Joel 3:1-21
1 "For behold, in those days and at that time,
When I bring back the captives of Judah and Jerusalem,
2 I will also gather all nations,
And bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat;
And I will enter into judgment with them there
On account of My people, My heritage Israel,
Whom they have scattered among the nations;
They have also divided up My land.
3 They have cast lots for My people,
Have given a boy as payment for a harlot,
And sold a girl for wine, that they may drink.
4 "Indeed, what have you to do with Me,
O Tyre and Sidon, and all the coasts of Philistia?
Will you retaliate against Me?
But if you retaliate against Me,
Swiftly and speedily I will return your retaliation upon your own head;
5 Because you have taken My silver and My gold,
And have carried into your temples My prized possessions.
6 Also the people of Judah and the people of Jerusalem
You have sold to the Greeks,
That you may remove them far from their borders.
7 "Behold, I will raise them
Out of the place to which you have sold them,
And will return your retaliation upon your own head.
8 I will sell your sons and your daughters
Into the hand of the people of Judah,
And they will sell them to the Sabeans,
To a people far off;
For the LORD has spoken."
9 Proclaim this among the nations:
"Prepare for war!
Wake up the mighty men,
Let all the men of war draw near,
Let them come up.
10 Beat your plowshares into swords
And your pruning hooks into spears;
Let the weak say, 'I am strong.'"
11 Assemble and come, all you nations,
And gather together all around.
Cause Your mighty ones to go down there, O LORD.
12 "Let the nations be wakened, and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat;
For there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations.
13 Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe.
Come, go down;
For the winepress is full,
The vats overflow—
For their wickedness is great."
14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision!
For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.
15 The sun and moon will grow dark,
And the stars will diminish their brightness.
16 The LORD also will roar from Zion,
And utter His voice from Jerusalem;
The heavens and earth will shake;
But the LORD will be a shelter for His people,
And the strength of the children of Israel.
17 "So you shall know that I am the LORD your God,
Dwelling in Zion My holy mountain.
Then Jerusalem shall be holy,
And no aliens shall ever pass through her again."
18 And it will come to pass in that day
That the mountains shall drip with new wine,
The hills shall flow with milk,
And all the brooks of Judah shall be flooded with water;
A fountain shall flow from the house of the LORD
And water the Valley of Acacias.
19 "Egypt shall be a desolation,
And Edom a desolate wilderness,
Because of violence against the people of Judah,
For they have shed innocent blood in their land.
20 But Judah shall abide forever,
And Jerusalem from generation to generation.
21 For I will acquit them of the guilt of bloodshed, whom I had not acquitted;
For the LORD dwells in Zion."
God promised to judge the nations set against His people Israel and as a picture of the type of judgment of the ungodly and deliverance for all His chosen people to come. There was deliverance from the bondage of captivity both because of and as a consequence for sin. This applied for the nation of Israel but also is a type of the salvation from sin’s enslavement for we out of all nations who are delivered ultimately in Christ together with the remnant out of Israel. In the time of Joel there was deliverance out of the nations who attacked and enslaved God’s people where they had been scattered in disciplining judgment to drive them to repentance. The ungodly were held accountable for dragging Israel into idolatry and immortality, from robbing God’s house of the gold and silver, and for their own fighting against Him. The nations who sold off the sons and daughters of His people would have Him turn the tables and sell the children of the godless off instead to reverse their intended retaliation onto their own heads. He called these people to prepare for a war they would lose as they turned farm implements into weapons of war, quote the opposite of God’s plan for His own who would beat their weapons into tools of peace by His redemptive work (Isaiah 2:4, Micah 4:3). The battle would be reaped by the sickle of God as in the final judgment to come of which this hinted at in God’s victory (Revelation 14:15). The battles both led to much bloodshed, so much that it is pictured as overflowing huge vats used for wine to demonstrate the amount of wickedness to be half to account. There were multitudes in the valley of decision then as well as now to choose following the LORD instead of fighting against Him and His people. The end of all will be the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars of all heaven as all is about to be made new after the deliverance from the bondage and effects of sin over all creation (Romans 8:22). He will shake the earth but we are secure on the solid rock of our salvation in a kingdom that cannot be shaken (Hebrews 12:27-28). He is our shelter and strength of that salvation when He speaks judgement on the world. His kingdom with the New Jerusalem will have only men and women made holy in Christ to enjoy that place before Him in unadulterated worship (Revelation 21:27, 22:3). This kingdom of God will endure forever, unlike the temporal Israel on the present earth, and of it there can be no end (Isaiah 9:7, Luke 1:33) because God will be resident there in our very presence forever as promised. God will judge the nations set against His Christ who persecute His chosen ones and we who are His take infinite comfort in His deliverance of grace and mercy through everlasting forgiveness in His love for His own. This has been accomplished by the birth, life, suffering, sacrificial death, and glorious victorious resurrection of Jesus Christ who is the incarnate Word of God spoken to us! Amen.
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