Introduction
Author
Reviser’s Introduction
Abbreviations
PROPHECY & THE PROPHETIC BOOKS
The Prophets Of Israel And Judah
World of the Old Testament
Hosea
Commentary
Joel
Commentary
Amos
Commentary
Obadiah
Commentary
Jonah
Commentary
Micah
Commentary
Nahum
Commentary
Habakkuk
Commentary
Zephaniah
Commentary
Haggai
Commentary
Zechariah
Commentary
Malachi
Commentary
The Inter-Testamental Period
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Whilst Abraham is called a prophet (Genesis 20:7) and Moses is the ideal, prototype prophet (Deuteronomy 18:15ff.), the great age of prophecy began in the declining years of the Judges’ period. The prophets occupied a unique place and made an invaluable contribution to the national life, although frequently their influence was greatest long after they themselves had died. They were largely associated with periods of crisis: Samuel was influential in bringing Israel out of the moral and spiritual darkness of the Judges’ period; Elijah and Elisha emerged during the sharp crisis caused by Jezebel’s importation of Baal-worship; Amos and Hosea in Israel, and Micah and Isaiah in Judah, were the great eighth-century prophets who thundered against the declining standards of their age; Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Ezekiel and Obadiah were involved in the final judgments on Judah, whilst Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi and possibly Joel were connected with the re-establishment of a purified temple-cult in Judah.
The greatness of these prophets is enhanced by the gross darkness that surrounded them. They were the radicals of their generation, but they differed from their contemporary counterparts in that their condemnation was based on what they knew of God and his revealed will; they were not innovators but traditionalists in the best sense. To describe them as the “great ethical prophets” is true, but misleading, for their ethical insistence was itself based on a fundamental, personal experience of God. Knowing God, they spoke, and became the moral, religious and political counselors of their generation. Two main themes dominate in their oracles:
The six words used to describe them are important; they include “man of God” (1 Samuel 2:27), watchman (Jeremiah 6:17) and the Lord’s messenger (Haggai 1:13). Two Hebrew words are translated “seer,” one derived from the verb see (in a unique sense the prophet was the man who saw what was going on) and another from a verb denoting prophetic vision (1 Samuel 9:9; 2 Samuel 24:11). But the normal word translated “prophet” (Hebrew nabi) is by far the most important. Its meaning in Israel is indicated by the terminology of Exodus 4:16; 7:1. Just as Aaron was a “mouth” for Moses, the prophet was God’s mouthpiece, ie his spokesman or announcer, broadcasting his will to their contemporaries in terms of divine concern and divine participation in history. There is a sense in which the Christian has precisely this function to fulfill today.
A distinction may be made between the great natural prophets, such as Samuel, Elijah and Elisha, whose utterances have survived in only fragmentary form, and the writing prophets, whose oracles are recorded in the prophetic books. But this distinction must not be pressed too far, for men like Amos, Hosea and Isaiah stood in the same spiritual tradition as their predecessors. Moreover, to describe the later prophets as “writing prophets” overlooks the fact that in some cases at any rate the prophecies were written down by the disciples of the prophets themselves, possibly posthumously.
A distinction may be generally made between the canonical prophets and the cult-prophets. The latter were attached to the various shrines, and as the quality of religious life declined, so these false prophets became more time-servers, concerned with popular, nationalistic hopes and showing an easygoing, casual attitude towards national and individual sin. It is no wonder, therefore, that they came under such heavy attack from the true prophets (eg Micah 3:5-7; Jeremiah 14:14f.; 23:9-32) and that a prophet like Amos even repudiated the description of “prophet,” so debased had it become (Amos 7:14).
Post-exilic prophets such as Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi and Joel have frequently been criticized for their apparent lack of stress on moral issues. But this overlooks two facts: first, the blatant moral and religious sins of pre-exilic Israel, judged so severely by God, were no longer prominent; second, it was vital, if Judaism was to survive, that it had a focal point in a temple where a pure worship could be established. Even bricks and mortar acquired a spiritual significance in this period, but moral and religious issues were by no means overlooked.
Finally, no more misleading term has ever been applied than the adjective in the “Minor Prophets.” Some have understood this to mean “unimportant” and have neglected these books, to their own incalculable loss. These prophets may be minor, but only in brevity, since all twelve fitted conveniently into one scroll, whereas the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel required a scroll each. But in all other respects the prophets stand together as those who mediated the will of God to their generations.
ISRAEL
(northern kingdom)
Jonah: c. 770 BC
Amos: c. 760
Hosea : c. 750–725
Fall of Samaria 722/721
JUDAH
(southern kingdom)
Isaiah: 742–c. 687 BC
Micah: c. 736–710
Jeremiah: c. 627–582
Zephaniah: c. 625
Nahum: c. 625
Habakkuk: c. 605
Ezekiel: 592–c. 570
Obadiah: c. 587
The Exile 587–538
Haggai: 520–515
Zechariah: 520–515
Malachi: c. 460
Joel: c. 410
(A minority of scholars would date Joel c. 836.)
Nothing is known of Joel except his father’s name (1:1). Attempts to date him have varied between the eighth and fourth centuries BC and have only shown the impossibility of being dogmatic. While one scholar, A.S. Kapelrud, argues that he was a contemporary of Jeremiah (c. 600 BC) because of the many verbal parallels between them, most commentators feel that he was a post-exilic writer and that he drew upon the language and ideas of predecessors, like Amos, Isaiah, Zephaniah and Ezekiel. Indeed he appears, in 2:32, actually to quote Obadiah 17, and if 2:11,31 also reflect Malachi 3:2; 4:5, a date around 400 BC would not be out of place.
Be that as it may, Joel has a keen interest in the temple and its rituals, though he does not appear to be a priest, and “temple prophet” may not be a bad description of him. His message starts from a contemporary devastating plague of locusts, which he sees as a warning of the coming day of the Lord. This should drive Israel to repentance, and those who do repent will be saved in the judgment and will receive God’s Spirit and the untold blessings of the age to come.
There is no need to understand this chapter symbolically. Its subject is an actual plague of locusts descending on the holy land and devouring everything they find with ferocity.
A great plague of locusts that hit Jerusalem in the early 20th century caused terrible devastation. Trees were stripped of leaves, bark and sometimes even of small limbs (1:7); wine prices doubled (1:5); and not a sign of any crops was left to be harvested (1:10-12). The size of a typical swarm of locusts runs into millions, if not billions, of insects, and so the damage they cause is not to be wondered at. They have always been desperately feared by dwellers in the Middle East and it is only the use of modern insecticides which has made them less of a menace more recently. However, Joel clearly regarded what he was describing as a rarity (1:2f.), and that is perhaps why he saw in it a warning of the coming day of judgment.
One of Joel’s chief concerns is that the plague has caused a cessation of offerings to the Lord (1:9,13,16). This may have been due to the fact that the people were husbanding their meager resources and were not maintaining their priorities toward God (see Nehemiah 13:10; Malachi 3:8f.), or it may mean simply that there was nothing available to give to God. However, the people are not taken to task for this, but they are reminded that such a catastrophe is an act of God and should be the occasion for national mourning and repentance, under the leadership of the priests (1:13). Everyone is to be summoned to prayer and a solemn fast is to be proclaimed by them (1:14).
1:15-18 may be a form of words which the people are intended to use. It is reminiscent of Ezekiel 30:2f.; Zephaniah 1:7,14. Like many of Joel’s statements it contains word play (“destruction,” shod, “from the Almighty,” Shaddai, 1:15). The chapter ends with the prophet himself joining in the lamentation (1:19), and even the wild beasts are cast in the role of suppliants before God (1:20). Compare Romans 8:22f.
Repentance is offered to the people as the way to avoid judgment.
Ever since Amos warned Israel that the Day of the Lord would be a day of darkness and not light, because it would include judgment on Israel as well as upon the heathen (Amos 5:18), this aspect of it had been retained in descriptions like Zephaniah 1:15 and here in Joel 2:2. From being a day for Israel to look forward to, it had become a day for them to fear. Joel, however, does not keep his hearers in a state of trepidation, for repentance is held out to them as the way to avoid the terrors of judgment. As the people repent of their sins, so the Lord repents of the evil that he was due to inflict on them (2:13).
The chapter begins with the warning trumpet blast being sounded, the normal alarm signal to an Israelite city. The locust plague was not solely the occasion for this, but it was regarded as a foretaste of the coming of the Day of the Lord (2:1). So the language oscillates between the immediate threat of the locusts and the eschatological prospect of God’s judgment. The locusts are described in 2:11 as the Lord’s army; they are his host, executing his word; and they bring to the day of judgment the same sense of fearfulness and terror as was felt by Malachi (Malachi 3:2).
In 2:3-10 the invading locust army is described attacking the city (of Jerusalem?). This is the second stage of their onslaught, after the destruction of the vegetation and the denuding of the countryside in chapter 1. They leave in their wake the appearance of “scorched earth” warfare (2:3), and they march relentlessly on like a mammoth army of disciplined warriors. Nothing can stand in their way. No weapon is effective against them; no barricade can bar their path. To think that it is possible to avert disaster is as futile as to think that God’s judgment can be turned aside by merely human defenses. In this way Joel builds up to his climax, that a way of escape does exist and that it is still not too late for the people to do something about it. “Yet even now return to me” (2:12).
Consider “The design of the prophet in these verses is no other than to stir up by fear the minds of the people” (Calvin). Is this a fair assessment of Joel’s aim, and is it legitimate for preachers today to play on the fears of their hearers?
Joel’s call to repentance (2:12-14) is one of the finest passages in the prophets.
This call to repentance describes God’s character, in language based on Exodus 34:6 (see also Jonah 4:2); it stipulates the quality of repentance that God requires (wholehearted, self-sacrificing, and inward rather than outward in its manifestation); and it offers the hope not only of mercy but also of blessing. Note that the offerings people give to God are gifts from God, which the grateful recipient returns to him as a mark of devotion and thankfulness (2:14b). This is to be a national occasion, from which no one is exempted (not even newlyweds; contrast Deuteronomy 24:5), and the priests are to lead the people in mourning and intercession from the steps of the temple in the inner court (2:17).
In response to the nation’s repentance, the Lord has pity on his people and promises them the produce which the locusts had denied them (2:19), grain, wine and olive oil being the basic agricultural products of the land (see 2:24). “The northerner” is an unusual description of the invading locust army (2:20), for it is unlikely that the swarm would have approached from that direction. This must probably be taken as an anticipation of the eschatological “foe from the north” which the locusts were thought to foreshadow. The stench from the locusts’ carcasses has been one of the unfortunate aftermaths of other recorded plagues.
With the coming of the rains (2:23), a good crop is assured for the ensuing year, and God promises such an abundance that will amply compensate for the losses of earlier years (2:25). This will not only meet the people’s material needs and vindicate them before their heathen neighbors, but it will also give them cause to praise God for his mighty acts and for this further evidence of his uniqueness (2:26f.). The “never again” of 2:26-27 is one of the precious promises that God gives his people. Amos used it twice of judgment (Amos 7:8; 8:2); Joel uses it twice of mercy.
The apostle Peter quotes this passage with reference to the events of Pentecost, but we are so inclined to read it in the light of Pentecost that we miss some of its important features.
It had been Moses’ wish that all the Lord’s people might be prophets and that they all might have his Spirit on them (Numbers 11:29), but it is left to Joel to predict this as a feature of the last days (“afterward,” 2:28). It was appropriate that the apostle Peter quoted this passage with reference to the events of Pentecost (Acts 2:16-21), but we are so inclined to read it in the light of Pentecost that we miss some of its important features. Joel is in fact saying four things about the last days:
The remarkable feature about Peter’s use of this passage is not simply its appropriateness to the Day of Pentecost, when an ill-assorted group of Israelites were given the prophetic gift, but his widening of Joel’s promise to include non-Israelites who call on Israel’s God. Peter’s “whosoever” is more extensive than Joel’s “whosoever” (KJV), though it is of course implicit in Joel’s expression (see also Romans 10:13). This may be taken as instance of the Old Testament prophet being inspired to “speak better than he knew.”
The signs are to be interpreted as the normal accompaniments of war (bloodshed and burning, 2:30), and as the abnormal features of eclipses and supernatural changes in the heavens (2:31). Both of these were regarded in the New Testament as announcing the end time (Mark 13:7f.,24f.; Revelation 6:12). The darkening of the sun at noon on the day of Christ’s crucifixion was such a sign that judgment had come into the world and the age of the Messiah had dawned.
The “valley of decision” is not so much the place where people decide about God as where God decides about people.
The salvation of those who call on God and are called by him is matched, in the last days, by the punishment of the heathen. They are dealt with on the basis of their treatment of God’s people. They had scattered them (the Babylonian exile); divided up their land (which was God’s land, 3:2); sold even children into slavery (for the price of a prostitute or a bottle of wine, 3:3); plundered the temple treasures; and sold Jews as slaves to Greeks (the Philistines and Phoenicians were notorious slave traders; Amos 1:6,9; Ezekiel 27:13).
In return for this their descendants would have similar treatment meted out to them (3:8). This prophecy was fulfilled in 345 BC when Artaxerxes III sold the Sidonians into slavery, and in 332 BC when Alexander the Great did the same to the people of Tyre and Gaza. Doubtless, Jews were among their purchasers.
In readiness for the day of judgment (the valley of Jehoshaphat is probably a symbolical name, as it means “Yahweh judges,” 3:2,12), the people are called to arms. The famous prophecy of Isaiah-Micah is parodied and put in reverse (3:9f.), a clear sign of this being written later than the eighth century, and the nations are called together for the final denouement (3:12). Here at last is the moment of decision (3:14), when God proclaims his judgment on sinners, and his angel warriors (3:11) are commissioned to put in the sickle for the final harvest (see Isaiah 17:5; Matthew 13:39). The “valley of decision,” which is to be identified with the valley of Jehoshaphat, is not so much the place where people decide about God as where God decides about people. The cross was a valley of decision, when God decided for people, not against them. The last judgment will pronounce a verdict on individuals in relation to their response to Calvary. To that extent it will reflect the decision they have made.
After the judgment, with its accompanying darkness and cosmic disturbances (3:15f.), the center of God’s blessing will be a purified Jerusalem. With evil overthrown, symbolized by Egypt and Edom (3:19), God’s people will enjoy an abundance of good things and the land will be inhabited forever. Above all, the Lord will be dwelling in their midst (3:21; see also Ezekiel 48:35; Revelation 21:3).
Amos shared with Hosea the distinction of beginning the great line of Hebrew prophets whose words were written down for posterity. Both men directed their prophecies to the northern kingdom of Israel but, unlike Hosea, Amos was a southerner from Tekoa in the Judean hills, and he traveled north to Bethel to preach on what was virtually foreign soil.
He claims not to have been a professional prophet (7:14), but a layman called by God to address his words to a disobedient people. We are not, however, to think of him as an untutored man from the country, for there are many indications that he was much more than that. He was a shepherd (1:1), but the Hebrew word noqed can mean a “sheep-breeder,” like Mesha, king of Moab (2 Kings 3:4); the fact that he traveled to Bethel, possibly to market the shearings of his sheep, suggests that he may have been a leading shepherd with others in his employment.
He was a man familiar with the ordinary business of life, who was in touch with recent events among the surrounding nations (1:3–2:3); he had sufficient knowledge of liturgical formulae to be able to produce the poetic oracular structures in which most of his messages were couched. His ministry may be dated around 760–750 BC. The only fixed point in time which he gives us (1:1, “before the earthquake”) must refer to the exceptionally serious tremor which was remembered hundreds of years later (see also Zechariah 14:5), but its actual date is not known.
It is interesting to notice the grounds for Amos’ condemnation of the northerners. It was not primarily because their worship was interwoven with Canaanite fertility practices (though Hosea makes it clear that this was so), nor was it because of the calf images set up by Jeroboam I in Bethel and Dan (though this must have been abhorrent to him), nor was it because the northerners failed to attend the Jerusalem temple for the great Israelite festivals. He attacks the northern kingdom for their social evils, and he lists oppression, violence, sharp practices, debauchery and bribery among the sins that completely invalidate both the worship of the Israelites and their claim to be the covenant people of God. God’s covenant, declares Amos, is not a mark of favoritism but an incentive to responsible moral conduct. The two verses which best sum up his teaching, therefore, are 3:2 and 5:24.
All sin, of whatever sort and by whomever committed, is ultimately sin against God.
These seven oracles are an introduction to what follows in 2:6-16. Before Amos ventures to utter his scathing attack on Israel, he prepares the way by declaring the sins of Israel’s neighbors and declaring God’s judgment on them. It is not difficult to imagine Amos in the marketplace at Bethel, gathering the crowds with this kind of popular denunciation, for these countries were all enemies or rivals of Israel. And when he finished up with an attack on the sins of Judah, his homeland, Amos must have captured the hearts of his listeners completely, for there was little love lost between north and south. But Israel’s turn was coming, and their condemnation was going to be more severe than anything that had yet been uttered.
The sins of these neighbor states were mainly acts of barbarism, violations not of God’s law but of basic humanitarian principles. The Syrians of Damascus had carried out brutal raids on Gilead, probably quite literally mangling the bodies of prisoners under heavily studded threshing-sledges. The Philistines took captive a whole population to sell them into slavery (1:6). Tyre and Edom both broke faith with nations with whom they had ties by treaty or by kinship (1:9,11). The Ammonites committed horrible atrocities simply for the sake of territorial aggrandizement (1:13). The Moabites desecrated the bones of the king of Edom (2:1), an act which in Near Eastern thought meant the elimination of the total personality of a dead victim, making it impossible for him to participate in any life after death. The horror felt at such an act may be judged from the description of a similar occurrence in 2 Kings 3:27.
For all these atrocities God will punish the nations. People do not have to know the full revelation of God’s law to come under his condemnation: they only have to violate the standards that they in their relatively unenlightened state can yet recognize (see Romans 1:18-20; 2:12). Where, however, revelation has been given, the judgment is related to it and becomes all the more severe. Judah’s sin (2:4) was mild in comparison with Edom’s, but it was just as much a flouting of God’s standards, and so the people merited a similar condemnation. All sin, of whatever sort and by whomever committed, is ultimately sin against God.
No one will escape God’s judgment, however strong or capable they may be.
At last the pile-driving blows fall on the ears of the Israelite listeners, as they are treated to a detailed and extended description of their own inhumanities against their fellows (2:6-8) as well as of their misuse of God’s provision for their spiritual needs (2:12).
Four situations are described in 2:6-8:
No one could say that these were gross sins, and certainly not in the same class as the atrocities of the other nations; they could easily be excused with the words “everyone does this sort of thing.” But God’s verdict is expressed firmly at the end of 2:7. If morality means anything at all, it must touch the practical details of how we live and how we treat our neighbors, especially those less fortunate than ourselves. Failure here makes a scandal of our religious profession.
God then recounts some of his unmerited, and unappreciated, gifts to Israel (2:9-11). He had dispossessed strong enemies from the land (“Amorite” is a general term for all the pre-Conquest inhabitants of Canaan); he had performed the liberating miracle of the exodus; he had given Israel spiritual leadership to continue the work done by Moses in speaking God’s word and witnessing to his holiness. A theocratic community like Israel needed its prophets and holy men, but Israel’s response was to muffle their words and contaminate their consecration (2:12).
The punishment is pronounced in 2:13-16: as Israel’s oppressive rulers trampled on their fellow men, so God will trample down these same men, like the threshing-sledge pressing down upon the floor full of sheaves (see also 1:3). No one will escape God’s judgment, however strong or capable they may be. When God acts, human ability is powerless to frustrate him.
The privileges of being God’s people do not exempt us from personal discipline and practical holiness.
The last thing
Just as punishment inevitably falls on the covenant people because of their failure to keep the covenant standards, so Amos goes on to exemplify a number of other cases of cause and effect (3:3-6). The effect is seen and heard; the cause can be presumed. For example, travelers journeying together have clearly planned to do so; lions growl only when they have taken prey; snares snap tight when a victim steps inside. 3:6 brings the examples closer to their intended climax: when the trumpeter sounds the alarm in a city, it is because the people fear an attack, and when disaster comes, people know that the Lord is behind it.
The application follows (3:7-8). God never acts (effect) without first giving warning through the prophets (cause). But he has spoken, the prophet must prophesy and the judgment will surely fall.
To ponder The more God has done for us, the more he expects of us.