Ch.4 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry? So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death. Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

Jonah should surely have been mightily pleased with the outcome of his campaign of warning. Nineveh had taken notice. There was a dramatic and drastic change in their morality. So his God would certainly be pleased and would now show a marked approval of His prophet’s work.

But if God was pleased, Jonah wasn’t. In a record that is peppered with Hebrew intensives and hyperboles, the verse (4:1), which describes Jonah’s reaction, is one of the most vigorous.

The soliloquy, which follows probably, took place between himself and the angel of the Lord (there is one small hint in the text that this may have been so).

Jonah’s expostulation began with his quoting the words of the angel of the Lord to Moses at Sinai:

“Thou art a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil” (cp. Ex. 34: 6,7).

He went on: ‘I knew it would work out like this. When I was first told to go lo Nineveh, did I not say then that this would be the outcome? And now that I have done my duty, as I was made to do, my life is in peril and is even now a present misery — and all this as a reward for obedience and hard dedication to a difficult duty, forty days of it! And when I chose to abandon Nineveh to its fate, that horrific destiny came on me instead. As a prophet of the God of Israel, I am between the upper and nether millstone. I just can’t win.’

So self-righteous, self-pitying Jonah was angry. He felt that he had every right to be.

But why should he be angry at the sight of a violent greedy power-drunk city of Nineveh all at once showing respect for Jehovah and trembling at His word? Ought not a prophet of the Lord to rejoice at such a reformation?

In high dudgeon he went out of the city (on its east side because there was high ground, and on the west Calah abutted on the wide fast-flowing Tigris). There he built himself a booth, of the sort he had made in early days at Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles; and there he would discipline his impatient soul with patience. Perhaps, after all, his remonstration to the angel would bring thunderbolts from heaven, something comparable to Sodom’s grim fate and would “turn Nineveh to ashes, condemning it with an overthrow.” What a satisfaction it would be to himself and to his countrymen to see a politically-inflated Nineveh wiped out!

And as he sat there, waiting and expectant, and feeling the growing heat of the day more and more, he noted that already the stem of a fast-growing gourd plant, rather like a vine but with more foliage, was climbing up and over his booth. He marked with amazement the rapidity of its development. What a blessing this added shelter was to save him from the exhausting heat of a fierce mid-day sun.

All that day and all that night Jonah camped out there, comfortable and expectant. But still nothing happened.

Next day, the angel of the Lord went into action. A plague of caterpillars appeared on the gourd, as if from nowhere. These greedily devastated all that rich vegetation. Then, as the day wore on, a hot, hot wind blew up from the desert with vehement intensity. There was no escaping the fierce heat of scorching sun and blasting wind combined. It was worse than being in an oven.

And Jonah groaned aloud in his misery. Now he had an added reason for wishing himself dead.

Then, all at once, the angel of the Lord stood before him again, coolly rebuking his self-pity.

“Doest thou well to be angry, Jonah? Why feel so full of complaint at losing the cool shade of your gourd? Yet you are mighty indignant when that vast sprawling city, full of pathetic, ignorant, superstitious people, is saved from the fierce heat of Almighty wrath. Is that reasonable? When will you begin to allow that God, far wiser than you, knows what He is doing?”

Why did not Jonah want Nineveh to be saved? Why should he reckon his own life would be put in peril if his preaching were to save the city from destruction?

It had probably become a firm conviction in the northern tribes of Israel that, before long, the aggrandisement of Assyria would be sure to mean an irresistible threat to the survival of Israel. It were far better if Nineveh perish. On the other hand, a Nineveh converted to high respect for Jehovah would be sure to lead to friendship between Assyria and Judah, and thus Israel might find itself with strong enemies on both flanks. So, after preaching repentance in Nineveh, how could Jonah possibly show his face again in his own country? He was convinced that his dutiful obedience to the Lord’s behest had put him in an impossible position.

But think again, man! Your God does not enjoy destroying the creatures of His hand. And there in Nineveh are 120,000 people, and all of them spiritually no better than uninstructed children who cannot tell right hand from left. Indeed, are they any better than “much cattle”? Can’t you have pity, Jonah, as your God has pity?

Indeed, there is more to it than that, Jonah. Why don’t you learn from the parable of your own gourd? Just as it sheltered you, so the strength of Nineveh sheltered your people by holding in check the perennial threat from Syria. But your gourd withered away and became useless to you. Learn also from this part of the parable. This repentance is only a flash in the pan. It won’t last. Very soon, they will forget Jehovah and the judgment He can bring, and they will turn back to their violence and wickedness and to their false gods. And then both Israel and Judah will feel the blast of Assyrian heat. There will come an ambitious brutal monarch called Sennacherib who will resent the respect his forefathers were constrained to show to the God of Israel. He will challenge Jehovah with the might of his national god Ashur, and will bring against the tribes of Jacob the worst ferocity Assyria can muster. You have seen, Jonah, what Heaven’s compassion has done for Nineveh in your time. But live to the end of this century, and you will see that God is not mocked.

Already, in chapter5, it has been demonstrated from verses 5,6 that Jonah died in stormy seas, drowned in violent waters in which the strongest of swimmers would have had no chance of even a few minutes’ survival. And Jonah was given his life back again after being swallowed by the whale.

The tenses of Hebrew poetry are admittedly rather precarious to argue from. But the tones, as well as the tenses, of these opening verses of Jonah’s prayer here do suggest that in his last minutes of consciousness Jonah prayed to the God whose mandate he had so flagrantly flouted. And now, inside the whale, in his first moments of new life, that prayer was repeated. “Out of the belly of hell cried I, and Thou heardest my voice”. Even here the prophet is an unwitting witness to the truth of God, that is, against those who would teach a destiny of unquenchable hell-fire for those whom God rejects. For this hell of Jonah’s was a very cold and clammy sort of place.

The outstanding feature of Jonah’s prayer is the remarkable number of echoes of the Book of Psalms. In some instances exact phrases are quoted, but there are virtually no continuous quotations of verses (or of half-verses). Yet the entire prayer is dominated by the words and spirit of the temple hymnbook. This requires one fairly certain conclusion — that although Jonah lived in the far north, he was very familiar with the temple service; and this surely means that he had been very assiduous in his keeping of the Feasts of the Lord in spite of all the discouragement which would be met with from the northern separatists.

The following list is probably incomplete:

Two other very significant features of Jonah’s prayer call for special attention.

Verse 9 is remarkable: “I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that I have vowed”.

The obvious intention behind these words is a firm resolution to make good his earlier deficiencies: Lord, I will go to Nineveh and preach, little as I like the task!

Nor must the further implication be overlooked. Jonah, finding himself alive again, although still inside the great fish, now leaped to the splendid logical conclusion that God would give him a new life and new opportunity to witness as he had been bidden formerly.

The other remarkable thing to notice here is the evident allusion in Jeremiah’s prophecy to Jonah’s experience.

“Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me…he hath swallowed me up like a dragon (s.w. also translated: whale, sea monster), he hath filled his belly with my delicates, he hath cast me out” (51: 34).

The resemblance to Jonah’s experience is not to be missed. Why, it may well be asked, should Jeremiah harness it in his lament of the fate of Judah in his time? There can be no doubt that Jeremiah knew that that captivity would last only seventy years and that then Judah would be “vomited up” with a further undeserved opportunity to serve Jehovah. So it would seem that Jonah’s “death and resurrection” was intended by God to be an acted parable and prophecy of the nation’s experience at the hands of the men of Nineveh. Jonah had refused his commission, hoping thereby to save his people from the rising tide of Assyrian power. Indeed, what happened to him, enacted beforehand, was this very thing that he feared. In the later days of Sennacherib God’s people were drowned by the Assyrian flood, two hundred thousand of them (Taylor prism) were swallowed up in a mighty captivity (actually greater than Nebuchadnezzar’s) and were promptly vomited up by a miraculous deliverance. The details of this are worked out at length in “Isaiah”, H.A.W.

The obvious authority for seeing Jonah as a divinely-provided prototype of Jesus is, of course, in the words of Jesus himself: “As Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Mt. 12: 40).

Reasons have already been advanced for seeing both of these periods as meaning “on the third day”. Other details of like significance are these:

Gath-hepher, Jonah’s home, was in the immediate vicinity of Nazareth.

The name Jonah ( = Dove) suggests the Holy Spirit, and the beginning of a New Creation (Gen. 8: 8).

Jonah was willing to die to save his fellows from certain death.

He died, and revived in the tomb, and emerged to life again.

Thereafter he offered sacrifice in the presence of God.

Those whom he saved vowed (and fulfilled) a self-dedication to God.

There followed a mission to Gentiles, crowned with remarkable success.

Forty years, and Jerusalem shall be overthrown.

The details of the storm at sea were very closely recapitulated in the storm on Galilee (Mt. 8: 24-27).

1. Jesus led the way on board ship.
2. He slept whilst
3. A great tempest raged.
4. The sailors were terribly afraid.
5. There was an impassioned appeal for help.
6. A great calm and stillness followed.

All this seems to be intended as typical anticipation of the saving work of Christ, thus:

Corresponding to his sleep in the ship, there is his apparent absence from his disciples.

The final storm will be such as to rock the faith of all those who consider themselves to be his disciples.

When strong effort is made to ‘waken’, him, he will rebuke little faith.

And then with a word he will still the wind and the sea.

Other significant details in these incidents are:

1. “like to be broken” is, in LXX, s.w. as in Lk. 8: 23: in jeopardy.
2. “The sea wrought and was “tempestuous” (1:11) has the same word, in LXX, as Lk. 21: 25, “the sea and the waves roaring”
3. “Lay not upon us innocent blood” (1: 18) has the same phrase as was used about Jesus (Mt. 27: 4). A chapter in “Gospels”, H.A.W., p.747, shows how these words occur in a variety of prophetic and typical Scriptures.

Chapters

• Foreword
• 1) Nineveh
• 2) Jonah’s Commission (1:1-2)
• 3) Flight (1:3)
• 4) Helpless! (1:4-16)
• 5) Jonah’s fate (1:17-2:10)
• 6) Three Days and Three Nights (1:17)
• 7) Jonah’s Prayer (2:1-9)
• 8) Nineveh’s Repentance (ch. 3)
• 9) Jonah — Jesus
• 10) The Parable of the Gourd (ch. 4)

3:1,2 “For, behold, in those days, and at that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage

Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.”

The conjunction “For” (ki) requires that chapter 3 be not read as a separate prophecy. There must be no carving up of Joel into pieces. This prophecy is a unit. But here is a first-rate example of how Joel moves backwards and forwards between invasion, suffering, captivity, repentance, blessing and the glory of Messiah’s reign. Yet amidst it all, he never mentions Messiah once. Will somebody please elucidate this mystery? Is it that when he writes “the Lord” or assumes a use of the first person pronoun (as in 2:25; 3:1,2) it is to be understood that Messiah himself speaks or is spoken about?

Here, then, in v. 1,2 is a preparatory warning of how the final drama will work out. There is to be another captivity of Israel, making all others dwindle into obscurity with their unimportance. “I will bring again the captivity” means “I will bring back from captivity.” Joel is, of course, building on the experience of his people when, in his own day, they were stricken and apparently brought to irreparable ruin. By comparison with the thoroughness of Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar’s captivity was a boy-scout exercise. To appreciate the Nazi ruthlessness of those Assyrians, the reader is directed to the Taylor Prism and to “Isaiah” (HAW), Index on “Captivity”.

But the worst is still to come. No matter how blood-curdling the AD 70 fulfilment of Luke 21:24 may appear after a reading of Josephus, that will be a kindergarten story by comparison. For the real down-treading of Jerusalem is to endure through “the times of the Gentiles”! Those “times” (‘a time, times, and a half’) have not yet begun.

There have been some astonishing and rather unintelligent attempts to read the words “all nations” with strict literality, as though the entire United Nations will combine against Jerusalem, including Hottentots and Eskimos and Fiji Islanders sharing a common hostility against God’s people and God’s land.

Yet there are passages in plenty to show that “all nations” means ‘the nations surrounding Israel’. Here is one example. One consequence of the destruction of Sennacherib’s army was that “many brought gifts unto the Lord to Jerusalem, and presents to Hezekiah king of Judah, so that he was magnified in the sight of all nations from thenceforth” (2Chr.32: 23). Cp. also Is.29: 7,8; 17:12-14; I Ch.14: 17; 18:11; Ps. 118:10; Is. 14:26; 34:2,4; Jer. 27:7; Obad. 15. Samples of the nations concerned in this final vindication of Israel are given; Tyre and Zidon (Lebanon), Philistia (the Gaza strip), Egypt, and Edom (v.4, 19).

“The valley (emek) of Jehoshaphat” where this open outpouring of wrath is to take place is not identifiable. The Kidron defile is too narrow to be called an emek. The valley of Hinnom seems more likely, especially since, according to Isaiah 30:33, the Assyrian prototype of this great crisis was to be found in Tophet (lit: set up from yesterday—an allusion to Joel 3?). It is “the valley of the judgment of Jehovah, and He will accomplish judgment there” (“plead” is a poor translation, not to be adopted in any occurrence of this Hebrew Niphal).

The ground for this divine act of wrath is simply this: “they have scattered my people among the nations (the nations already mentioned in this verse 3)”.

3:3-6 “And they have cast lots for my people; and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink.

Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, 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;

Because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly pleasant things:

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.”

It is a terrible picture of the despite to be done to Israel when the time is ripe. Jerusalem will be captured, and half its population (the Jewish half, of course) will be hauled away to endure every horror of captivity that Arab cruelty can devise (Zech.14:2). There will be competition for possession of slaves (the Arab races have maintained slavery long after the rest of the world has given it up). The whore and the drug peddler will take their pay in this new currency. And many will be shipped away to other lands (Greece, Turkey, Egypt; v.4,6,19 and notes there).

It goes without saying that there will be a ruthless plundering of every Israeli resource worth plundering. In the prophet’s own day the personal pronouns used here had special force: “my silver…my gold…my goodly pleasant things…carried into your temples. ” Literally true, then! The sanctuary in Jerusalem was stripped of its finest treasures in a desperate but futile attempt to buy off the invader (2 Kgs. 18:16). And, whilst there is no holy building in Jerusalem today dedicated as it should be to the glory of Jehovah, it may be taken as certain that the magnificent Muslim mosque on Mount Zion (“temples” being taken as an intensive plural) will be jubilantly adorned with all the finest trophies captured from the Israelis.

The dominant motive for this ravaging of the land will be revenge — “a recompense”. The Arabs are people with long memories. The successive defeats inflicted in one Arab-Israeli war after another are laid up in unflagging Muslim memories. Today the world’s fourth super power. Soon the trampled remnant of a broken state!

Ezekiel 39:23-25 is a powerful passage, eloquent about the reasons for this final phase of Israel’s bitter bondage. The utter godlessness of a big proportion of Israel’s population and the gross perversion, by the “orthodox”, of the wholesome religious truth which Moses and the prophets bequeathed to the nation, are more than sufficient to explain why the incomplete Hitler holocaust must yet be resumed. Many’s the time that the question has been argued and debated in all Jewish communities: “Why, why this sustained suffering of God’s chosen people?” And the answer, never even considered, is: Because they are the chosen people who yet refuse to honour the God of their fathers.

Yet God does not forget His promises: “So I will seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day” (Ez. 34:12). The rest of Joel 3 goes on to tell how this will come about.

3:7,8 “Behold, I will raise them out of the place whither ye have sold them, and will return your recompense upon your own head:

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.”

This verse 8 is difficult, for its picture of a restored Judah turning itself into a nation of slave-traders at the behest of Jehovah is unseemly. But ought not this to be seen as the Almighty’s salvation to the mixed population problem in Israel? Wealth appropriated from oil-rich Arabs will easily pay for the transplanting of 800,000 hate-filled sons of Esau back into the land that God assigned to Esau (Gen. 36:6,8). It was this very solution, which was advocated by Professor Brodetsky (Leeds Univ.) in 1929. The cost, then: £11m.

3:9,10 “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:

Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.”

“Sanctify war” could hardly be more appropriate to the holy war, which the neareast Muslims have long since written into their BASF. And of course! For do they not proclaim Jerusalem to be their third holy city?

“Ploughshares into swords, pruning hooks into spears” seems to be a deliberate parody of Isaiah’s lovely description of the Messianic era, as who should say: ‘We’ll show them what we think of their Messiah and his kingdom of true religion (Is. 2: 4). So, let the frail weaklings among us become stout men of war! This is to be the day of triumph and vengeance!’

3:11-13 “Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord.

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.

Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the vats overflow; for their wickedness is great.”

The summons to the Gentile enemies to “come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat” reads strangely. Would not “come down into the valley… ” be more suitable? But if the earlier identification (see on v.2) is correct, each of the valleys “round about” Jerusalem (v.12c) is more than 2000 feet above sea-level. The ascent from the coastal plain involves a considerable climb.

By contrast, “thither cause Thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord” is an urgent prayer that the angels of the Lord of hosts will intervene on Israel’s behalf. (Compare Is. 13:3: “my sanctified ones. ..my mighty ones. . .them that rejoice in my highness”). The situation described by the two prophets is the same (see “Isaiah”, HAW, p.198). And the climax is the same also (Is. 37:36 and 3:16,17 here). The judgment on the army of Sennacherib in Tophet will be utterly outmatched by this fine display of divine concern for the holy city.

In the figure used, the complete process involves not only the severing of all the grapes in their huge luscious bunches, but also the vigorous treading of them in the winepress. But in Revelation 14:15-18, in a passage packed with allusions to Joel 3 there appear to be two sickles in use, two judgments described. Apparently the first is Messiah’s reaping of his corn harvest (Mt. 13: 30). The other is more obviously the vine harvest described in Joel 3—this is an angel executing a judgment of destruction on behalf of the Almighty.

This distinction in judgments is not evident in Joel 3; all the details there refer to the winepress. But it is remarkable that there the LXX version has a plural: “sickles” (v. 13).

This reading must be right, for verse 14 goes on to make dramatic declaration of a “day of decision”—and the primary meaning of this word is “threshing” (see Is. 28:22,27; 41:15; Micah 4:13 would seem to be a very close parallel). But a difficulty still remains: Joel certainly speaks of both vintage and harvest threshing, but apparently with reference to the same crisis.

3:14,15 “Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.

The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.”

Perhaps putting the effect for the cause, LXX reads here: “Noises resound in the valley of judgment (or, vengeance)”. As already intimated in comment, emek rather suggests a level place (v.2), perhaps in this instance the temple area of Zion, which was originally a threshing floor (2 Sam. 24: 18). And “this day of the Lord is near” makes an ominous play on words, suggesting the word for cherub—the chariot of the Lord going into action.

At this point the repeated mention of “sun, moon, and stars” losing their “shining” (Heb. nogah) is highly appropriate to the parlous state in which Israel finds itself at this time, for the expression plainly implies that any sign of divine glory has completely disappeared from Israel. It is also highly inappropriate to the ruling powers of the world and the ecclesiastical powers and sundry other vaguely indeterminate lesser lights. What has Joel got to do with them? This traditional misinterpretation sent abroad in the 1 8th century by a French parson should have been jettisoned long ago. Apparently in his later years Dr. Thomas came to recognize the Israelitish reference of this figure, especially in Joel (Eureka 3.612).

3:16 “The Lord also shall roar our of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.”

Here comes the only reference in Joel to the Messiah, and that in an indirect fashion, for how will God roar out of Zion except through the Lion of Judah (Rev. 5:5). This will be Messiah’s first manifestation when the Glory of the Lord is seen returning to Jerusalem from the mount of Olives, where he ascended to heaven (Ez. 43:1,2).

Joel borrows this highly dramatic declaration from Amos 1:2, the introduction to the peremptory sequence of judgments which fill chapter 1,2 there. But it would be a serious error to attempt to see those ten edicts of punishment as a chronological sequence, for certainly the last two come first, and the others enumerate the “all nations” of Joel 3:2.

The prototype of this destruction by “the voice of the Lord” was certainly the unique destruction meted out to the Assyrian blasphemer at the gates of Jerusalem. That same Scripture will have its greater fulfilment along with Joel 3.

The earthquake foretold here must surely be understood symbolically, for how is it possible for a quake on earth to affect heaven in any way whatever? The words of Jesus supply a clue. In a prophecy of the same crisis, he added: “for the powers of heaven shall be shaken” (Lk. 21:26). Here the key word is one, which very commonly refers to some exercise of Holy Spirit power. In some places, even more directly, it means angels. Thus the Lord was speaking of such a culmination of evil in the world that the angels, God’s ministers, will be near to losing control of the situation! So also here: “the heavens (angels) and the Land shall shake.”

Or, it may be that a different kind of Bible idiom is to be recognized here. As already mentioned an earthquake has one of two associations: (a) the wrath of God (as in Ps. 18:7); (b) the removing of an old disreputable system (Heb. 12:26,27). Generations later, Haggai picked up Joel’s language “Yet once (i.e. uniquely) it is a little while (a mysterious phrase) and I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations (Joel 3: 2) and the desire of all nations (this implies a gospel preached to the Gentiles) shall come” (Hag. 2:6,7). It is fairly evident that the use of those words in Hebrews 10:37; 12:26,27 provides another example of the 1st century church’s expectation of an early coming of the Messiah. The “shaking” certainly happened in AD 70 with its shattering of the Mosaic system —but no Messianic kingdom. Here is another passage needing to be explained (and not juggled with). Revelation 16:18 appears to fall into the same category.

It will be at a time when there seems to be nothing left to salvage from the wreck of the state of Israel (as happened in AD 70), that God’s rescue operation will startle the world. “The Lord (note the Covenant Name here) will be the hope of his people.” When Paul declared with such emphatic witness: “For the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain” he was looking back to the great Promise made to Jacob of a multitudinous seed bringing blessing on all nations (Gen.28: 13,14). How fitting it will be that at the very time when the national flame appears to be on the verge of extinction, Messiah should be manifest imparting a new and quite unquenchable vigour to the Hope which Israel itself has not believed for centuries.

3:17 “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. “

The primary intention behind this Messianic intervention is not to rebuke the Gentiles or to castigate the pride of Israel’s enemies but to re-assert in plain and utterly undeniable fashion to His own people that God is, and that He is the God of Israel. To be sure, the Gentiles also—and especially the Arab enemies (Ps. 83:18; Ez. 35:15; see contexts)—will also be made to understand that Jehovah and not Allah is Lord of all.

And of course He will dwell in Zion, His holy mountain. Where else? Jerusalem truly will become a holy city, not after the fashion of Mecca, nor according to the pattern of the Wailing Wall (whilst the rest of the city is given over to sight-seeing and profit-making), nor after the manner of the first century, Jerusalem with its genius for making God angry. Instead, a true holiness, far out-matching even the best days of David or Solomon or Hezekiah. Today Jews have no rights in what was the temple area. Instead, the “strangers” who at present forbid their entry and who defile that holy site with their false religion shall “pass through her no more” (cp. Zech. 14:20,21).

3:18 “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.”

The transformation just promised will extend far beyond the walls of Jerusalem. And the language of fertility and blessing is such as can hardly be taken literally, so lavish are its terms. Even for a Year of Jubilee, which is the evident basis of the picture presented here, there is unmistakable hyperbole. Hezekiah’s people witnessed a miraculous Jubilee after the Assyrian army was swept away (see the copious Index refs. to “Jubilee” in “Isaiah”, HAW), but this, like the language of Isaiah in so many places far surpasses the literality of those God-blessed years.

The water flowing from the House of the Lord has been identified with the amazing river of water of life described in Ezekiel 47. However, there are difficulties in the way of this equation, if only because several details in Ezekiel seem to require a figurative interpretation there; so also with Rev. 22:1. Perhaps Zechariah 14:8 provide a better parallel, but even that is not without its difficulty.

The valley of Shittim (acacia trees) watered by the stream is not readily identifiable. From the geography of the Holy Land as it is at present the Kidron wadi is most likely; but it is difficult to be sure. Perhaps this mention of Shittim and of a fountain from the House of the Lord are both intended, along with v.21 here, to make reminder that it was when Israel were right on the doorstep of their inheritance that they committed their most defiling sin (Num. 25: 1). The contemporary allusion to this in Micah 6:5 (where “from Shittim to Gilgal” is surely symbolic) supports the idea that the unexpected inclusion here of “Shittim” is intended to call that early disreputable episode to mind. Israel today is as much tainted with western decay of the Baal-peor character, as it was when at its worst in Old Testament times. This is one of the most shameful symptoms of modern deterioration from the early ideals of Zionism. However, it is a comfort that Joel seems to be intimating that this defilement, from which Israel needs to be cleansed, is itself a further sign of the nearness of the Messianic kingdom. After Shittim came Gilgal and the rolling away of reproach.

3:19 “Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the violence against the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land.”

This blunt pronouncement of judgment against Arab enemies, coming in here, is a plain indication that when these always-hostile neighbours overrun Israel, it will be the last and worst of Israel’s hardships. One Scripture after another makes this evident.

The last verse of Deuteronomy 28, the only verse in that chapter not yet fulfilled, tells of a mass transportation of Jews into Egypt (not possible by ships in AD 70). There are to be five cities in Egypt speaking the language of Canaan (Is. 19: 18-20)— encampments of slave labour? When these cry unto the Lord (a phenomenon not known in modern Israel thus far), He will send them their Messiah.

Edom has ever been the name of the Arab haters of Israel. Last Day prophecies speak of this hostility coming to its climax: Obadiah 19,20; Isaiah 34:5,6,8; Ezekiel 35; 36:1-5; Psalm 83:1-8.

But some will be disposed to argue for a Russian large-scale invasion of Palestine as the phenomenon, which will eclipse all others in its military power and determination to overthrow modern Israel.

Not so! For—as is argued in “Five Minutes to Twelve”, HAW, and other prophetic studies, there is no indication at all in Scripture that such an intention will reach achievement. Furthermore, all the evidence available points to the Gog-Magog attack taking place after, and not before, the coming of Messiah.

The solid witness of a block of other prophecies makes plain that Joel 3:19 does not stand alone in its witness to the ultimate triumph of Israel. “The elder shall serve the younger”. This list of prophecies has not yet found fulfilment, but it certainly will: Isaiah 11:14,15; 63:1-5; Ezekiel 35; 36:5; Obadiah 10,15; Numbers 24:17,18.

3:20,21 “But Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed: for the Lord dwelleth in Zion.”

The contrast here with what has just preceded is vivid and powerful. The reader who misses it must surely be reading with his eyes shut or his mind wandering. And the emphatic language: “for ever…from generation to generation” reduces to foolishness the modernist attempt to make Joel’s message into a commentary on his own day—a pious prophet’s pipe-dream of what (so he hoped) might yet emerge from the disastrous events taking place around him.

Just as king Hezekiah provided an awe-inspiring type of the Messiah, in suffering and in glory, so also the events of that era (Joel’s own) are to be read as a striking and unbelievably accurate foreshadowing of the Last Days. At last a repentant and reformed Judah and Jerusalem will come into their own.

What is the cleansing of blood not hitherto cleansed, which rounds off this prophecy? Do the words apply to Israel or to their enemies? Copious usage of this form of the Hebrew verb naqah makes clear that the idea is that of declaring innocent or blameless. A short but violent Arab oppression will seem to declare to the world that the sins of Jewry are still held against them by their God. But a sensational Messianic deliverance, following immediately on the penitence of Jehovah’s “seven thousand” will be sufficient before God to bring an end to the pogrom (Hebrew for “corpse of the People”) of many centuries. They will suddenly find themselves declared blameless, and instead of guilt there will be a clean sheet, a robe of righteousness and loving kindness; they will then know themselves to be in truth “beloved for their fathers’ sakes”. And now, after seemingly endless years of estrangement, “Jehovah (the Covenant Name!) dwelleth in Zion”. Ezekiel copied this matchless conclusion for his own unique message: “Jehovah Shammah: the Lord is gone thither”.

One last problem for those who like to ponder such things: Why the switch from “1” (first person) to “the Lord” (third person)? The present writer’s insight (as well as his sight) has given out.

Of the shorter books of the Old Testament there is none to overpass the Book of Jonah in interest. But probably Jonah — the book and the man — is also unique in the number of unanswered questions, which it provokes in the mind of a thoughtful reader. My own prejudice is in favour of a straight verse-by-verse exposition of the text. But certain aspects of Jonah’s story have lured me, now and then, into an exercise of imagination. The discriminating reader of this study will have little difficulty in distinguishing between the terra firma of Bible supported conclusions and the places where “probably” has to give way to “possibly, maybe, perhaps.” And thus he may learn to append similar undogmatic qualifying phrases to some of his own efforts to fill in the breaks in this fascinating story.

2:1,2 “Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand;

A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.”

There is a temptation to associate this trumpet blast with the summons in 1:14 and 2:12 to a Day of Atonement observance. But the context here suggests rather a call to military alertness (Num. 10:9). It is a crisis such as the Land has never known: “an alarm in my holy mountain”, to sound throughout the city.

It is the unique “day of the Lord”, a unique concentration of calamity and judgment; and it is “nigh at hand”. Such a warning would impart an element of absurdity to the message if its relevance was only to the Last Day, more than 2500 years after Joel’s own time. A proximate reference is demanded; and the appropriateness of the prophecy to the Assyrian invasion has already been intimated.

But how necessary it is to note also that the LXX phrase is identical with the Greek of James 5:8: “The coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” “Darkness… gloominess…clouds…thick darkness…” presents an oppressive picture to the mind, and also a problem: Should these words be read figuratively or literally? Always, where possible, the interpreter should incline to the literal. And it is a striking fact that with Egypt’s Passover plague of darkness (just before deliverance; Ex. 10:22,23) and the day of Christ’s crucifixion (Mt. 27:45) as prototypes, the repetition in Last Day prophecies should prepare the mind for an experience of this sort, not necessarily world-wide, but certainly in Israel, the Land which this prophecy is specially about (“Gospels”, HAW, p.780).

“As the morning spread upon the mountains” provides a simile not readily comprehended. But if the prefix k- is read as an elision for ki- (when), there is reinforcement for the frightening horror of the picture: at the very time when the brightness of the sun should be bursting forth over the summit of the Mount of Olives, a deep impenetrable darkness rolls in instead. Such passages as Mal.4; Zech. 14:6,7 should take the mind of the reader further to the idea of a dramatic display of divine displeasure—against whom?

“A great people and a strong”. Here at any rate is no figure of speech. In the light of Ex. 10:14, the phrase that follows rules out reference to an invasion of literal locusts.

2:3 “A fire devoureth before them, and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.”

Fire and flame fill the landscape again (1:19,20). A fertility comparable to Eden, the bequest of the prosperity years of king Uzziah (2 Chr. 26:10), is transformed to a sickening apparently irremediable desolation, as happened in the time of Abraham when that Garden of Eden was also the moral cess-pit of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 13:10); and did not Jesus say: “As it was in the days of Lot…so shall it be”? However, there is comfort in other prophetic promises that this blitz is not past remedy: Is. 11:8,9, and especially Ez. 36:35 which certainly describes a divine rescue operation after a gloating conquest by Arabs (v.4,5: Idumea).

The implacable destruction will be specially directed against the Israeli inhabitants: “Yea, and no man (Heb. masculine) shall escape them.”

2:4,5,7-9 “The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run.

Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array.

They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks:

Neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk every one in his path: and when they fall upon the sword, they shall not be wounded.

They shall run to and fro in the city, they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief.”

The vividness of this description has few equals in the Old Testament. And without it, where would Revelation 9 be? But there can be no manner of doubt that, in the primary meaning, it is the invading army of Assyrians, which is meant. The parallel passages in Is. 33:3 and Nahum 3:15,17, this last passage especially, describes the futility of Assyria’s “locust” army to save their splendid Nineveh from destruction by Babylon’s Nabopolassar.

The language, too, has such a military flavour—chariots, horses, fire, discipline, a strong people, mighty men. And from the point of view of helpless Judah, the phrasing is not a whit too strong, especially when the frightening details in the British Museum of the Assyrian assault on Lachish are contemplated.

But what of the Last Days? A couple of generations ago it was confidently believed that these words must depict immortalised saints going forth against Messiah’s enemies. Attractive—indeed, fascinating—as this might be, the context is all against it. See also note on v. 11. These invincible warriors are the enemies of Israel in that nation’s last and worst travail. This is a desolating ocean tide—the last of three horrific overturnings—which will appear to make Israel’s continuance a sheer impossibility. “Our bones are dried; our hope (the hope of Israel) is lost.” What does the future hold?

2:6 “Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness.”

How well these words describe a nation reduced to utter hopelessness, as of course it is God’s intention that they shall be, so that with every vestige of their incomparable self-reliance gone they will be driven to respond to the prophet’s appeal for repentance: “Therefore…” (v.12).

2:10 “The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining:”

All this is essentially figurative. See “Bible Studies”, HAW, ch. 6.01, on this. It is the total eclipse of Israel. The word for “shining” is especially appropriate to the symbolism here, for in virtually all its occurrences nogah carries an allusion to the glory of God. Even in its 20th century godlessness, Zionism has been a wonderful witness to God at work. Yet even here, there may be a certain element of literalness. If the suggestion regarding darkness (v.2, note) can stand, it should perhaps be linked with this prophecy of gloom.

There is room also for the earthquake mentioned here to be both literal and figurative. (cp. Mt. 27:51). In other places earthquake is a token of (a) the wrath of God; e.g. Ps. 18:7. (b) the end of a worthless dispensation; e.g. Heb. 12:27. Both ideas are appropriate to the situation described here. The modern state of Israel, reared entirely on human effort and cleverness and with scarcely a vestige of faith in Jehovah (Dt. 32:20) must be destroyed. For Israel was chosen to glorify God by their faith in Him and to be a missionary nation to all the Gentiles (Ex. 19:6); and modern Israel is the quintessence of the very opposite of these. So Jehovah does well to be angry.

Yet, has God cast away His people whom He foreknew? God forbid. So Joel goes on to show how a new dispensation will be inaugurated with repentance in Israel.

2:11 “And the Lord shall utter his voice before his army: for his camp is very great: for he is strong that executeth his word: for the day of the Lord is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?”

The wording tempts the reader to see here a prophecy of Messiah leading an army either of angels or of glorified saints into battle against the enemies of His people.

But how can this be reconciled with the immediate context or the theme of these two chapters? But there is also the idiomatic usage (Is. 8:7; 10:5,6; Mt. 22:7) by which the armies of the nations are spoken of as the hosts of the Lord when they are sent into action on His behalf. Verse 25 is quite decisive on this point. The words there could hardly be more explicit. This view harmonizes perfectly with the rest of this part of the prophecy. In this century the Almighty has worked hard to turn His wayward people into right ways; yet even the supreme effort of a Hitler holocaust is rationalised by them so that they are utterly incapable of hearing God uttering His voice before His army of invincible Germans, and, more recently, among oil-rich hate-filled Arabs intent on slaying their brother Jacob. The Assyrians were a worthy prototype of all this.

When it comes, startling the world and most of all a heedless New Israel, it will be a “day of the Lord, great and very terrible”, such as has never been known (v.2). What an impression this grim picture was to make on later prophets (Malachi quotes this verse 4:5; 3:2; and also the Lord Jesus in his Apocalypse (6:17).

And who will be able to stand? Only those who heed the appeal of the next verse.

2:12-14 “Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:

And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.

Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him; even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the Lord your God?”

Here, with a far more emphatic introduction than comes through in the AV translation, is the only solution to Israel’s woes and troubles: Repentance! It is doubtful whether any exhortation to a new life is to be found in the Bible to compare with this sustained and detailed pleading. But for long long centuries God’s people have been impervious to these appeals of heaven. Yet repentance—note the pile up of phrases—is the only thing that can save Israel from the unparalleled disaster which today appears threateningly on the horizon.

It is an aspect of the teaching of God’s Word concerning Israel, which the New Israel just as stubbornly refuses to recognize, that except there be repentance first even the omnipotence of an Almighty God cannot save the people of His choice. It is not possible to print out in full the entire list of Scriptures about this. Instead, the bald references are given. If any reader doubts the Bible’s intensity of emphasis is really as strong as all that, let him work his way patiently through the subjoined catalogue. He will then ask himself, and his fellows, in amazement why such a vital theme has gone so much ignored for so long a time. Is it because earlier teachers left it alone, and if they didn’t see it, it can’t have been there? Or is it because even for those who are spiritually streets ahead of natural Israel repentance is an unpopular topic?

In the face of this sustained remonstration, is it possible to believe that the Second Coming of the Lord will/can take place except the people of God demand it by their holy way of life and godliness? (2 Pet. 3:11,12).

The character of the repentance called for by the prophet Joel is spelled out very precisely, both as to disposition and the practical godliness summed up in the religious routine appropriate to his own day: “meal offering and drink offering unto the Lord.” In practice, in this 20th century, what sort of repentance does Jehovah demand from His Israelis? One thing, for certain: an avowal of faith in Jesus as the Messiah. Let a Jew of today make that initial big step, and Messiah Jesus will see to the rest in due course. The guarantee for this, says Joel, is the character of the God of Israel which he quotes with gusto from Jehovah’s own declaration to Moses: “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness” (Ex. 34:6). This character of God had been exhibited in His longsuffering extended to brutal grasping Assyrians in the days of Jonah (3: 5-10; 4:11); and, thanks to the godly zeal of Hezekiah, was exhibited by the chosen people, undeserving, in Joel’s own day (see, by all means, 2 Chron. 30:6-9).

Regarding the several thousand Messianic Jews now dotted around the Land of Israel in small unimpressive groups, it has to be confessed that many—most—are but inadequately informed as to Bible Truth about Jesus. Nevertheless it may be confidently assumed that One who is still “gracious and merciful” will not look severely on a Jew, who after two thousand stony-hearted years, brings himself to swim against his own people’s strong tide of prejudice openly declaring that “Jesus is Lord”, to the glory of God the Father.

Happily, neither Joel nor any other inspired writer goes so far as to assert that Messiah will come to the rescue of his nation only when all Israel is repentant. If Jehovah treasured seven thousand in the days of Elijah, is He not likely to be content with even fewer in the 3~/: year ministry of Elijah’s great successor (Mal. 4:6)?

2:15-17 “Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly: Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts; let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet. Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God?”

The summons to war (v.1) is now repeated as a call to observe with a new unparalleled sincerity the Day of Atonement that has hitherto left Israel’s sins unforgiven. Phrase after phrase is significant:

• Blow the trumpet in Zion (Lev. 23:24)
• Sanctify a fast (Lev. 16:29)
• Call a solemn assembly (Lev. 23:27)
• Sanctify the congregation
• Assemble the elders
• Let the priests…weep between the porch and the altar

Also, “Leave a blessing behind him” (v. 14) can hardly mean other than Num. 6:23ff. The Glory of the Lord has shone forth and then withdrawn, leaving behind him a high priest emerging from the sanctuary to convey to his people an assurance of sins forgiven and of heavenly protection.

The point, already made, needs to be repeated that in a Last Day application of these words literality is not to be looked for. It is the expression of the essential idea behind the Old Testament practice, which God looks for in His ancient people. If the r world has to wait for a new temple in Jerusalem with a renewal of Levitical sacrifices and—most important of all—a nation giving itself in wholehearted repentance, then it will wait for ever. Israel will be finally and permanently destroyed long before the first sign of such development. Even to expect a surge of repentance sweeping through the whole of Jewry before Messiah’s coming is in itself cloud cuckoo land — apart from the powerful influences of an irresistible Arab invasion of Israel and the advent of an Elijah prophet as imperative as John the Baptist. And even then, as in ancient days, the loving kindness of a God who fulfils His Promises will surely be moved to action by the prayers of seven thousand who have kept themselves from the nation’s apostasy. Is it possible to believe that when this faithful remnant and the New Israel worldwide plead (as never before!): “Spare thy people, O Lord”, that the heavens will be as brass?

That Holy Land, soon to be overrun and despoiled, cannot be relinquished in that pathetic condition in the hands of any enemy. The gloating of the victors: “Even the ancient high places are ours in possession” (Ez. 35:12; 36:2) cannot endure for long. The Land is God’s heritage (v.17), the inheritance long ago designed for Abraham and his seed. And when the campaign becomes a triumphant religious campaign—Allah versus Israel’s Jehovah—and there is gloating mockery of an Israel trodden into the dust: “Where is their God?” (precisely as Rabshakeh jeered in Joel’s own day), then will it be possible for God to hold His peace any longer? Especially when there is the pleading added of one greater even than Moses (Ex. 32:11,12) or Hezekiah (2 Chr. 30:20; Isa. 37:1).

2:18-20 “Then will the Lord be jealous for his land, and pity his people.

Yes, the Lord will answer and say unto his people, Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and ye shall be satisfied therewith; and I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen:

But I will remove far off from you the northern army, and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shad come up, and his ill savour shad come up, because he hath done great things.”

Here are the promised fruits of repentance. The language (v.19) is that of a Year of Jubilee, such as was promised to Hezekiah (Is. 37:30,31)—the windows of heaven opened in blessing and fruitfulness, transforming the dereliction of a ravaged land into an incredible fertility.

And the further explicit promise that “I will no more make you a reproach among the Gentiles” seems to anticipate the rich assurance of Ezekiel 36: 12- 15 (“no more” 6 times repeated: Hebrew).

The “northern army” is definitely not a swarm of locusts (when did locusts ever invade Israel from the north?), probably not a horde of Russians (for in Ezekiel 38 the devastation so vividly described in this chapter is not tolerated), but more likely a strongly-militarised Syria (or Iraq) moving at the behest of a second Saladin (“the sender forth of judgment”) cp. 3:9mg, 14mg).

The two seas in this prophecy can hardly be other than the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean (Rev. 16:3?)

2:21,22 “Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the Lord will do great things. Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field: for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth her fruit, the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength.”

What splendid imperatives! “Fear not…Be not afraid”…and (in v.23) “Be glad. ” They are made all the more heart-warming by the designed contrast with the preceding pictures of brutal invasion and the ruthless resolve to reduce a Land flowing with milk and honey to the barrenness of a wilderness. The campaign of destruction may succeed, but the rapidity of its recovery will be even more marvellous. Just as, in Hezekiah’s time, the utter desolation of the Land by the Assyrians was followed in a year, two years, by unexampled fruitfulness and plenty, so also in Jacob’s last unendurable “time of trouble” when all seems lost, “the Lord will do great things.” So speedily will the Land recover under its Messiah as to guarantee the aggressive covetousness of a vodka-soaked empire builder (Ez. 38). Even then, “be not afraid,” O Israel!

2:23 “Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.”

This exhortation and promise are directed to “the children of Zion,” those in the nation who already have their highest aspirations centred in God and His holy temple. It is these who will “rejoice in the Lord” and in His gracious blessings, especially the good rain which, coming in abundance at the right time, guarantees rich growth and fecundity, so that the farmer has little to do but rub his hands with deep satisfaction over a crop that cannot fail.

In a good season the climate of Israel is blessed with two periods of abundant rain —the early rains in October, the time of the sowing of barley and wheat, and the latter rains not long before Passover, filling out the ripening ears of corn. Israel, saved from its enemies, will have these blessings as never before.

But neatly the prophet turns his phrase so that the Hebrew text may read not only as “the autumn rains in (the time of) righteousness” (i.e. in the month of the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles), but also—quite differently—”a teacher of righteousness” (as AVm). The reference to Messiah is not to be missed. He comes first as a prophet of the Lord, calling the nation to godliness (the birth of Jesus was at Tabernacles), he comes again with national salvation at Passover “in the first month”. (On this latter detail, see “Passover” HAW, ch.14).

2:24-27 “And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.

And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed.

And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God, and none else: and my people shall never be ashamed.”

The prophets have some stirring pictures of the Messianic age, contrasting it with the shame and degradation which God’s people have endured and have yet to endure; but is there any paragraph of that kind which excels in its moving quality Joel’s rich promise here?

Phrase after phrase depicts the unequalled blessedness of this Land, which is God’s heritage. It is the language of Jubilee still—breathtaking fruitfulness and plenty and all of it called forth not by the dedicated effort and agricultural skill of Zionists sweating away to fulfil a political ideal, but by the gracious word of a Creator God who in the beginning said: “Let this be” and it was.

The inroads of a locust horde of Arabs, who will one day take a schoolboy hooligan delight in destruction not for its own sake but because it is Jewish, will be ended, never to be renewed. Such judgments of Jehovah will never be necessary again, for now at least what the people promised to be, when gathered in the presence of the Glory of the Lord, they will really fulfil. They will “praise the Name of the Lord”, the graciousness of His loving kindness to them, His bounteous provision, and the incredible marvel of the fulfilment of all His Promises at the very time when the Hope of Israel seemed to have become the drivelling of a lunatic.

With the most emphatic repetition possible, Joel assures these “children in whom (now) there is no faith” that they, God’s people, “shall never be ashamed.”

2:28,29 “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.”

Here the word “afterward” seems to require a fulfilment of this gracious promise only when there is a restored paradise in the Holy Land. But this can hardly be insisted on because of the non-sequential way in which Joel writes (note, for example, how ch.3 takes the reader back to the time of invasion and then adds snapshots of the Messianic Kingdom and of Gentile judgment).

One thing, however, seems plain and clear: that this gracious outpouring of Holy Spirit inspiration will take place amongst the people of Israel, and not in far-flung countries of the Gentiles, as modern pentecostals want to read it. The entire prophesy hitherto, and especially verse 32 (and Acts 2:16-18) make this conclusion inescapable.

Nor can a dialectic emphasis on “all flesh” impede this conclusion. Those who read this as meaning all nations have missed the point of the designed allusion, in contrast, to Exodus 30:22ff, which specifically required that the holy anointing oil was to be used only in the consecration of the high priest. Instead, in the happy days to come this high privilege will be extended to include the repentant people of Israel of all classes—old and young, of both sexes too.

It may be that this comprehensive language (v.28) supplies the clue to the meaning of Malachi’s prophecy that through the ministry of an Elijah prophet in the last days “the hearts of the fathers (will be turned) to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers” (4:6); for, earlier, Malachi has already twice quoted from Joel.

The mention of “servants and handmaids” should perhaps be taken to refer to the inclusion of Gentiles who have come to be willing servants of the God of Israel, and sharing the Hope of Israel; Is. 60:3ff; Zech. 8:23; Mt. 21:43; Gal. 3:29; Rev. 21:24. (This could hardly be true of pentecostals, for even the best-informed among them appear to be strangely inadequate in their grasp of Jehovah’s Israelitish purpose).

There is a remarkable similarity of idea in Isaiah 44:3, to Joel’s words here. Did Isaiah lean on Joel, or Joel expand what he found in Isaiah? The prophets of the Old Testament were great borrowers and collaborators. And similarly one is tempted to believe that Paul had his eye on Joel when he wrote Galatians 3:28.

There remains the double problem presented by Peter’s quotation of this Scripture in Acts 2:16-20: (a) Why did Peter turn “afterward” into “in the last days”? (b) Why did he apparently apply to his own time what palpably was written about the end time?

Presumably, it was the marked similarity of the Hebrew words for “afterward” and “the last (days)” which suggested Peter’s alteration in order to emphasize, from the context, that he was quoting a Last Day prophecy.

But Peter’s Pentecost speech was not “in the last days”! The fact must be faced that this is only one of more than a score of places where New Testament writers expressed a belief in an early Second Coming; they certainly thought that the Last Days were upon them. And they were inspired. And they were wrong! This jumbo size problem has been examined and explained in copious detail in “Revelation”, HAW, p.259ff.

2:30,31 “And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.

The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.”

There may be passages, which use language of this kind in a palpably figurative fashion (e.g. Jer. 31:35,36; Gen. 37:9,10); but somehow this seems different. In spite of the sensational character of the language it is by no means easy to read it figuratively. And the literal sense is frightening. It will be, in truth, a “great and terrible day of the Lord” (cp. Mal, 4:5).

“Pillars of smoke” is, literally, “palm trees of smoke.” The phrase invites comparison with a nuclear mushroom cloud. And, elsewhere in Scripture, palm trees usually have association with Gentiles, by contrast with the fig or vine as symbols of Jewry (“Bible Studies”, HAW, ch.6.03).

Yet elsewhere-dramatic language like this about sun, moon and stars clamours for a figurative interpretation with reference to Israel. (See on 2:2; and also “Bible Studies”, HAW, ch.6.01).

So the student, faced with a challenging crux interpretum of this kind, may find that he has to learn to come down on both sides of the fence at once, that is, if he is an acrobat.

If Peter’s quotation of these words in Acts 2 is to be taken seriously with reference to the first century, a symbolic anticipation of the horrors of the Roman war (AD 67-70; 3 ½ years) fits the circumstances readily enough. But even at that time there were sensational appearances in and round Jerusalem providing fairly appropriate literal fulfilment also (“Gospels”, HAW, p.603).

Is it possible, then, that a prophecy such as this is intended to have both double and dual fulfilment? The present commentator dares not offer a dogmatic answer.

2:32 “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and m the remnant whom the Lord shall call.”

In that “great and terrible day of the Lord” there is to be “escape” (Heb.) for those on whom the name of Jehovah is called. It is remarkable that this not uncommon Hebrew idiom (e.g., Gk. of Acts 22:16; Jas. 2:7; Rev. 14:1) is not preserved here in the Hebrew text. Yet the LXX text has it (Gk.MV) and also Acts 2:21. So it seems that “call the name of the Lord upon himself” is the idea here. Is this another of the not infrequent occasions when the New Testament improves on the Hebrew of the Old Testament Received Text? This idea of the Name of the Lord being named or called upon those who are part of His faithful remnant is a very lovely one.

For “deliverance” LXX has “them that are saved”—fully saved (with an emphatic prefix in the Greek verb). And, even more impressively LXX continues: “and the preachers of the gospel whom the Lord shall call (to Himself)”.

There is also a significant phrase in the middle of this verse, which very easily goes overlooked: “as the Lord hath said”. The implication is that the very idea expressed in this verse has already been made familiar to Joel either by an earlier revelation of which nothing is known, or—much more likely—through his acquaintance with some earlier prophecy; almost certainly the latter, in which case there is a choice between Obadiah 17 and Isaiah 37:32, both of which were roughly contemporary with Joel. It is another example of the prophets being glad to have reinforcement of their message from the writings of other inspired Scripture. (For outstanding material on this matter see “Of whom the world was not worthy”, HAW, ch.44).

The supreme achievement of our fathers in prophetic study was their confident expectation that before long there could be a large-scale return of Jews to the Land. The first sign of this came thirty years after the completion of Eureka, but another thirty or forty years were to pass before the movement really got going.

The fact of the Return is now so familiar that our younger generation are incapable of getting excited about it. Yet a careful combing through those heartening prophecies in Jeremiah — such a lot of them — can be guaranteed to quicken the pulse-rate of anyone who will shrug off his laziness and go painstakingly through them all.

On that foundation it is possible to build up a more detailed prophetic picture, and thus make certainty more certain.

The Lord’s mini-parable of the fig-tree putting forth leaves is especially valuable. The shouting omission of fruit from that picture is almost deafening, especially when set alongside the trumpet-blast of Christs cursing of the luxuriant but fruitless fig tree, so obviously an acted parable of the barren religion of the Israel on which he fruitlessly sought to find fruit.

Today the state of Israel is just like that. The early diatribes of Isaiah were not only accurate pictures of the prophet’s own day, they were also anticipations of an idealistic people gone to seed in our time.

They blithely call evil good and good evil. They emulate and surpass the sexual lewdness of “civilised” western nations, making highly efficient use of modem abortion methods that are so much better (yet so much like) the old style birth control – passing babies through the fire to Moloch. Observance of the wholesome precepts of Moses has become a decadent concentration on a scrupulous and elaborate separation of meat and milk, and without having a clue why they do it. Instead of gladly poring over the writings of their own prophets, they give themselves to the inane futilities of mediums-“wizards that peep and that mutter”-and especially to a schizophrenic enthusiasm for astrology-“the queen of heaven” and all that crush. They beat ploughshares into swords, spending a fantastic proportion of the national income in the process, while encouraging a never-widening social gap between prosperity and destitution, yet in their hearts they know how unsure their safety is: “Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow another holocaust” (All this is cease lessly documented in the Jerusalem Post and Jewish Chronicle).

What a decline has set in from the fine ideals and unstinted dedication of an earlier generation of Zionists! Their very name is a prophecy, for Zion means ‘a dry place’.

Yet – can it be credited? – there are amongst us starry-eyed enthusiasts who see the present State of Israel as the beginning of the Kingdom of God. Is it possible to believe that the Messiah who wept over their stony-hearted indifference to himself will nevertheless gladly gather a people who today are at least as godless as their forefathers? If in the first century he wept over Jerusalem and pronounced its doom, is it likely that he will come next week and rejoice at the welcome it still stubbornly refuses to offer him?

The State of Israel, so attractive in so many ways, has nevertheless been founded on rejection of the God of its Fathers and on a sublime reliance on what can be achieved by human endeavour and cleverness, in other words, on justification by works such as Jews have always been good at. To this day it is their individual and national philosophy.

Happily there is another side to this picture. Jesus himself said: “Ye shall not see me until ye say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord”. So if Messiah is ever to come to save his people, the seed of Abraham, there must be some sign of repentance first. Even Almighty God Himself cannot save people who stubbornly refuse to repent.

The chapter before this ended on an important note: Even with Israel, His own special people God will not, cannot, do anything except there be first of all some sign of a change of heart in His people.

Time and again this is the lesson, which the history of the Judges harps on. In those stormy chequered days it was when, and only when, the people cried unto their God for deliverance that He raised up a saviour. An astonishing number of Scriptures, all of them with a marked Last-Day flavour, make this principle inescapable: First, repentance in Israel, and then the Messianic salvation, which will inaugurate God’s kingdom.

Many readers of these words will not even trouble to refer to those passages i n order to check their validity for the present purpose, because they, and several generations before them, have been reared on one particular passage which has been much miss-read and miss-used:

“And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn” (Zech. 12:10).

From these words the inference has often been made that it will be only when Messiah comes in person to his nation and they look up to him in person, that repentance will sweep through the whole of Jewry. This view depends entirely on the phrase: “look upon him” and on no other supporting passage. But more exactly the Hebrew reading is: “they shall look unto him”. This reading conveys a very different idea – that of dependence in time of need. The preposition and meaning are the same as at the end of Numbers 21:9.

It is important, however, to avoid the assumption that this impressive Scripture requires that there must be universal repentance in Jewry. If we must wait for that, Messiah will never come. Does not Zechariah 13:9 foretell that “I (God) will bring the third part (i.e. the minority) through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined… they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people, and they shall say, The Lord is my (not: our) God”?

Is it not a fact that right through history the majority of Israel have been unworthy of their name? The prophets’ – Isaiah and Amos especially- were constantly driven to make appeal to the faithful remnant of the nation.

It is surely one of the most eloquent signs one could wish to see that, whereas through long centuries conversion of Jews to any form of Christian faith has been virtually impossible, today there exist in the Land small scattered communities of practising Jews who believe Jesus to be the Messiah. True, a big majority of these have come under the aegis of pentecostals and other trinitarians. It is a well-earned reproach that the New Israel, willing to spend any amount of money on sun-bathing and tourism in the Holy Land have not bestirred themselves to find and help these Messianic Jews to a fuller faith.

It is well known that in the United States and in not a few other countries this belief in Jesus as Messiah has taken root amongst Jewish communities. One is reliably informed that in London and other U.K. cities, there are synagogues where practising Jews unobtrusively graft on to their Judaism a belief that when Messiah comes he will be none other than Jesus of Nazareth.

In the U.S.A. Messianic Jews regularly advertise in the newspapers.

In Cleveland, Ohio, there exists a synagogue, which has broken away from Jewish orthodoxy, all its members’ happi1y believing in Jesus as their Messiah.

When it is considered that for generations Christian societies for the conversion of Jews have had virtually no success to report, this modem development is striking indeed.

It will, of course, be urged, as it already has been, that this belief in Jesus is mostly a very fragmentary and inaccurate affair, really worth very little. There is no doubt some truth in this. But nothing can be more certain than that there is joy in heaven over even a partial conversion of those whose hardness of heart regarding Jesus has hitherto been phenomenal, and even heart-breaking, to those who would fain see stony hearts change. Even in the days when Jesus and the apostles were among men, it might be questioned just how fully those publicans and sinners and Samaritans would assent to the thirty searching paragraphs in the B.A.S.F.!

And when some were preaching Christ even of envy and strife, of contention and not sincerely, being intent on adding affliction to Paul’s bonds, that amazing man responded with “Notwithstanding . . . Christ is preached, and I therein do rejoice” (Phil. 1:1-18).

In such barren ground as this, an austere demand for perfection is out of place.

Every year an annual march takes place in Jerusalem. It includes all kinds of Jewish organisations. Every shade of political and religious opinion in Israel is represented. In 1987 it was heartening to hear the broadcaster announce: “And now, here come the Messianic Jews!”

In 1988 there was a conference in Jerusalem of several hundred Messianic Jews

Such developments as these are at best straws in the wind, but they do show that there is a breeze.

It will be seen by and by, that this chapter is almost certainly out of place chronologically. But it becomes necessary to deal with it here because of certain mistaken assumptions of a serious character which are very commonly made about Ezekiel 38, and which tend to cloud understanding of other Scriptures.

All students of Bible prophecy are aware that Ezekiel 38, 39 describe in vivid fashion an invasion of the Land of Israel in the Last Days. This invasion, headed by Russia (“the uttermost parts of the north” RV is halted by a dramatic outpouring of divine judgment. Thus the whole world is made to recognise this assertion of the authority of God; and Israel, exalted as never before to be God’s favoured nation, sighs with relief and thankfulness that at last all their tribulations are at an end. The kingdom of God has arrived.

The serious error, which has crept into the understanding of this terrific prophecy, is in the assumption that this northern invasion will inaugurate the great crisis of the end-time and will culminate in the coming of the Messiah and the establishing of his Kingdom.

In fact, all the details in these chapters, save one (to be examined in due course) point to a different conclusion, namely, that Ezekiel 38, 39 will be fulfilled after Christ has returned and begun his reign as King of the Holy Land.

1. It was the late Peter Watkins who pointed out very incisively that Ezekiel 37, 38, 39 are to be read as one prophecy. It cannot be accident that ch. 37 begins with the dry bones of Israel scattered in Gentile lands (Ez. 37: 21), and ch. 39: 11 speaks of Gentile bones scattered in Israel’s Land. If this is accepted, then what of the fine picture presented in ch. 37 of God’s tabernacle planted in the midst of a sanctified Israel, and “my servant David being their prince for ever” (37: 25,27)? The northern invasion follows on after this.
2. Repeatedly Israel is described as “dwelling safely” or “securely” (38: 8,11; 39: 26). This is a phrase which, in the prophets, is always associated with the Kingdom; e.g. Ez. 34: 25,27,28; Hos. 2: 18; Zec.14: 11.

   Then ought not the same meaning to dominate these passages in ch.38, 39 also? On the other hand, can it be said, with any stretch of imagination, in 1989, or in any succeeding year before Messiah’s coming, that Israel dwells safely? In July of 1988 the Jewish Chronicle carried a especially prominent leading article headed: “The Six Hour War”. Its purpose was to draw attention to the fact that the Arab nations round Israel are now in a position to bring Israel to its knees in such a sensational fashion as will make the 1967 Six Day War look like a boy-scout exercise. More on this in chapter 8.

3. “Dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates” (38:11) is a strange way of describing a people, which spends a higher percentage of its national income on armaments than any other nation on the face of the earth. But, apply the words to Israel dwelling in peace under its Messiah (“first that which is natural, then that which is spiritual”), and there is no difficulty. On the other hand Zechariah 2:4,5 uses very similar language about Jerusalem in its Kingdom Glory
4. The invader is intent on carrying away “silver and gold, cattle and goods- a great spoil” (38: 13). But with Israel as it is today, what nation would risk an international conflagration for the sake of appropriating little Israel’s dubious wealth? Those enthusiasts intent on making this prophecy pre-Messianic skate round the difficulty here by turning “spoil” into OIL- a most un– Biblical conclusion, for, the gross misapplication of Deuteronomy 33: 24 notwithstanding, only the tiniest trickle of oil has ever been found in Israel. Israel is the only Middle East country without oil. Of course, for did not God burn up all the oil of that Land when He destroyed the cities of the plain?
5. Some readers will also appreciate this point. The only other Gog-Magog prophecy is in Revelation 20: 8. Normally these two Scriptures – Ez. 38; Rev. 20 -would be used to interpret each other, according to the well established method of Bible study. In “The Last Days” ch.13 and in ” Revelation – a Biblical Approach” ch. 38, identification of these two passages has been argued for, and difficulties cleared, thus leaving the way to refer Ezekiel 38 to an international rebellion against Messiah in the early days of his reign, for certainly Revelation 20 describes what happens after Messiah’s coming.
6. It can now be readily perceived that Ezekiel 38 is a parallel prophecy to Psalm 2: “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against His Anointed… Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion” (2,6). The experience of David after his capture of Jerusalem (2 Sam. 8) makes an impressive prototype.

Over against this accumulation of details all pointing to the same conclusion there is (so it is believed) only one passage which might be read as pointing to the alternative conclusion:

“After that they have borne their shame. . . when they dwelt safely in their land, and none made them afraid” (Ez. 39: 26).

These words have been read as meaning that the deliverance of Israel comes before their repentance, and before their Messiah appears.

However, this turns out to be a very unsure prop for such an interpretation:

1. There is a double textual doubt about the reading of the Hebrew word translated “bear”. Tanakh 1985 J.P.S. has a special footnote at this verse, reading ´´bear”, or “forget”. (Technicalities omitted here for simplicity’s sake).
2. There is an elided consonant, which may be supplied in more than one way, leading possibly to a different double meaning Hebrew word.
3. The A.V. reading is inexact here.
4. Thus an equally possible reading could be: “and they shall forget their shame. . .” – a very different idea from what has just been mentioned.
5. “When they dwelt safely. . .” is, more exactly: “in their dwelling safely”. What has been advanced earlier about this phrase also needs to be borne in mind here.

This 39: 26 AV reading is surely too precarious to lean on, especially when contrasted with the contrary evidence already set out.

Thus the overwhelming evidence is that this prophecy will be fulfilled after the coming of the Lord and not before it.