Joel 3:13 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Put ye in the sickle Ye executioners of divine vengeance: begin to reap; cut down sinners ripe for judgment; let the king of Assyria and his soldiers cut down Syria and its king, for their violence against my people. Let Cyaxares and his armies cut down Assyria. Let Nebuchadnezzar cut down Moab, Ammon, mount Seir, Egypt, Tyre, Zidon, and the Philistines. After this, let Cyrus destroy the Babylonians, and Alexander the Medes and Persians. And let the divided Grecian captains cut down one another, till the Romans cut them down. And when this is done, God will have mighty ones still to cut down his enemies till the final judgment, wherein they all shall for ever be destroyed. For the harvest is ripe That is, they are fit for destruction, as the ripened corn for reaping. Come, get you down Namely, into the appointed valley; as though they were going into a vineyard to gather grapes. Here the prophet uses another metaphor to express the cutting off the church's enemies; for the press is full; the fats overflow That is, as it is immediately explained, their wickedness is great It is come to its full measure. And as the grapes in the press are trodden, so the enemies of God's people are to be trodden in the wine-press of his displeasure.