The Consequence Of YHWH's Blessing Of His People Must Be The Judgment Of The Nations Who Have Oppressed His People (Joel 3:1-6).
The judgment of the locusts has carried Joel's thoughts forward to the final Day of YHWH. No time scale is given, but Joel knew that the consequence of YHWH's future pouring out His Spirit on His people must be the restoration of all His scattered people, and the judgment of the nations who had oppressed them. The two always go together, the blessing and the cursing. And as the nations have mistreated His people, so must they receive their recompense.
This picture of judgment has come to Joel's mind as a result of the awful plagues of locusts which had seemingly taken over Judah and Jerusalem. They were a revelation of what God could do, and an indication of the inexorable activity of YHWH. They were a reminder of coming Days of YHWH and of the final Day of YHWH. But as we have already seen it also included blessing on God's people.
No Valley of Jehoshaphat is known, and it is very likely that it is a symbolic valley found only in the mind of Joel and in the mind of God, the Valley of YHWH IS JUDGE, for in one sense YHWH's judgment would take place over the centuries, until it finalised in the final Judgment. In other words YHWH has in His own mind a place where He will judge the nations. And what they will be called to account for, both now and especially in the future, will be how they have behaved towards His people (compare Matthew 25:31-46. Both are parabolic pictures expressing a greater reality). The people of YHWH will emerge in triumph, whilst those who have rejected Him and persecuted His people will reap what they have sown.
Analysis of Joel 3:1-6.
· For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I will bring back the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem (Joel 3:1).
· I will gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of YHWH is Judge (Jehoshaphat), and I will execute judgment on them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and they have parted my land, and have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they may drink (Joel 3:2-3).
· Yes, and what are you to me, O Tyre, and Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Will you render me a recompense? And if you are recompensing me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompense on your own head (Joel 3:4).
· Forasmuch as you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly precious things, and have sold the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem to the sons of the Greeks, that you may remove them far from their border (Joel 3:5-6).
· Behold, I will stir them up out of the place where you have sold them, and will return your recompense on your own head, and I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they will sell them to the men of Sheba, to a nation far off, for YHWH has spoken it (Joel 3:7-8).
Note that in ‘a' YHWH will bring back the captivity of His people, and in the parallel he will stir them up out of the place to which they have been sold. In ‘b' the nations are accused of scattering YHWH's people by selling them as slaves, and in the parallel He describes how they have done this. Central in ‘c' is that He will recompense them for what they have done.
‘For, behold, in those days, and in that time,
When I will bring back the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,
The time indications are vague, as indeed they had to be, for the time when YHWH would do this was seen to be in His hands, but when that time came YHWH would restore His people from their captivity. This captivity is immediately explained, it is the captivity of those who have been carried off in the ancient slave trade, and in numerous battles, as the nations round about took advantage of Judah's weakness in order to send bands of slave traders into Judah so that they could carry them off and sell them as slaves. This will now be described in more detail, and as Amos 1:6-12 makes clear, it was a particular feature of this period. There is an important lesson in this. YHWH's concern was finally not for His land but for His people. Although they would soon be forgotten, even by their fellow Israelites, they were not forgotten by Him. He knew each one of them, and where they were, and what they were suffering. And one day, if they were faithful to Him, He would bless them.
Joel was speaking as a prophet to Judah and Jerusalem, but notice how easily he can slip into speaking of Israel. For in the eyes of the prophets Judah and Israel were one people, YHWH's inheritance. It should be recognised that in fact Judah and Jerusalem were a cosmopolitan community, for people came to live in and near Jerusalem from many parts of the surrounding area, as is clear from the many names which indicate the foreign source of their bearers (‘Uriah the Hittite' etc). The people of Israel had never really ever been made up purely of descendants of Abraham. That was a myth as the Law of Moses makes clear. They had always included descendants of servants and foreign slaves who had served the Patriarchs, they included descendants of the mixed multitude (Exodus 12:38) who had left Egypt with the Israelites and had entered the covenant at Sinai, they included many who had since made common cause with Israel. All who submitted to YHWH and to circumcision could enter the covenant (Exodus 12:48). It was thus in Joel's time a good representation of the people of God of all ages. (That is how the church became Israel, they were simply incorporated into the new Israel of God established by Jesus Christ and His Apostles). And we consequently have here God's guarantee of the final prosperity of His people when their necessary hardships are behind them.
‘I will bring back the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem.' This could equally be translated as ‘restore the fortunes of ---.' But that this includes restoration from captivity is made clear in the context.
‘I will gather all nations,
And will bring them down into the valley of YHWH is Judge (Jehoshaphat),
And I will execute judgment on them there,
For my people and for my heritage Israel,
Whom they have scattered among the nations,
And they have parted my land,
And have cast lots for my people,
And have given a boy for a harlot,
And sold a girl for wine, that they may drink.'
But at that time those who have persecuted God's people will be called to account. For both during history and in the final day there will be a judgment of all nations by YHWH in the place of His appointing. This is a remarkable statement of YHWH's overlordship and sovereignty over the whole world. All nations were to take note of the fact that in the end in one way or another they had to render account to Him.
The judgment of Tyre and Philistia would take place in the following centuries through the invasions of the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians and finally the Greeks (a nice irony in the face of the accusation). Compare for this Amos 1. But they still also await the judgment in the last day (Matthew 11:21). His prime accusation at this time is the way in which they have deliberately enslaved many of His people for profit. It had been well organised, and they had worked together on it. They had divided up Judah and Israel into sections, so that they did not interfere with each other's activities (just think of that, we can hear Joel saying, they have divided up YHWH's inheritance), and then they had snatched the boys and girls of Judah, cast lots for them (compare Obadiah 1:11; Nahum 3:10) and sold them off so that they could buy themselves harlots and strong drink. Thus were YHWH's people already scattered among the nations. The scattering is not to do with the later exiles. This was the scattering of His people by means of the slave trade, and through men and women taken in battle or by invasion.
And there in the valley of ‘YHWH is Judge' (Jeho-shaphat) He will execute judgment on the nations in accordance with how they have treated His people, those who are His inheritance. (A valley would appear to Joel as the natural place for such a gathering). We have already seen how important God's heritage were to Him (see Joel 2:17). This final ‘judgment of the nations' is represented in many ways in Scripture (e.g. Isaiah 24; Matthew 25:31-46; John 5:28-29; Revelation 6:12-17; Revelation 11:15-18; Revelation 14:14-20; Revelation 19:11-21), and none more awesome than the account in Revelation 20:11-15.
‘The valley of Jehoshaphat.' In the Hebrew the text reads ‘yehoshephet we nishphatti', ‘(the valley of) YHWH is Judge and there He will execute judgment'. It is YHWH's own ‘secret' valley, reserved by Him as a place of judgment. We have no indication anywhere of any such literal valley. Later it will be called ‘the Valley of Decision' (Joel 3:14).
Note on the Valley of Jehoshaphat.
All attempts to identify the valley are purely speculative and without foundation. We simply do not know of any such valley, and the link of the name with its purpose suggests that it is a name invented for the purpose. The Targums (Aramaic paraphrases of the Scriptures) saw them as having no specific place in mind and Targum Jonathan renders it as ‘the plain of the decision of judgment'. Ibn Ezra sought to identify it as the valley of Berachah, south of Bethlehem, where Jehoshaphat's forces gathered after success in battle (2 Chronicles 20:26), but with no real grounds. Zechariah might be seen as placing the valley of judgment near to Jerusalem in a valley to be formed by divine activity (Zechariah 14:4). 1 Enoch 53:1 sites it in a valley near the valley of Hinnom. Later tradition has identified it as the Kidron valley and have made it into a burial ground in readiness for the day (even investing it with a tomb of Jehoshaphat, which is really a Graeco-Roman tomb). But Kidron is not an ‘emeq (Joel's word) but a nahal (ravine). From all this it is quite clear that, as so often, ‘nobody knows except God'.
End of note.
‘Yes, and what are you to me, O Tyre, and Sidon,
And all the regions of Philistia?
Will you render me a recompense?
If you are recompensing me,
Swiftly and speedily will I return your recompense,
On your own head'
His accusation against Tyre, Sidon and Philistia (who were the ones mainly engaged in the slave trade in Amos 1:6-10) was that they were seeking to get their own back on Him, as if that were possible. In attacking His people they were attacking Him. But they will soon learn their mistake, for if they are recompensing Him they can be very sure that He will respond swiftly and speedily, and will return their recompense on their own head.
These regions might well have felt bitter because of their subjection to Israel/Judah in the days of the empires of David and Solomon, (even though Tyre and Sidon had a treaty arrangement, it would have been as a very junior partner), and in what followed, and thus almost have seen it as their right to ‘get their own back' on the God Who had so subjected them.
‘Forasmuch as you have taken my silver and my gold,
And have carried into your temples my goodly precious things,
And have sold the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem to the sons of the Ionians (Greeks),
That you may remove them far from their border,'
But they needed to recognise that when they had invaded Judah/Israel it was YHWH's gold that they had taken, it was YHWH's possessions that they had stolen, and even dared to put in their own temples, and it was YHWH's children (Deuteronomy 14:1) that they had sold to the Ionians. To be sold so far away meant that there was no opportunity for buying them back (compare Nehemiah 5:8). They were, humanly speaking, lost for ever. (Which was why the selling on of slaves taken in war was forbidden in the Law - Deuteronomy 21:14). Thus these peoples were directly accountable to Him for what they had done.