Albert Barnes Commentary Joel 3

For, behold - The prophet, by the word “for,” shows that he is about to explain in detail what he had previously spoken of in summary. By the word “behold,” he stirs up our minds for something great, which he is to set before our eyes, and which we would not be prepared to expect or believe unless he solemnly told us, “Behold.” As the detailed account, then, of what precedes it, the prophecy contains all periods of future judgment on those who would oppose God, oppress His Church and people, and sin against Him in them, and all periods of His blessing upon His own people, until the Last Day.

And it presents this in imagery, partly describing more immediate events of the same kind, as in the punishments of Tyre and Sidon, such as they endured from the kings of Assyria, from Nebuchadnezzar, and from Alexander; and partly using these, His earlier judgments, as representatives of similar punishments against similar sins until the end.

In those days and in that time - The whole period of which the prophet had been speaking was the time from God’s call to His people for repentance until the Day of Judgment. The final division of that time extended from the beginning of the Gospel until that Day.

He specifies the occasion he is referring to with the words from the prophet, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem. This expression was used before there was any general dispersion of the nation.

For any captivity of individual members of the Jewish people had this severe affliction: it severed them from the public worship of God and exposed them to idolatry. Thus David complains, they have driven me out this day from abiding in the inheritance of the Lord, saying, go serve other gods (1 Samuel 26:19).

The restoration, then, of individual members, or of smaller groups of captives, was, at that time, an unspeakable mercy. It was the restoration of those excluded from the worship of God; and so was an image of the deliverance from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God (Romans 8:21), or of any return of those who had gone astray, to the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls (1 Peter 2:25).

The grievous captivity of the Jews is now to Satan, whose servants they made themselves when they said, we have no king but Caesar; His Blood be upon us and upon our children.

Their blessed deliverance will be from the power of Satan unto God (Acts 26:18). It is certain from Paul (Romans 11:26) that there will be a complete conversion of the Jews before the end of the world, as indeed has always been believed.

This will probably occur shortly before the end of the world. God’s meaning here would be: “When I will have brought to an end the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, (that is, of that people to whom were the promises (Romans 9:4)), and will have delivered them from the bondage of sin and from blindness to light and freedom in Christ, then I will gather all nations to judgment.”

I will gather all nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat - It may be that the imagery is furnished by that great deliverance which God gave to Jehoshaphat, when Ammon and Moab and Edom came against him, to cast God’s people out of His possession, which He gave them to inherit (2 Chronicles 20:11), and Jehoshaphat appealed to God, O our God, will You not judge them? And God said, the battle is not yours but God’s. God turned their swords, everyone against the other, and none escaped. And on the fourth day they assembled themselves in the valley of Berachah (blessing); for there they blessed the Lord (2 Chronicles 20:26).

So, in the end, He will destroy antichrist, not by human aid, but by the breath of His mouth; and then the end will come, and He will sit on the throne of His glory to judge all nations. Then none of those gathered against Judah and Jerusalem will escape, but they will be judged by their own consciences, as those former enemies of His people fell by their own swords.

That valley, however, is nowhere called “the valley of Jehoshaphat.” It continued to be “called the valley of Berachah,” the writer adds, “to this day.” And it is so called still. Caphar Barucha, “the village of blessing,” was still known in that neighborhood in the time of Jerome; it had been known in that of Josephus. Southwest of Bethlehem and east of Tekoa are still 3 or 4 acres of ruins, bearing the name Bereikut, and a valley below them, still bearing silent witness to God’s ancient mercies, in its but slightly disguised name, “the valley of Bereikut” (Berachah).

The only valley called the “valley of Jehoshaphat” is the valley of Kedron, lying between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, encircling the city on the east.

There Asa, Hezekiah, and Josiah cast the idols, which they had burned (1 Kings 15:13; 2 Chronicles 30:14; 2 Kings 23:6, 12). The valley was the common burying-place for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. “There” was the garden where Jesus oftentimes resorted with His disciples; “there” was His Agony and Bloody Sweat; there Judas betrayed Him; from there He was dragged by the rude officers of the high priest. The temple, the token of God’s presence among them, the pledge of His accepting their sacrifices which could only be offered there, overhung it on one side.

There, under the rock on which that temple stood, they dragged Jesus, as a lamb to the slaughter (Isaiah 53:7). On the other side, it was overhung by the Mount of Olives, from where He beheld the city and wept over it, because it knew not in that its day, the things which belong to its peace; from where, after His precious Death and Resurrection, Jesus ascended into heaven.

There the Angels foretold His return: This heaven shall so come in like manner as you have seen Him go into heaven (Acts 1:11). It has been a current opinion that our Lord should descend to judgment, not only in like manner, and in the like form of Man, but in the same place, over this valley of Jehoshaphat. Certainly, if this is so, it would be appropriate that He should appear in His Majesty where, for us, He bore the extremest shame; that He should judge there, where for us, He submitted to be judged.

“He shows,” says Hilary (Matthew 25), “that the Angels bringing them together, the assemblage will be in the place of His Passion; and appropriately His Coming in glory will be looked for there, where He won for us the glory of eternity by the sufferings of His humility in the Body.”

But since the Apostle says, we shall meet the Lord in the air, then, not in the valley of Jehoshaphat, but over it, in the clouds, His throne would be. “Uniting, as it were, Mount Calvary and Olivet, the spot would be well suited to that judgment wherein the saints will partake of the glory of the Ascension of Christ and the fruit of His Blood and Passion, and Christ will take deserved vengeance on His persecutors and on all who would not be cleansed by His Blood.”

God says, “I will gather all nations,” concerning the gathering together of the nations against Him under antichrist, because He overrules all things. While they, in their purpose, are gathering themselves against His people and elect, He, in His purpose secret to them, is gathering them to sudden destruction and judgment, “and will bring them down”; for their pride will be brought down, and themselves laid low. Even Jewish writers have seen a mystery in the word, and said that it hints at “the depth of God’s judgments,” that God “would descend with them into the depth of judgment,” “a most exact judgment, even for the most hidden things.”

His very presence there would say to the wicked: “In this place I endured grief for you; here, at Gethsemane, I poured out for you that sweat of water and Blood; here I was betrayed and taken, bound as a robber, dragged over Cedron into the city. Hard by this valley, in the house of Caiaphas and then of Pilate, I was judged and condemned to death for you, crowned with thorns, buffeted, mocked, and spat upon; here, led through the whole city, bearing the Cross, I was at length crucified for you on Mount Calvary. Here, stripped, suspended between heaven and earth, with hands, feet, and My whole frame distended, I offered Myself for you as a Sacrifice to God the Father. Behold the Hands which you pierced; the Feet which you perforated; the Sacred prints which you anew imprinted on My Body.

You have despised My toils, griefs, and sufferings; you have counted the Blood of My covenant an unholy thing; you have chosen to follow your own concupiscences rather than Me, My doctrine, and law; you have preferred momentary pleasures, riches, and honors to the eternal salvation which I promised; you have despised Me, threatening the fires of hell.

Now you see whom you have despised; now you see that My threats and promises were not vain, but true. Now you see that your loves, riches, and dignities were vain and fallacious; now you see that you were fools and senseless in the love of them—but too late. Depart, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. But you who believed, hoped, loved, worshiped Me, your Redeemer, who obeyed My whole law, who lived a Christian life worthy of Me, who lived soberly, godly, and righteously in this world, looking for the blessed hope and this My glorious Coming, Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom of heaven prepared for you from the foundation of the World. And these will go into everlasting fire; but the righteous into life eternal. Blessed is whoever continually thinks or foresees, and provides for these things.”

And will plead with them there - Woe to him against whom God pleads! He does not say judges but pleads, making Himself a party, the Accuser as well as the Judge. “Solemn is it indeed when Almighty God says, I will plead. He that has ears to hear let him hear. For terrible it is.

Therefore, that “Day of the Lord” is also called “great and terrible.” For what is more terrible than, at such a time, the pleading of God with man? For He says, I will plead, as though He had never yet pleaded with man, great and terrible as His judgments have been since that first destruction of the world by water.

Past are those judgments on Sodom and Gomorrah, on Pharaoh and his hosts, on the whole people in the wilderness from twenty years old and upward, the mighty oppressions of the enemies into whose hands He gave them in the land of promise; past were the four Empires. But now, in the time of antichrist, there shall be tribulation, such as there had not been from the beginning of the world. But all these are little compared with that great and terrible Day; and so He says, I will plead, as though all before had not been, to plead.”

God makes Himself a party in such a way as not to condemn those unconvicted; yet the pleading has a separate awfulness of its own. God impleads, so as to allow Himself to be impleaded and answered; but there is no answer. He will set forth what He had done, and how we have requited Him. And we are without excuse. Our memories witness against us; our knowledge acknowledges His justice; our conscience convicts us; our reason condemns us; all unite in pronouncing ourselves ungrateful, and God holy and just. For a sinner to see himself is to condemn himself; and in the Day of Judgment, God will bring before each sinner his whole self.

For My people - “God’s people are the one true Israel, ‘princes with God,’ the whole multitude of the elect, foreordained to eternal life.” Of these, the former people of Israel, once chosen of God, was a type. As Paul says, They are not all Israel which are of Israel (Romans 9:6); and again, As many as walk according to this rule of the Apostle’s teaching, peace be on them and mercy, and upon the Israel of God (Galatians 6:16), i.e., not among the Galatians only, but in the whole Church throughout the world. Since the whole people and Church of God is one, He lays down one law, which will be fulfilled to the end: that those who, for their own ends, even although therein the instruments of God, will in any way injure the people of God, will themselves be punished by God.

God makes Himself one with His people. He that touches you, touches the apple of My eye (Zechariah 2:8). So our Lord said, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me? (Acts 9:4). And in the Day of Judgment He will say, I was an hungered and you gave me no meat. Inasmuch as you did it not to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it not to Me (Matthew 25:34–35). “By calling them ‘My heritage,’ He shows that He will not on any terms part with them or suffer them to be lost, but will vindicate them to Himself forever.”

Whom they have scattered among the nations - Such was the offense of the Assyrians and Babylonians, the first “army” which God sent against His people. And for it, Nineveh and Babylon perished. “Yet he does not speak of that ancient people, or of its enemies only, but of all the elect both in that people and in the Church of the Gentiles, and of all persecutors of the elect. For that people were a figure of the Church, and its enemies were a type of those who persecute the saints.” The dispersion of God’s former people by the pagans was renewed in those who persecuted Christ’s disciples from “city to city,” banished them, and confiscated their goods. Banishment to mines or islands was the slightest punishment of the early Christians.

And they have cast lots - They treated God’s people as of no account, and delighted in showing their contempt toward them. They chose no one above another, as though all alike were worthless. They cast lots, it is said elsewhere, upon their honorable men (Nahum 3:10), as a special indignity, above captivity or slavery. A girl they sold for an evening’s revelry, and a boy they exchanged for a night’s debauch.

Indeed, and what have you to do with Me? - Literally, “and also, what are you to Me?” The words, “And also,” show that this is something additional to the deeds of those previously mentioned. Those previously instanced were great oppressors, such as dispersed the former people of God and “divided their land.” In addition to these, God here condemns another class: those who, without having power to destroy, harass and vex His heritage. The words, “what are you to Me?” are like that other phrase, “what is there to thee and me?” (Joshua 22:24; Matthew 8:29, and other passages), that is, what do we have in common? These words, “what are you to Me?” also declare that those nations had no part in God. God considers them aliens, asking, “What are you to Me?” Nothing.

But the words convey, besides, that they would, unprovoked, involve themselves with God, harassing His people without cause. They obtruded themselves, so to speak, upon God and His judgments. They challenged God. They thrust themselves in, to their own destruction, where they had little temptation to meddle, noticing only inbred malice to impel them.

This was, especially, the character of the relations of Tyre and Zidon and Philistia with Israel. They were allotted to Israel by Joshua, but were not assailed. On the contrary, the Zidonians are counted among those who oppressed Israel, and out of whose hand God delivered him, when he cried to God (Judges 10:12). The Philistines were the unwearied assailants of Israel in the days of the Judges, Saul, and David (Judges 13:1; 1 Samuel 4; 1 Samuel 13; 1 Samuel 17; 1 Samuel 23:1; 1 Samuel 30; 1 Samuel 31:1–13). During 40 years Israel was given into the hands of the Philistines, until God delivered them by Samuel at Mizpeh. When David was king of all Israel, the Philistines still acted on the offensive, and lost Gath and her towns to David in an offensive war (2 Samuel 5:17–25; 2 Samuel 8:1; 1 Chronicles 18:1; 2 Samuel 21:18; 2 Samuel 13:9–16).

To Jehoshaphat some of them voluntarily paid tribute (2 Chronicles 17:11); but in the reign of Jehoram his son, they, with some Arabians, marauded in Judah, plundering the king’s house and slaying all his sons, except the youngest (2 Chronicles 21:16–17; 2 Chronicles 22:1). This is the last event before the time of Joel. They stand among the most inveterate and unprovoked enemies of God’s people, and probably as enemies of God also, hating Judah’s claim that their God was the One God.

Will you render Me a recompense? - People never lack pleas for themselves. The Philistines, although the aggressors, had been signally defeated by David. People forget their own wrongdoings and remember their sufferings. It may be, then, that the Philistines thought that they had been aggrieved when their assaults were defeated, and looked upon their own fresh aggressions as a requital. Furthermore, if, as is probable, they heard that the signal victories won over them were ascribed by Israel to God, and they themselves also suspected that these mighty Gods (1 Samuel 4:7–8) were the cause of their defeat, they doubtless turned their hatred against God. People, when they do not submit to God’s chastening, hate Him. This belief that they were retaliating against God (not, of course, knowing Him as God) fully corresponds with the strong words, will you render Me a recompense? Julian’s dying blasphemy, “Galilean, thou hast conquered,” corresponds with the efforts of his life against the gospel, and implies a secret consciousness that He whose religion he was straining to overthrow might be, what He denied Him to be—God.

The phrase swiftly (literally, “lightly and speedily”) denotes the union of easiness with speed. The recompense is returned upon their head, coming down upon them from God.

Ye have taken My silver and My gold - Not the silver and gold of the temple (as some have thought). At least, up to the prophet’s time, they had not done this. For the inroad of the Philistines in the reign of Jehoram was, apparently, a mere marauding expedition, in which they killed and plundered, but are not said to have besieged or taken any city, much less Jerusalem. God calls “the silver and gold” which He, through His Providence, had bestowed on Judah, “My” gold and silver; as He said by Hosea (Hosea 2:8).

She knew not that I multiplied her silver and gold, with which she made Baal; and by Haggai, The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts (Haggai 2:8). For they were His people, and what they had, they held from Him; and the Philistines too also considered it such, and dedicated a part of it to their idols, as they had the ark formerly, accounting the victory over God’s people to be the triumph of their idols over God.