Joel Chapter 1

Intro:

Today we are going to jump into the book of Joel. This is a short prophetic book, only 3 chapters but it is intensely theologically rich! I must confess that it was books specifically like this one that gave me serious pause in tackling the Minor Prophets. I knew that there were ideas and themes that I would have to connect to their New Testament fulfillment that I wasn't sure I could connect in a clear way yet. If I am honest I still feel pretty inadequate to that task, while I have come to a much clearer understanding of how I believe these things connect, I still have some way to go. Especially when it comes to specifics; and the book of Joel gets more specific or at least is used more specifically than any of the prophets we have yet covered. In Acts Chapter 2 Peter quotes Joel and says specifically that this has been fulfilled in what the people of Israel had witnessed at Pentecost. This will raise a whole host of issues for us and I will seek to be as clear as I can and also, as Jake has done with tackling the challenges of Matthew 24 and some of its eschatological implications, be as charitable as I can be, especially knowing that there is yet a long way to go in my own development of my understanding of these things. Needless to say, this has been challenging but I hope and trust it will be fruitful as we work our way through this together.

Fortunately, these most challenging aspects of the book come closer to the end, end albeit of a 3 chapter book so its not that far off, but end none the less. Before we get there though we will have time to get acquainted with the prophet and his message and take hold of the main point of the book as a whole which shoudl help immensely when we come to parsing out some of these more difficult things.

I must say as a bit of an aside here, I can relate to John Knox when he said “I have never once feared the Devil (maybe not quite that part) but I tremble every time I enter the pulpit.” these kinds of things make me extremely thankful for a congregation who I know is both, praying earnestly for Jake and I as we prepare each week to preach the word, and who is also faithful to not just hear what we say and run with it but who take these things home and discuss them together and spend time in the word together seeking to understand these things rightly from the Word itself. I truly do take great comfort in both of these things. I know both Jake and I covet your prayers so thank you!

So, lets take a moment to pray and then we will jump into Joel.

PRAY

As we move into the book we need to get ourselves oriented to the text a bit with some literary and historical context.

First we notice that this book has a rather short intro. There is not a lot of context that we can get out of verse 1. we read:

English Standard Version Chapter 1

The word of the LORD that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel:

Its not the shortest Intro, that I believe will belong to our next prophet, Obadiah. but it doesn't give us much and unlike many of the other books the book of Joel also doesn't provide us with any truly usable historical context clues within its prophecies to anchor the book to any particular historical period.

We know the prophets name, Joel, and we know his father, Pethuel, but there is no context even for these names. As we have seen with the other prophets, unless we are directed to by the text we ought not look at the names themselves for any particular meaning, this tends only to lead people into error. Our study of the word is to be guided by the word and we are given no reason here to think that either of these names bear any theological significance to the message.

As we also just noted, the book itself, doesn't give many if any contextual clues that can anchor it into a particular historical period. We have no rulers of Israel or any other nation for that matter recorded. We have no significant geological events like Amos’ earthquake , and we don't have any significant battles or conquests to work with.

This ambiguity as to historical setting has led scholars and commentators to argue across many pages as to when they believe the book to have been written. Some think it is one of the earliest, placing Joel as a contemporary of Hosea and Amos and some believe that it is late, perhaps even post exilic, meaning after Israel returned from their captivity in Babylon.

Theologically we do need to wrestle with the understanding that Joel has of the Day of the Lord. We have seen this in other prophets and we will spend time unpacking this theme in the context of Joel and I would suggest that though this was not an unknown theme early in Israels prophetic history it is a theme that we see develop across time with early writers like Amos seeming to be less specific about that coming day than we see here in Joel so I don't know that I would put it too early. However, Joel does offer hope for Israel if they repent which is a theme that drops out as the prophets get closer to the exile so I don't know that I would put the book too late. Other than that though I am not even going to speculate. Speculation typically leads to problems theologically anyway.

One of the reasons that I think this book is so vague about its particular setting though is perhaps because the focus of the book isn't really on a specific setting at all. This is not to say that Joel didn't write in a specific context and address things that were happening around him, he did, but the book is written, in the way that many of the Psalms are written, in a way that makes it more broad in its application to various times.

One of the key theologically contextual items that connects here to this point is that the book surprisingly is mentions no specific sin of the people. We have gotten used to prophets calling out the people for some very specific sins but Joel is different. The people here definitely stand condemned, they have done wrong that is for sure, but the focus is less on what they have specifically done but rather on what God is calling them to and what God is going to do. Joel, maybe a smidge more than most in this regard, shines the spotlight directly on God himself!

In fact, if you had to pick a key theme for the book, outside of “The Day of the Lord” you would probably pick the statement that is recorded at the end of the two major sections that the book can be divided up into, in 2:27 we read:

English Standard Version Chapter 2

You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel,

and that I am the LORD your God and there is none else.

and in 3:17 we read:

English Standard Version Chapter 3

So you shall know that I am the LORD your God,

who dwells in Zion, my holy mountain.

“So you shall know that I am the Lord your God”

This is the theme of the book. God’s people will know him, they have forgotten, they have wandered, they have been unfaithful, but the theme of this book is that God is pursuing them and that the result of this pursuit will be that they will know that He is the Lord their God.

There is a well known poem that I was reminded of as I was studying for this message, it is called “The Hound of Heaven” written by Francis Thompson, its long and a bit hard to read but the beginning goes like this:

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days

I fled Him, down the arches of the years

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind, and in the midst of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter

Up vistaed hopes I sped

And shot, precipitated

A down Titanic glooms of chasmed fears

From those strong feet that followed, followed after

But with un-hurrying chase

And unperturbed pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

They beat--- And a voice beat

More instant than the Feet---

“All things betray thee, who betrayest me”

The poem goes on for a while but with that ever repeating chorus, “But with un-hurrying chase, and unperturbed pace, deliberate speed, majestic instancy, they beat--- And a voice beat, more instant than the Feet---”

It is a poem about God’s pursuit of the man. God doesn't run at breakneck pace like a schoolyard boy playing a game of tag soon wearied by the chase, God doesn't give up and sit at the sidelines pouting, God is ever persistent, majestic instancy, and eventually he does get his man.

This is God with his people and this is the God we see in Joel, the sovereign and provident God of heaven, the ruler and sustainer of all things who does indeed get His people, they do/will come, God will be known, “You shall know” He says, “That I am the Lord your God.”

MAJESTIC INSTANCY!

This is the God of Joel, this could even be said to encapsulate the message of Joel! Majestic instancy!

We also see here in verse 1 that what Joel is giving is a “The word of the Lord...”

We tend to get used to statements like these in the Bible, especially so in the prophets! But I thought one commentator here was very helpful, He says:

Hosea, Joel Title (1:1)

Its frequency, however, should not numb us to its significance. It implies first that the message is from God and therefore carries divine authority. But its presence also reminds us that we are here dealing with a specific type of literature—Hebrew prophecy—and that we need to read it according to its own rules. While there is some truth in the assertion that the Bible is as plain as a modern newspaper, the fact remains that it is not a modern newspaper. A “word of the LORD” is a prophetic oracle, and failure to reckon with the peculiar prophetic mode of speech will inevitably result in a distorted reading of the text.

This is a word from the Lord, the amazing mercy in that statement; that the God of heaven would condescend to speak with his people, sinful and straying people at that, who have rejected him at every turn and yet as Thompson’s Hound he presses ever on in His pursuit. But it also reminds us that we ought to ensure that we are reading it as a prophetic book. What some would call a woody literalism is not going to serve us well here, we must be attuned to see when the prophet is using imagery, hyperbole, and other devices to bring home a point that we well might miss if we just assume that we are to take everything a face value with no nod to the context.

And so with that lets move on into the message of chapter 1.

Joel is going to record for us a message about a locust horde and the devastating results of this horde on the land and people of Israel and also a call to repentance issued in light of this horde's destruction.

Lets read first about the horde in verses 2-12

READ

Before we get to the first major difficulty with the book, the issue of the locust, lets take a moment to see how Joel introduces this first word.

You may notice the poetic parallelism in these first couple of verses. As a brief aside it is cool to note as one commentator did that because Hebrew poetry is different from ours in that rather than seeking to rhyme words and sounds Hebrew poetry seeks to provide parallelism between lines and concepts, one of the things that this does is that it makes it easier to translate Hebrew poetry, the poetry of the Bible across language lines. When I read that I thought, “Huh, how cool is that, that God chose to reveal his words specifically in ways that make the transmission of His word across language barriers easier not harder! (This is not to say it is always easy) However, take a look at verses 2&3.

Hear, Elders

Give ear, All inhabitants of the land

Has such a thing happened in your days (time frame)

Days of your fathers? (Time frame)

Tell Tell Tell

This poetic structure is to set the stage for what is to happen with this example that Joel is going to lay before them. They are first to hear, the leaders are to hear and the people are to hear! Everyone in the land is responsible for taking note and listing to these words from the Lord! The elders are first because they bear the additional responsibility of ensuring that they lead the people to listen as well but the poetic parallelism makes it clear, this message is for EVERYONE!

They are also to mark the magnitude of the thing that is taking place. Has this ever happened is the basic thrust of the question and the rhetorical answer is of course, NO. Joel is leading toward this being a turn of events that have been brought about by God, the magnitude of this thing ought to make it so that the first part of this, the hearing and taking note of these things is hard not to do. This situation is part of the Hound of Heaven’s majestic instancy!

And finally, this thing is to be told. This was a common theme throughout the OT, what God had done, and surely we will see that this thing is a thing that God has done, these people were to tell these things to their children and to their children's children! This retelling is to span generational lines!

We often read things like this for example in Deuteronomy 4:

Deuteronomy 4:9 ESV

“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children—

This is the solemn duty of God’s people, we ought to always take note of that when we see it. We are to always be at the task of teaching our children just what it is that God has done, there is hardly a higher calling, and its for grandparents too!

Verse 4: The Locust

Now we read the event. (Read 4)

This is actually a place of difficulty for many commentators and scholars. We will see this as we continue on and honestly I have struggled a bit here to. The big question is, is Joel actually recounting an invasion of locust or is he using this imagery to describe the invasion of an army?

It seems natural to just take it at face value but especially when you take in the following chapter and some natural and historical context it does become a bit more unclear.

While locust hordes could be bad they were often not as detrimental as this would seem.

Some point out that these occurrences were actually rather common, this account seems to set it apart, “Has anything like this happened in your days” for an invasion of locust the answer could well have been yes

The next chapter seems to maybe imply that this horde came from the north and in actuality most locus hordes come from the south east while many of the armies that conquered and threatened Israel came from the north.

Contextually we know that at this time, the time of the prophets, depending on when Joel wrote there could have been a devastating army preparing to march through the land and it could be that the prophet is referencing this and using locusts as a picture of this. (I was actually on this side for much of my study)

However, there is, I believe, a better way to understand what Joel is doing. This will break the book down a bit for us, but what I believe happens over the course of the book is that we see here Joel referencing an actual event, a horde of locust that is currently devastating the land, we don't read about this at any place in the OT but we do know that famines and such happened and that these things did occur from time to time and it is likely that this current event, this judgement from God was what brought about Joel’s prophecy.

Then in the next chapter we will see reference, using some of the locust imagery, to an impending army. In chapter 2 we will see that the army is not in the land yet, the doom/judgement is impending! This experience of the Locust provides Joel the opportunity to point the people to a far more devastating destruction that is going to come about if they continue to press on in their rebellion and ignore the Hound of Heaven as He seeks to get their attention with this horde.

Then finally we will see both of these images of destruction, that actuality of the locust and the possibility of the army used to drive their view even farther to the great and awesome day of the Lord, the ultimate reason for them to turn back and be faithful.

This three stage view is the way that I believe best makes sense of the difficulties of trying to either totally eliminate the locust or of trying to make the entire book about the locust.

So that means that what we see here is a locust horde.

These people knew locust, they had 9 words for locust and many of them are used here! Much like our recent wind storm this is a once in a couple of generation locust horde.

There are examples of hordes that covered 2,000 square miles and blocked out the sun 1,200 miles out to sea with 120 million locust per square mile, that's a lot of bugs! One historian notes that there have been times when these insects have been driven out to sea and died and that they washed up on the shores of the red sea 3 or 4 feet deep!

These insects devastate the land, God has brought this about and is doing so as a means of being heard. A means of pursuing his people!

RESULTS: We see the wine cut off, because the vines are destroyed, the fig trees are in ruin (this would have been the sweet treat) the point is that the enjoyments and merriments of life that these people have turned to rather than God are being cut off! These people cant even worship in the temple because there will be no grain for the offerings. The fields are destroyed and the fruit trees languish.

We see at the end of verse 12, all the gladness dries up from the children of men! In other words, all avenues for counterfeit joys have been brought to ruin. These people, as are all people, were made to find their only and lasting joy in serving their creator, BUT, they have sought other lovers, other joys to borrow the language from other prophets, and God has now said NO, my people will not be permitted to embrace these counterfeit joys any longer!

RESPONSE: The first call to a response is in verse 5, AWAKE!

One commentators puts it this way:

Prophet of the Coming Day of the Lord: The Message of Joel Judgement Now Requires Response (1:5–14)

Wake up! Shake off your lethargy, ‘you drunkards’. That is what Joel calls you—you over-indulgent, self-centred people! You have become numb. You are so satiated with pleasure that you cannot see the obvious.

And not only this but they are to wail (5), Lament (8), mourn (9), and be ashamed (11). In other words God intends that these people be broken in their sin. God intends to break them to drive them to repentance! This is made most clear in the imagery of verse 8! Picture a young bride in her wedding dress now having to take it off and put on sack cloth to mourn the death of her recently married husband!

Sin causes us to be focused on ourselves, our own pursuit of pleasure in any way that we can find it, the Hound of Heaven though in His majestic insistancy will not let his children go on in this manner forever, He pursues them and that pursuit often looks like breaking them down so that they loose all joy, that they might, as we will see in the call to repentance that follows, return to Him and find their joy in Him!

Call to Repentance 13-20

As the chapter comes to a close we will see the first call to repentance and while that term is not used here we will see a parallel passage to this in the next chapter where we will read:

English Standard Version Chapter 2

Yet even now,” declares the LORD,

“return to me with all your heart,

Here O Palmer Robertson says:

Prophet of the Coming Day of the Lord: The Message of Joel A Call to the Ministers to Lead in Repentance

For though this first message of Joel may seem glum and depressing, it actually is opening the way to hope and restoration. For God’s call to repentance must mean that he stands willing and ready to receive those who will return to him.

We must not miss this, this locust horde has come upon them as a covenant curse, but it was meant to drive them to repentance. The footfalls continue steadily on in pursuit of His wayward people.

One of the things to note here is how God has made it impossible for His people to worship, it has come up before in verse 9 and here again in verse 13 we see that as a result of this destruction the people are not able to continue on in their worship, worship which was likely just a facade and not actual worship.

It is possible, for a time, even for the people of God, to do this, to put on a facade and pretend to worship but God will not let this stand for long, God will be worshiped with the whole heart or nothing and so it is that in this judgement he aims to break them and bring them back to full hearted worship and the first cries of this renewed worship are true cries of sorrow over the now in ability to worship rightly. I think that this finds great parallel in the way that God often works in our lives. For the true child of God we may be able to come to church and worship in pretext for a time but if there is some sin in our lives preventing true and full hearted worship of God He will seek to drive us from that often by making us unable to worship Him at all in what ever form that discipline might take, for these people it was the horde.

We see also here in this call to repentance that the day of the lord is near (15) we have seen this term before and I have said it refers not just to one day, though the anticipation of scripture is that there will be one final great and awful day of the Lord but this term simply refers to a day/period of time when God is going to visit his people in specific relation to his covenant, often with curses for breaking it but sometimes with blessings for faithfulness. Here it is curses.

It would benefit you to read through Deuteronomy 28 to be familiar with all of the covenant curses. You might be surprised at how many times the horde is mentioned!

We read it is near. “Near,” here does not mean near in time but rather that the state of the people is such that they are ripe for the full judgement of God for their covenant breaking, indeed they are seeing in this horde a fulfilment of part of the covenant curses! If they do not repent they may bring upon themselves the full vent of God’s covenant wrath.

We will dig more into this theme of the day of the Lord as it develops in the book but for now I believe that will suffice. Just be aware of its close connections to the covenant blessings and curses and maybe take some time to read that 28th chapter of Deuteronomy, if you do you wont be able to help but note the parallels between what you read there and what is here in Joel.

Joel’s Prayer

Lastly in this chapter we see Joel so moved by what he has seen that he himself cries out to God. This ought to be the state of all of God’s faithful ones in the midst of corporate unfaithfulness. We must not turn a blind eye toward it, we must not run from it and seek to hide ourselves away from it, we must cry out to God in the midst of it that God would, in the midst of these things bring about His promised redemption.

Closing

As we close today I want us to note a point of application that we will turn to again in this book. Because we are not told what sins these people were indulging in at the time there is a great generality to this book that allows us to apply it more broadly.

I know in my own life the insidious ability that I can have to either trivialize some sin, to make light of it, or to ignore or be blind to some sins that I cant see or just don't want to see. We all tend to do this from time to time but the cautionary tale of Joel is that these things, seemingly little though they may be will eventually wind up stealing our joy in Christ and bring us tot he point where we can not even worship him, where he may have to break us down in His pursuit of us to bring us back to Him in repentance.

Let us choose repentance first, let us press on in the daily duty of putting to death this body of the flesh, that we might not have to experience the horde descending on our lives because we have become to dull to see the true state of our hearts!