For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed: for the LORD
For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed - I will purge away from Judah the extreme guilt (represented by "blood," the shedding of which was the climax of her sin, Isaiah 1:15) which was for long not "purged" away but visited with judgment (Isaiah 4:4). Messiah saves from guilt, in order to save from punishment (Matthew 1:21).
For the Lord dwelleth in Zion. See the note at Joel 3:17. Remarks:
(1) Before the second advent of Messiah there shall be one last desperate effort made by Satan Antichrist, and their dupes, against the Lord and His people. The powers of the world shall be arrayed against their Maker and Divine King in open hostility. It shall be the closing scene of man's apostasy. As Baal's worshippers were gathered by Jehu, without one being missing, for the glorification of Baal, as they thought, but really for their own destruction, so "all the pagan" (Joel 3:11), that is, all who belong not really to Christ shall assemble themselves, "the mighty men" and the "weak" alike (Joel 3:9), for the destruction of God's people and the glorification of Antichrist, as they shall think, but really for their own destruction.
(2) How short-sighted and infatuated are the ungodly, with all their fancied wisdom! Their own blind passion shall urge them headlong to the valley of the judgment of Yahweh, as the "valley of Jehoshaphat" means. The Lord shall there vindicate the cause of his oppressed people on all their oppressors (Joel 3:1-2). He regards His people's wrongs in the same light as if they were done to Himself. His people are "His heritage." Therefore, God will recompense (Joel 3:4) their enemies in kind, for every act of injury and robbery committed against them (Joel 3:3-8).
(3) Tyre, Sidon, Philistia, Egypt, and Edom, are types of the various foes of Israel and the Church in all ages, especially in the last age. They "sanctify war" (Joel 3:9) - that is, proclaim, as it were, a holy war against the saints. They profess to be doing God service when they persecute the people of God (John 16:2). Almost every persecution of the Church has been carried on ostensibly in the name of God. Even Antichrist, the last and worst persecutor, shall pretend that his cause is God's cause; for "he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God" (2 Thessalonians 2:4). Tyre and Sidon represent the mercantile peoples, whose god is self and mammon, and who, when their selfish and worldly interests seem to be at all endangered by the cause of God, do not scruple to oppose it and His people, and even to make a gain of their sufferings. Egypt, the powerful oppressor of Israel, represents the proud and haughty enemies of the Israel of God, whom God shall "break in pieces" hereafter, as He did "Rahab" of old (Psalms 89:10, margin; Isaiah 51:9-10). Edom represents those who, though naturally allied to God's people, as Esau was to Israel, yet hate true religion, and instead of fraternal sympathy in the times of affliction, evince a malicious pleasure in the calamities of the elect.
(4) God will recompense those (Joel 3:19) various classes of enemies according to their evil deserts. "Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness." Nothing seemed more improbable than such an event at the time when Joel wrote. Egypt's power dated at least seven centuries before thin, to about 1520 BC, according to their 'continuous monumental history' (Sir G. Wilkinson's 'Egypt,' quoted in Rawlinson's. 'Herodotus,' 2: 393). Their empire rivaled Assyria at the time. Their system of canals and irrigation was on a vast scale, the artificial Lake Moeris on the southwest bank of the Nile, enclosing within masonry sixty-four square miles of the superfluous waters of the Nile, and supplying water for the irrigation of 1,724 square miles during six months of the year. This stupendous work was completed by Ammenemhes about 1673 BC, so that in the time of Joel, for a thousand years, art and nature had been combining to produce an internal prosperity in Egypt seldom equalled. The soil generally yielded three harvests in the year. It was, according to Diodorus (1: 31) the most densely populated country in the world. How unlikely, then it seemed that such a country should become "a desolation!" Yet such it has become: and such shall be the doom of all the present and coming anti-Christian antitypes to Egypt and Edom. God's mighty ones shall come down and utterly destroy Antichrist's mighty men (cf. Joel 3:9 with Joel 3:11). For no word of the Lord shall fail: all shall be accomplished.
(5) So utterly has Edom become "a desolate wilderness" that no remains of it were known until, within the last half century, the rock-dwellings of its capital, Petra, once the central emporium of the caravan trade, were discovered. Truly has it been written, "They that hate the righteous shall be desolate" (Psalms 34:21).
(6) As the anti-Christian enemies are given up to their own infatuation, so as to "beat their plowshares into swords, and their pruning-hooks into spears" (Joel 3:10) for war with the people of God; so, on the contrary, after their consequent excision, Israel and the nations of the whole world converted by her, "shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks," under the coming reign of the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 2:4). Happy time, for which the whole world, travailing in pain, sigheth, waiting for the time when the creature shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God! (Romans 8:21.)
(7) Meanwhile the ordeal of the times of Antichrist must first be endured, as all the prophets have foretold. Daniel describes his worldly conquests; the Revelation of John, his spiritual tyranny, and the spiritual guise which he assumes as the second beast, with "the horns of a lamb," but the speech of "the dragon" (Revelation 13:11). Paul (2 Thess
2) describes in full the blasphemy of his pretensions, and the awful success which shall attend his efforts to deceive those who "receive not the love of the truth, that they may be saved."
(8) The same judgment which brings destruction to the anti-Christian faction brings salvation to the Israel of God, both the literal and the spiritual (Joel 3:16). Jerusalem shall be "the holy mountain" and the dwelling where the Lord her God shall especially manifest His presence with a glory never yet realized, and "strangers" shall no more defile the holy city (Joel 3:17). Temporal blessings shall be accompanied with spiritual blessings in richest abundance. The vivifying and refreshing waters of life shall flow from Christ the Fountain, dwelling in Jerusalem, the restored capital of the theocracy, which shall then first be fully realized. Having "cleansed" His people from their past stains, Messiah shall make them to become a fit dwelling for their holy God and King (Joel 3:21). Lord, hasten the blessed time!