Joel Chapter 1

Introduction – The Big Picture
The Book of Joel deals in big pictures, so let’s start there. At the time of the flood, God told Noah, “My Spirit shall not contend with man forever.” (Gen 6:3)

Ray Stedman says: Whenever that statement is uttered it means that judgement is at hand. For God’s Spirit ‘contends’ with humanity by patiently restraining evil so that human life can go on. God tries to win people to himself by holding back the destructive forces in human events. But at last God’s patience reaches an end and there comes a time when God says either to an individual or to a nation, ‘My Spirit will not always contend with men.’ When he removes his Spirit – the controlling force of life – everything collapses, catastrophe and judgement strike.”

Background
Joel's prophesies are addressed to Judah in the South of the Holy Land unlike his near contemporaries Hosea, Amos and Jonah who addressed Israel in the North. The date of compostion of this book is subject to much academic debate, specifically over whether it is pre-or post exilic. Most books in the Bible do have some clear marker which places them in history, so the lack of such a marker in Joel might of itself be significant. It could well indicate that this prophetic message is ‘universal’ (for all times) and should not be tied to a particular event or time. The real focus is on the spiritual implications rather than the historical events.
Prophecy often takes an immediate situation and gives it a wider, far-reaching application. It is often eschatological or apocalyptic in nature, telling of near-term and far events.

In order to gives ourselves a context and get an idea of what we're dealing with it is often a good idea to look for the so-called “theme tunes” of the text. This is a method I was taught by David Jackman of the Cornhill Training College in London, and which I have found invaluable in reading the Bible. If we take a look at the vocabulary of the passage we can idnetify repeated words and phrases. In chapter 1 ‘God’s Temple’ is mentioned repeatedly. Also there are plenty of command word put in the mouth of the Lord which we’ll touch on later. lastly, we must not forget the phrase, ‘the Day of the Lord’. This phrase appears twenty times in the Old Testament, with five of those being in Joel, so it would seem likely that judgement is a major theme.

The Game Plan
My intention is to follow the text pretty much verse by verse through chapter 1, andto try and unpack the ideas that we find here.

THE TEXT
Verse 1
Here we find an introduction to Joel as an accredited and genuine prophet. This is indicated by the phrase, 'the word of the Lord came to..' and we can see this designation in other OldTestament books. The name Joel all means, 'Yahweh is God' and his father’s name means ‘God is gracious’, so these names reinforce Joel's authority.

Verse 2b
The main thrust here is that the locust swarm, and whatever the locust swarm is a picture of, is a quite unprecedented event.

Verse 2a and Verse 3
The reason I have linked verses 2a and 3 is that they bracket and magnify the message of verse 2a. They take that message and tell us how to deal with it. The message is so important that it must be told to all people down all the centuries. But first, it has to be heard. Here is the principle of dealing with God’s word: hear and repeat. This is always challenging to me, because it is always easier to keep quiet, especially about the kind of message that this book contains! Yet the world needs to learn this lesson, so they need to hear the message.

Verse 4
Four different types of locusts are mentioned by Joel in verse 4. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the following descriptions but they illustrate the underlying point rather well.

1. GAZAM, which means 'to cut off,' and refers to the locusts that eat the tops off the stalks of plants.
2. ARBEH, which means 'to increase;' this type of locust eats the stalks of the plants. It has been called 'the swarming' locust.
3. YELEK, which means 'to lick up,' and designates the locust that eats the stub of the stalk.
4. CHASIL, which means 'to devour,' and denotes the locust that eats the root of the plant.

The picture that Joel is painting is one of utter devastation and complete desolation from which there is no escape.

Verses 5 to 7
As disaster comes God’s people are to be found enjoying the fruits of life. Hedonistic pleasures seem to be uppermost in the mind's of those 'set apart' for the Lord. Sometimes it is worth asking about what we don't see as well as what we do see and this begs a question, if the sensual delights of the world were taken away then what would be left? Well, when the physical is laid bare then all that is left is the spiritual – one’s relationship with God. I am reminded of the Bible's injunction that we should make treasure for heaven. In Luke 12:!3-21, Jesus tells the parable of the rich fool, instructing us to be rich towards God and not to the world. How easy it is for God's man or woman to be lured back into the false security material wealth and spiritual impoverishment as were the chosen people of Joel's day.

I hope we are beginning to see that this physical picture has spiritual implications. This disaster is a picture of judgement. The bark is stripped off the tree in verse 7 showing that in judgement the reality of the person's life is seen for what it really is. All the deceits of our outward appearance is stripped away and we are left only with what we have sown to the Lord.... or to the world.

Verse 8
One can imagine this verse starting with a big 'therefore' as the writer turns from a description of the problem to what course of action should follow the revelation of Israel's spiritual poverty. The reader is told to mourn and to grieve. In terms of the spiritual dimension of this text, then what is this a call to repentance.

The rest of the chapter is filled with commands from God given through Joel. There is no room for choice or manoeuvre being allowed here for these commands are by their nature divine imperatives - hear (2), tell (3), wake, weep and wail (5), mourn (8), despair and grieve (11), mourn and wail (13), fast, call and summon (14). If we don't put our house in order then God wil do so. he will not suffer us to live in perpetual disobedience.

Verse 9 - 12
In verse 9 we see a mention of the Temple which is one of our “theme tunes” of this chapter. Altogether it is mentioned four times in chapter 1 (vv 9,13,14,16) .The Temple was significant to Old Testament people because it was the the spiritual heart of the nation. The Temple was the place where the Jews came into relationship with God through sacrificial offerings that were mediated by the Levite priesthood.

Looking to verses 10 to 13, we see that there is a crisis at the Temple. With the locusts having devastated the land, the created order has been made barren and can provide none of the means by which God's people can approach him in sacrifice. The physical disaster has led to spiritual ruin. This is the famous 'double whammy.'

We are seeing here a reminder that it is God who provides us with everything, both for our physical needs and our spiritual needs. We must recognise this truth and not take either our prosperity or happiness for granted when times are good, or confuse the contentment that well-being infuses with real joy. That is to be found in God ,as the drink offering is meant to signify. ‘Man does not live by bread alone,’ says Moses in Deuteronomy 8 and Jesus repeats this to the Devil as he is tempted. All our appetites, our hunger and thirst will be met in the Lord, but without that acknowledgement we lay ourselves open to the kind of double-edged desolation that Joel describes. We are nothing without God - neither physical nor spiritaul beings.

Verse 13
It is perhaps not surprising that now there is a second call to repentance.

Verse 14
Again we see that the Temple is mentioned in a verse that talks about relationship with God. God tells the Jews to fast which is bitterly ironic. The irony is that they have no choice for there is no food. They are told also to cry out to the Lord. So the real act of atonement to which they are called is not so much a physical act but a spiritual one - an affair of the heart. Even at this late stage the Lord is ready to be 'gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.'

Verse 15
Here is the first mention of the phrase ‘The Day of the Lord’. It is a phrase that speaks to us of both judgement and deliverance. It is properly understood as refering to various events in history that will lead eventualy to a final Day. Life is not merely a cycle of eating a drinking and making money to keep on doing so! Rather ther is a point to it and a gola to be reached.

Verse 16
The theme here is one of suddenness. In Mark 13 verses 32-37 Jesus warns us that the end will come like, ‘a thief in the night,’ to which he says the remedy is ‘Watch!’ In other words be ready and get right with God now. If you haven't yet 'done business' with God because it doesn't feel like the right time yet, do not delay for you cannot guess when it will be too late. What if you decide to do it tomorrow and then you fall into the arms of death tonight? it will never feel like the right time. Make your commitment today.

Verse 17 –18
Here ia another angle on the disaster. It is not just humanity that suffers but also the created order that mankind should be looking after. Our sin has consequences far beyond us. As we fight the ecological and environmental problems of today, not least that of climate change, we would do well to ponder and take to heart this sad truth. We are failing in our duty as guardians of the planet. Many 'green' groups and organisations seem to appreciate this fact, but I wonder where the Christians are. We should be at the forefront of these movements, issuing the necessary warnings, but doing so in the biblical context that we see in passages such as these prophesies of Joel.

Verse 19 and 20
The only beings that have the sense to do the right thing in this awful circumstance are Joel and the wild animals! Presumably, everyone else is just panicking.

Closing Ideas
So what lessons might we take withus about the bad times that could befall us?

It seems to me that we are called to expect 'days of the Lord' in our lives. They might be events that are particular to us or affect others too, events that are physical or spiritual or have both dimensions. They might be bad things that occur but they may just as easily be good things. The one great Day of the Lord that happened in my life was the day the Lord took me for his own, when I sat with four witnesses gathered around me and I made my promise to Jesus, accepting his promises to me. That was a day of judgement and a day of deliverance that will decide my fate on that final Day of the Lord.

There are other things that happen that are not so nice and which should be viewed rather as the Jews should have recognised the situation in which they found themselves in the aftermath of the locust plague. That is, they should be seen as warnings and as dicipline. “Do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you because the Lord disciplines those he loves and punishes everyone he accepts as a son.” (Heb. 12:5-6)

And remember, when all seems lost, do not despair but look for the Lord’s hand in events. As dreadful as some situations might seem, they provide the opportunity for God's grace to flow in abundance. Oh! And read the good news of chapter 2!

NOTE for further study: Peter uses a quotation from Joel as his main text on the Day of Pentecost. You may already be one step ahead of me and fingured out the significance of that now that we have investigated the major themes of the Book of Joel, but if not, you can read a study of Acts 2 through the lens of Joel by clicking here. For those planning to teach Acts 2, I hope you will have found this preparatory work in the Old Testament useful for putting pentecost into a wider biblical context.