Day 29 – Monday -- The Book of Joel

Day 29 – Monday

The Book of Joel

Farmers never know how their crops will turn out. Some years there is not enough rain; some years there are floods; there is always the possibility of pestilence. When the prophet Joel wrote his little book, the fields had just been devastated by swarms of locusts. He told the people that the loss of crops was punishment from God for their unfaithfulness.

Then he went further. As a prophetic poet he imagines an army of giant locust-like warriors led by God which will destroy all the enemies of God. He calls it “the Day of the Lord.” (John, another poet, and the author of the Book of Revelation, picks up this image of apocalyptic locusts in his symbolic poetry. See Rev. 9.1-9.)

But then he immediately says, But it’s not too late! You can still turn to God and be saved (2.12). God invites the people to get serious about their commitment to God. And God says, Perhaps I will change my mind (2.14). More traditional versions say that God will “repent.” If you repent, God will repent! If you turn back to God, God will turn away from his anger.

In the middle of that section is a core statement about God:

for God is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love (2.13)

This exact statement about God appears in Exodus 34.6, Nehemiah 9.17, Psalm 86.5, and Jonah 4.2. In the midst of oracles about God’s judgment, the prophets usually crack the door open and let the light in to remind the people that even though God is hostile toward those who break the covenant, nevertheless, the essential nature of God is graciousness, mercy, and steadfast love.

In chapter three Joel announces a Holy War. In 3.9 he literally says, Sanctify war! The Common English Bible translates it, Prepare a holy war. The New American Bible renders it, Proclaim a holy war! This is imagined as the final “Day of the Lord” when the nations are gathered in the Valley of Jehoshaphat; also called the Valley of Decision. People who make their living writing about the end-times identity this valley of the site of the final war—Armageddon. But it is a poetic device to encourage the hopeless people, saying that God will win in the end. Good will win over Evil. Life will win over Death. Life is worth living.

Joel does an unusual thing. He takes the words of Isaiah and Micah who talk about beating swords into ploughshares, and reverses them, saying, Beat your ploughshares into swords; turn your pruning knives into spears (4.10). Joel is pretty hawkish.  He will surely vote for Donald Trump.


Let’s shift gears. Peter, in the first Christian sermon, quotes Joel 2.28-32 (in some versions it is 3.1-5):

 …I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
    your old men shall dream dreams,
    and your young men shall see visions.
Even on the male and female slaves,
    in those days, I will pour out my spirit.
I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Peter, on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2), interprets Joel’s words as being fulfilled on that day. The Church was baptized with the Spirit. Old barriers were broken down: gender/sex (sons and daughters), age (old men ad young men), class (male and female slaves). The language about the sun and moon, darkness and blood, fire and smoke—is all understand as symbolic by Peter since he includes those verses as being fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost. The Bible frequently uses cosmological terminology in poetic ways to talk about changes, especially changes in power positions. Peter is clear. He says, “This [the speaking in other languages, and the wind and fire] is what was spoken through the prophet Joel.” So, the smoke, fire, moon turning to blood, etc, is not something that is going to happen in the future. It happened on the Day of Pentecost in some poetic sense.


Finish this: Right now I feel like I am in the Valley of Decision. I need to choose between…