I. Name

Joel, "Jehovah is God," or "whose God is Jehovah," is a common name in Old Testament history, no less than fourteen persons bearing it. His father's name was Pethuel, or as the Septuagint reads it Bathouel. Beyond this all is conjecture. From the contents some have inferred that he belonged to the priesthood and was an inhabitant of Jerusalem.

II. Date

The absence of any recorded date and the peculiar contents render the date exceedingly uncertain. Different critics have reached widely different conclusions. Keil gives 877-847 B. C. Bleek puts him about 800 B. C, making him one of the earliest of the prophets whose writings have come down to us.

Driver rather undecidedly refers the book to "a date after the captivity." George Adam Smith says after 444 B. C. All agree that he must be placed either at a very early or a very late date.

The arguments for an early date are:

(1) The position of the book among the Minor Prophets and its literary peculiarities.

(2) No historical allusions are made to the Syrians, Assyrians, or Chaldeans, as we find in the prophets from Amos to the exile, while he does mention Tyre, 3:4; Egypt, and Edom, 3:19, who were early enemies of Israel.

(3) No mention is made of Judah as distinct from Israel.

(4) The fact that the government is in the hands of elders, 1:14, instead of a king seems to point to the time when Jehoash was a minor and the government was conducted by Jehoiada, a priest, 2 Kings 12:1-3.

(5) Many resemblances are traced between Joel and Amos, Joel 1:4 and 2:25 with Amos 4:6-9; and also between Joel and other prophets, Joel 1:15 and Isaiah 13:6, 9 and Ezek. 30:2, which seem to show that they quoted from Joel rather than Joel from them.

On the other hand, there are some allusions which are thought to point to a later date. The mention of Greeks, 3:6; the failure to distinguish between Judah and Israel; the scattering of the people and the partition of the land among the enemies of Israel, 3:2; and the great devotion to the temple service, 1:9, 13; 2:14, are regarded as implying a post-exilic time.

But these points can be explained so as to admit an early origin more readily than can those which favor an early origin be made to agree with a late date, and we would therefore accept the former, making Joel one of the first of the prophets whose writings have come down to us.

III. Analysis

The prophecy consists of two parts:

1. First section. Chs. 1:1 to 2:17. After introducing himself, 1:1, the prophet gives a picture of a fearful judgment which had befallen the people in the swarms of locusts which had devoured all vegetation and the drought which now threatened all animal life, 1:2-20. The picture of desolation is most graphically drawn, and the suffering and ruin are vividly and pathetically delineated.

A second picture follows. An invading army sweeps down from the north, 2:2ff, changing the land from a garden to a desolate wilderness, 2:3. Jehovah himself is marching at the head of this army, 2:11. This is followed by an urgent call to repentance and prayer that Jehovah will avert the ruin before which the people are utterly helpless, 2:12-17.

2. Second section. Chs. 2:18 to 3:21. In response to the call for humiliation and prayer Jehovah promises blessings in which not only the people shall find relief, but the beasts of the field and the very earth itself will rejoice, 2:18-27. Better still, there will be a remarkable outpouring of God's Spirit in which all classes shall have a share, and salvation will be secured by every one who calls upon the name of the Lord, 2:28-32. This will usher in "the day of Jehovah," when hostile nations will meet a fearful, well-deserved doom in the valley of Jehoshaphat, 3:2, while Judah shall abide forever and Jerusalem from generation to generation, 3:20, 21.

IV. Peculiarities

1. Style. The narrative is bold and picturesque. The details are given in rapid outline which is constantly changing. The Hebrew is simple and the words well chosen. In the very sound and movement of the words we are reminded of the noise and onrush of the locusts, 1:10. Bleek says, "In a literary and poetical point of view Joel's prophecy is one of the most beautiful productions of Hebrew literature; in florid and vivid description it is surpassed by none." (Int. to O. T., II., p. 136.)

2. The proper interpretation of the word locusts has been much discussed. The early fathers and many moderns, as Hengstenberg, Pusey, understand it figuratively, symbolizing the assault of the future great world-powers on the church. A second interpretation regards the passage as apocalyptic, like the living creatures of Ezekiel and Daniel and the strange figures of the Book of Revelation. A third and more natural interpretation is that they are real locusts, such as sometimes swarm over those lands, whose desolating march is suggestive to the prophet of still more fearful scourges which will come unless the people repent and return to God.

3. Joel uses some expressions which have attained great prominence. "The day of Jehovah," 1:15; 2:1, 11, is to be carefully noted. He represents it as at hand, 1:15; 2:1; as great and very terrible, 2:11, 3:14 ff; it is not simply a day of judgment for the ungodly, but the day of fuller spiritual manifestations to His people. The outpouring of the Spirit, 2:28-32, furnishes one of the most positive statements concerning the New Testament times to be found in the Old Testament. Applied by Peter to the marvels of Pentecost, Acts 2:i4ff., it finds ever new and wonderful confirmations in the renewing and upbuilding of souls in every land and age where the Gospel has been preached.

4. The prophecy of Joel has become a fountain from which many later Scripture writers have drawn with great freeness. "The day of Jehovah" of Joel finds an echo in Isa. 31:9; Ezek. 32:7, 8; Amos 8:9, and in many places in the New Testament. The fountain watering the dry places, 3:18; is taken up in Ezek, 47:1; Zech. 13:1; 14:8. The great promise concerning the Spirit, 2:28, reappears in Isa. 44:3; Ezek. 39:29; Zech. 12:10. From these and other illustrations we may learn how widely these writings must have circulated and how carefully they were studied by those who were watching for the coming of the kingdom of God.

LITERATURE

Commentaries: Orelli; G. A. Smith, The Book of the Twelve Prophets; Keil and Delitzsch; Pusey. Hengstenberg's Christology; Robertson Smith, The Prophets of Israel; Farrar, The Minor Prophets; article "Hosea" in Bible Dictionaries of Smith and Hastings; Introductions of Driver, Keil, Bleek; Stanley, History of the Jewish Church.