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Commentary on Joel 3 verses 1–8
We have often heard of the year of the redeemed, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion; now here we have a description of the transactions of that year, and a prophecy of what shall be done when it comes, whenever it comes, for it comes often, and at the end of time it will come once for all.
I. It shall be the year of the redeemed, for God will bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, Joe 3:1. Though the bondage of God's people may be grievous and very long, yet it shall not be everlasting. That in Egypt ended at length in their deliverance into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Let my son go, the he may serve me. That in Babylon shall likewise end well. And the Lord Jesus will provide for the effectual redemption of poor enslaved souls from under the dominion of sin and Satan, and will proclaim that acceptable year, the year of jubilee, the release of debts and servants, and the opening of the prison to those that were bound. There is a day, there is a time, fixed for the bringing again of the captivity of God's children, for the redeeming of them from the power of the grave; and it shall be the last day and the end of all time.
II. It shall be the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion. Though God may suffer the enemies of his people to prevail against them very far and for a long time, yet he will call them to an account for it, and will lead captivity captive (Psa 68:18), will lead those captive that led his people captive, Rev 13:10. Observe,
1.Who those are that shall be reckoned with - all nations, Joe 3:2. This intimates, (1.) That all the nations had made themselves liable to the judgment of God for wrong done to his people. Persecution is the reigning crying sin of the world; that lying in wickedness itself is set against godliness. The enmity that is in the old serpent, the god of this world, against the seed of the woman, appears more or less in the children of this world. Marvel not if the world hate you. (2.) That, whatsoever nation injured God's nation, they should not go unpunished; for he that touches the Israel of God shall be made to know that he touches the apple of his eye. Jerusalem will be a burdensome stone to all people, Zac 12:3. But the neighboring nations shall be particularly reckoned with - Tyre, and Sidon, and all the coasts of Palestine, or the Philistines, who have been troublesome neighbours to the Israel of God, Joe 3:4. When the more remote and potent nations that laid Israel wastes are reckoned with the impotent malice of those that lay near them, and helped forward the affliction, (Zac 1:15), and made a hand of it (Eze 26:2), shall not be passed by. Note, Little persecutors shall be called to an account as well as great ones; and, though they could not do much mischief, shall be reckoned with according to the wickedness of their endeavors and the mischief they would have done.
2.The sitting of this court for judgment. They shall all be gathered (Joe 3:2), that those who have combined together against God's people, with one consent (Psa 83:5), may together receive their doom. They shall be brought down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, which lay near Jerusalem, and there God will plead with them, (1.) Because it is fit that criminals should be tried in the same country where they did the fact. (2.) For their greater confusion, when they shall see that Jerusalem which they have so long endeavored and hoped for the ruin of, in spite of all their rage, made a praise in the earth. (3.) For the greater comfort and honor of God's Jerusalem, which shall see God pleading their cause. (4.) Then shall be re-acted what God did for Jehoshaphat when he gave him victory over those that invaded him, and furnished him and his people with matter of joy and praise, in the valley of Berachah. See Ch2 20:26. (5.) It was in this valley of Jehoshaphat (as Dr. Lightfoot suggests) that Sennacherib's army, or part of it, lay, when it was destroyed by an angel. They came together to ruin Jerusalem, but God brought them together for their own ruin, as sheaves into the floor, Mic 4:12.
3.The plaintiff called, on whose behalf this prosecution is set on foot; it is for my people, and for my heritage Israel. It is their cause that God will now plead with jealousy. Note, God's people are his heritage, his peculiar, his portion, his treasure, above all people, Exo 19:5; Deu 32:9. They are his demesne, and therefore he has a good action against those that trespass upon them.
4.The charge exhibited against them, which is very particular. Many affronts they had put upon God by their idolatries, but that for which God has a quarrel with them is the affront they have put upon his people and upon the vessels of his sanctuary.
(1.)They had been very abusive to the people of Israel, had scattered them among the nations and forced them to seek for shelter where they could find a place, or carried them captive into their respective countries and there industriously dispersed them, for fear of their incorporating for their common safety. They parted their land, and took every one his share of it as their own; nay, they have cast lots for my people, and sold them. When they had taken them prisoners, [1.] They made a jest of them, made a scorn of them as of no value. They would not release them and yet thought them not worth the keeping; they made nothing of playing them away at dice. Or they made a dividend of the prisoners by lot, as the soldiers did of Christ's garments. [2.] They made a gain of them. When they had them they sold them, yet with so much contempt that they did not increase their wealth by their price, but sold them for their pleasure rather than their profit; they gave a boy taken in war for the hire of a harlot, and a girl for so many bottles of wine as would serve them for one sitting, a goodly price at which they valued them, and goodly preferment for a son and daughter of Israel to be a slave and a drudge in a tavern or a brothel. Observe, here, how that which is got by sin is commonly spent upon another. The spoil which these enemies of the Jews gathered by injustice and violence they scattered and threw away in drinking and whoring; such is frequently the character, and such the conversation, of the enemies and persecutors of the people of God. The Tyrians and Philistines, when they seized any of the children of Judah and Jerusalem, either took them prisoners in war or kidnapped them, they sold them to the Grecians (with whom the men of Tyre traded in the persons of men, Eze 27:13), that they might remove them far from their own border, Joe 3:6. It was a great reproach to Israel, God's first-born, his free-born, to be thus bought and sold among the heathen.
(2.)They had unjustly seized God's silver and gold (Joe 3:5), by which some understand the wealth of Israel. The silver and gold which God's people had he calls his, because they had received it from him and devoted it to him; and whosoever robbed them God took it as if they had robbed him and would make reprisals accordingly. Those who take away the estates of good men for well-doing will be found guilty of sacrilege; they take God's silver and gold. But it seems rather to be meant of the vessels and treasures of the temple, which God here calls his goodly pleasant things, precious and desirable to him and all that are his. These they carried into their temples as trophies of their victory over God's Israel, thinking that therein they triumphed over Israel's God, nay, and that their idols triumphed over him. Thus the ark was put in Dagon's temple. Thus they did unjustly. "What have you to do with me (Joe 3:4), with my people; what wrong have they done you? What provocation have they given you? You had nothing to do with them, and yet you do all this against them. Devices are devised against the quiet in the land, and those offended and harmed that are harmless and inoffensive: Will you render me a recompence?" Can they pretend that either God or his people have done them any injury, for which they may justify themselves by the law of retaliation in doing them these mischiefs? No; they have no colour for it. Note, It is no new thing for those who have been very civil and obliging to their neighbours to find them very unkind and unneighbourly and for those who do no injuries to suffer many.
5.The sentence passed upon them. In general (Joe 3:4), "If you recompense me, if you pretend a quarrel with me, if you provoke me thus to jealousy, if you touch the apple of my eye, I will swiftly and speedily return your recompence upon your own head." Those that contend with God will find themselves unable to make their part good with him. He will recompense them suddenly, when they little think of it, and have not time to prevent it; if he take them to task, he will soon effect their ruin. Particularly, it is threatened, (1.) That they should not gain their end in the mischief they designed against God's people. They thought to remove them so far from their border that they should never return to it again, Joe 3:6. But (says God) "I will raise them out of the place whither you have sold them, and they shall not, as you intended, be buried alive there." Men's selling the people of God will not deprive him of his property in them. (2.) That they shall be paid in their own coin, as Adonibezek was (Joe 3:8): "I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hands of the children of Judah; you shall lie as much at their mercy as they have been at yours," Isa 60:14. Thus the Jews had rule over those that hated them, Est 9:1. And then they shall justly be sold to the Sabeans, to a people far off. This (some think) had its accomplishment in the victories obtained by the Maccabees over the enemies of the Jews; others think it looks as far forward as the last day, when the upright shall have dominion (Psa 49:14) and the saints shall judge the world. It is certain that none ever hardened his heart against God, or his church, and prospered long; no, not Pharaoh himself, for the Lord has spoken it, for the comfort of all his suffering servants, that vengeance is his and he will repay.
(Chapter 3, verses 1 onwards) For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will enter into judgment against them concerning my people, my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations and have divided up my land. They have cast lots for my people and traded boys for prostitutes; they have sold girls for wine that they may drink. LXX: For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will enter into judgment against them concerning my inheritance, my people Israel, for they scattered my people among the nations and divided up my land. They cast lots for my people and traded boys for prostitutes; they sold girls for wine to drink. Let us say that we promised, first connecting the later things to the earlier ones according to anagoge, if we are able, we will try to refer them to the day of judgment. With the believers saved on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and with the rest of the people of Judaea called, who believed with the apostles and through the apostles, at that time after the Lord had turned the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, who had come to preach seen, and to the captives, remission, and delivered those who confess the Lord, and who are in the Church, in which there is a vision of peace, will gather all the nations that did not want to believe: and will lead them into the valley of Jehoshaphat, which more significantly, according to the Hebrew truth, is said in Greek κατάξω, that is, I will lead them down, and I will draw them from the highest to the lowest. At the same time, consider when the Lord summons unbelievers, even hostile powers, to judgment and disputes with them on behalf of his people: 'I will bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat.' But when he encourages believers to battle, he says: 'Stir up the strong ones: let all the warriors come forth and ascend.' The nations are urged not to descend, but to ascend into the Valley of Jehoshaphat. For everyone who is judged because of their sins is placed in the valley, which is called Jehoshaphat, that is, the judgment of the Lord. For whoever believes in the Lord will not be judged. And there he will argue with them, not by the power of majesty, but by convincing them with the truth of reason, those who have divided the people of God and dispersed his inheritance among the nations, in order to compel the servants of God to serve themselves. And they divided his land, separating it with many errors among themselves, so that some worshiped Jupiter, others Juno, and Minerva, and fever, and rust, and Anubis, and the crocodile, and the ibis, and the owls, and hawks, and storks. Under these names, the people of God were once divided: those hostile nations, that is, the princes of this world and the rulers of darkness, not only divided the people of God among themselves, but they also put boys in brothels, forcing them to change their natural disposition, about whom the Apostle speaks: Therefore, God handed them over to shameful passions: indeed, their women exchanged the natural use (or, their own nature) for that which is against nature. Similarly, men, forsaking natural use with women, were inflamed with lust for one another, men committing indecent acts with other men, and receiving in themselves the penalty that was due for their error. And not content with this, they sold the girl for wine, so that they could drink and satisfy their lustful desire. All of these things, according to the Jews, were fulfilled in the times of Vespasian, Titus, and especially Hadrian, exactly as described. But if we want to refer to what is written on the day of judgment, we say that everyone who is saved is saved in the Church, whether in heavenly Jerusalem. And after the captivity of the Jews and Jerusalem is turned, then all are to be gathered and led into the valley of Josaphat: and there the Lord will judge with those who persecuted his people, and divided for themselves the inheritance of the Lord, and scattered them among the nations, and cast lots for their land: which we must not only accept concerning heretics, who divided God's people for themselves and made them into gentiles, but also against every rigid and proud teacher, who rule over the clergy under the name of doctrine and priesthood, and oppress those who are subject to them. And when they are negligent and cause scandal to one of the least, they even place boys in brothels or hand them over to prostitutes. They sell girls for the sake of their pleasure, whose god is their belly, and they glory in their shame (Philippians 3). Furthermore, they entrust young men to prostitutes and sell girls for the sake of luxury, not hesitating to corrupt wrongdoers for the sake of shameful profit.
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SUMMARY
Joel 3:3 vividly portrays the extreme dehumanization and exploitation suffered by God's people at the hands of hostile nations, serving as a foundational justification for the divine judgment prophesied in the broader context of Joel 3. This verse encapsulates the profound contempt and cruelty of the oppressors, who treated human lives, particularly those of vulnerable children, as mere commodities to be bartered for the most base and fleeting pleasures. It highlights a profound moral depravity that provokes God's righteous indignation and sets the stage for His decisive intervention.
CONTEXT
EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS
Key Word Analysis
Verse Breakdown
Literary Devices
Joel 3:3 employs several powerful literary devices to convey its message of profound injustice and divine indignation. The most prominent is Contrast, starkly juxtaposing the immense value of human life, especially that of innocent children, with the trivial and debased commodities for which they are exchanged—the services of a harlot and wine. This sharp contrast underscores the moral bankruptcy and dehumanizing cruelty of the oppressors. Symbolism is also at play, as the "boy" and "girl" symbolize the most vulnerable and precious elements of a society, while the "harlot" and "wine" symbolize the depths of human depravity and self-indulgent pleasure. The actions described evoke strong Pathos, appealing to the reader's emotions by depicting such egregious acts of cruelty against the innocent, thereby justifying the severity of the impending divine judgment. Furthermore, the repetitive structure of the two parallel clauses ("given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine") functions as a form of Parallelism, intensifying the impact and emphasizing the systematic nature of the exploitation.
THEOLOGICAL AND THEMATIC CONNECTIONS
Joel 3:3 stands as a powerful testament to God's unwavering commitment to justice and His profound indignation at the exploitation and dehumanization of His people. The actions described—the casual commodification of human life, particularly innocent children, for base pleasures—are not merely social injustices but direct affronts to the Creator who imbues every human being with inherent dignity as being made in His image. This verse underscores the biblical principle that God sees and remembers every act of oppression, and He will ultimately hold nations accountable for their treatment of the vulnerable and His chosen people. It reflects a theology where divine justice is not an abstract concept but a concrete reality that will manifest in history, ensuring that the cries of the oppressed are heard and answered.
REFLECTION AND APPLICATION
Joel 3:3, though rooted in an ancient context, carries profound and timeless implications for reflection and application in our contemporary world. It serves as a stark reminder of the inherent dignity of every human being, created in the image of God, and the profound evil of any system or act that reduces individuals to mere commodities. The casual cruelty depicted—the bartering of children for fleeting pleasures—challenges us to confront modern forms of exploitation, such as human trafficking, forced labor, and sexual slavery, where individuals are still "sold" and dehumanized for profit or gratification. This verse compels believers to cultivate a deep empathy for the oppressed and to actively champion justice, advocating for the vulnerable and marginalized in society. It reminds us that God is not indifferent to suffering and injustice; He sees, He remembers, and He will ultimately act. Therefore, our faith calls us not only to pray for justice but to be agents of it, standing against all forms of dehumanization and working towards a world where every person's dignity is honored and protected.
Questions for Reflection
FAQ
Who are "my people" in Joel 3:3, and why is their treatment so offensive to God?
Answer: In Joel 3:3, "my people" refers specifically to the nation of Israel, or more precisely, Judah and Jerusalem, as God's covenant people. Their treatment is profoundly offensive to God because they are His chosen inheritance, a people He set apart and with whom He established a unique relationship. Any act of oppression, enslavement, or dehumanization against them is seen as a direct affront to God Himself. This is rooted in the covenant promises, such as those found in Genesis 12:3, where God declares, "I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse." The casual and cruel exploitation of His people, particularly the vulnerable children, for trivial gains demonstrates a complete disregard for God's ownership and His moral law, thus provoking His righteous judgment.
What does "cast lots" signify in this context, and why is it significant?
Answer: "Casting lots" (Hebrew: gôwrâl) refers to the ancient practice of using pebbles or other small objects to make decisions, distribute spoils, or determine destiny, similar to drawing straws or rolling dice. In the context of Joel 3:3, it signifies the arbitrary and dehumanizing manner in which the captured people of Judah were divided among their conquerors. It is significant because it highlights the extreme contempt shown to human life; individuals were not treated as persons with inherent worth but as mere objects to be parceled out randomly, like common plunder. This practice underscores the oppressors' utter lack of respect for human dignity and their reduction of God's people to chattel, further justifying the severity of God's impending judgment.
How does the exchange of a "boy for an harlot" and a "girl for wine" emphasize the oppressors' depravity?
Answer: This exchange vividly emphasizes the oppressors' extreme depravity by contrasting the immense value of human life, particularly that of innocent children, with the trivial and morally debased commodities for which they are traded. Selling a boy for the services of a harlot and a girl for wine demonstrates a shocking spiritual and moral corruption. It reveals that human life was valued less than fleeting sexual gratification or temporary intoxication. This casual commodification of the most vulnerable members of society for such base pleasures illustrates a profound disregard for human dignity, a complete absence of moral boundaries, and a deep-seated wickedness that justly incurs God's wrath.
CHRIST-CENTERED FULFILLMENT
Joel 3:3, with its stark portrayal of dehumanization and the promise of divine judgment against oppressors, finds its ultimate Christ-centered fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ. While the immediate context speaks of God's judgment on ancient nations, the underlying principles of divine justice, the sanctity of human life, and God's unwavering defense of His people are perfectly embodied in Christ. Jesus, as the righteous judge, will ultimately execute the final judgment against all forms of injustice and oppression, as prophesied in passages like Matthew 25:31-46, where He separates the righteous from the unrighteous based on their treatment of "the least of these." Furthermore, Christ's redemptive work liberates humanity from the ultimate forms of spiritual slavery and commodification—slavery to sin and the dominion of death. Through His sacrifice, He paid the ultimate price to redeem us, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with His precious blood, as declared in 1 Peter 1:18-19. He restores dignity to those who were spiritually "sold" into bondage, offering true freedom and adoption into God's family. Thus, Joel 3:3 foreshadows the coming of a King who will not only judge the oppressors but also bring ultimate liberation and restoration to all who have been exploited and dehumanized, establishing a kingdom where justice and righteousness reign supreme, as described in Revelation 19:11-16.