and grace; dwelling in Zion my holy mountain; in the midst of the church of his redeemed. Then shall Jerusalem be holy, or holiness; all the Saints of God at the last shall be made perfect, as their Father which is in heaven is perfect: and there shall we change past through her any more; no enemy being left to hurt them, no hypocrite or ungodly persons being any longer found among them.

5. ¶ And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains ’ shall drop down new wine, and the hills ’ shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall ’ flow with waters, and ’ a fountain shall come forth of the house of the LORD, and shall water ’ the valley of Shittim. 19. ’ Egypt shall be a defolation, ’ and Edom shall be a defolate wilderness, ’ for the violence against the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land. 20. But Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. 21. For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed, § for ’ the LORD dwelleth in Zion.

Joel 3:18-21

These great and precious promises conclude the prophecy, which, whatever respect they may have to the Jews, seem chiefly to look to the times of gospel grace, or final glory.

1. There shall be the most abundant plenty, v. 18. either of temporal good things, or rather of spiritual blessings, diffused among the faithful. The voice and milk of gospel grace shall flow down like currents from the hills, refreshing, strengthening, comforting the members of Christ’s church; and from him, the overflowing, overflowing fountain, shall the healing streams go forth, watering the valley of Shittim, a barren valley beyond Jordan, which may signify the Gentile world, and intimate the fruitfulness which this watering of the landfanny should produce, and the extent of the Redeemer’s grace, even to the most distant corners of the earth.

2. The inventees enemies of the church shall be destroyed, v. 19. Egypt and Edom had often shewn their implacable hatred against Judah, and shed innocent blood in the land; but they