Ver. 4. “ Iwill heal their apostasy, will love them freely: for my wrath has turned away from it. Ver. 5. I will be like dew for Israel: it shall blossom like the lily, and strike its roots like Lebanon. Ver. 6. Its shoots shall go forth, and its splendour shall become like the olive-tree, and tts smell like Lebanon. Ver. 7. They that dwell in its shadow shall give life to corn again; and shall blossom like the vine: whose glory is like the wine of Lebanon. Ver. 8. Ephraim: What have I further with the idols? I hear, and look upon him: J, like a bursting cypress, in me ts thy fruit found.” The Lord promises first of all to heal their apostasy, 7.e. all the injuries which have been inflicted by their apostasy from Him, and to love them with perfect spontaneity (n’dabhdh an adverbial accusative, promta animi voluntate), since His anger, which was kindled on account of its idolatry, had now turned away from it (miminennit, te. from Israel). The reading mimmenni (from me), which the Babylonian Codices have after the Masora, appears to have originated in a misunderstanding of Jer. il. 35. This love of the Lord will manifest itself in abundant blessing. Jehovah will be to Israel a refreshing, enlivening dew (cf. Isa. xxvi. 19), through which it will blossom splendidly, strike deep roots, and spread its shoots far and wide. “ Like the lily:” the fragrant white lily, which is very common in Palestine, and grows without cultivation, and “ which is unsurpassed in its fecundity, often producing fifty bulbs from a single root” (Pliny h. n. xxi. 5).
“ Strike roots like Lebanon,” i.e. not merely the deeply rooted forest of Lebanon, but the mountain itself, as one of the “foundations of the earth” (Mic. vi. 2). The deeper the roots, the more the branches spread and cover themselves with splendid green foliage, like the evergreen and fruitful olive-tree (Jer. xi. 16; Ps. lii. 10). The smell is like Lebanon, which is rendered fragrant by its cedars and spices (Song of Sol. iv. 11). The meaning of the several features in the picture has been well explained by Rosenmiiller thus: “The rooting indicates stability; the spreading of the branches, propagation and the multitude of inhabitants; the splendour of the olive, beauty and glory, and that constant and lasting; the fragrance, hilarity and loveliness.’ In ver. 7 a somewhat different turn is given to the figure. The comparison of the growth and flourishing of Israel to the lily and to a tree, that strikes deep roots and spreads its green branches far and wide, passes imperceptibly into the idea that Israel is itself the tree beneath whose shade the members of the nation flourish with freshness and vigour. 33" is to be connected adverbially with 7. Those who sit beneath the shade of Israel, the tree that is bursting into leaf, will revive corn, #.¢. cause it to return to life, or produce it for nourishment, satiety, and strengthening. Yea, they themselves will sprout like the vine, whose remembrance is, i.e. which has a renown, like the wine of Lebanon, which has been celebrated from time immemorial (cf. Plin. h. n. xiv. 7; Oedmann, Verm. Sammlung aus der Naturkunde,. p. 193; and Rosenmiiller, Bibl. Althk. iv. 1, p. 217). The divine promise closes in ver. 9 with an appeal to Israel to renounce idols altogether, and hold fast by the Lord aloneas the source of its life. Ephraim is a vocative, and is followed immediately by what the Lord has to say to Ephraim, so that we may supply memento in thought. ys iy nD, what have I yet to do with idols? (for this phrase, compare Jer. ii. 18); that is to say, not “I have now to contend with thee on account of the idols (Schmieder), nor “do not place them by my side any more” (Ros.); but, “JY will have nothing more to do with idols,” which also implies that Ephraim is to have nothing more to do with them. To this there is appended a notice of what God has done and will do for Israel, to which greater prominence is given by the emphatic 28: J, [hearken (‘dnathi a prophetic perfect), and look upon him. sv’, to look about for a person, to be anxious about him, or care for him, as in Job xxiv. 15. The suffix refers to Ephraim. In the last clause, God compares Himself to a cypress becoming green, not only to denote the shelter which He will afford to the people, but as the true tree of life, on which the nation finds its fruits—a fruit which nourishes and invigorates the spiritual life of the nation. The salvation which this promise sets before the people when they shall return to the Lord, is indeed depicted, according to the circumstances and peculiar views prevailing under the Old Testament, as earthly growth and prosperity; but its real nature is such, that it will receive a spiritual fulfilment in those Israelites alone who are brought to belief in Jesus Christ.
Ver. 9 (10) contains the epilogue to the whole book. “ Who ts wise, that he may understand this? understanding, that he may discern it? + I’or the ways of Jehovah are straight, and the vighteous walk therein: but the rebellious stumble in them.” ‘The pronoun nbs and the suffix to DYT' refer to everything that the prophet has laid before the people in his book for warning, for reproof, for correction, for chastening in righteousness. He concludes by summing up the whole substance of his teaching in the one general sentence, which points back to Deut. xxxii. 4: The ways of the Lord are straight. “The ways of Jehovah” (darkhé Y*hovah) are the ways taken by God in the guidance and government of men; not only the ways which He prescribes for them, but also His guidance of them. ‘These ways lead some to life and others to death, according to the different attitudes which men assume towards God, as Moses announced to all the Israclites that they would (Deut. xxx. 19, 20), and as the Apostle Paul assured the church at Corinth that the gospel of Jesus also would (1 Cor. i. 18).
AIERSON anp Times or THE Propuet JoEL.—- Joel Ont, a.e. Whose God is Jehovah, "Ia@) is distinguished from other men of the same name, which occurs very frequently (¢.g. 1 Sam. viii. 2; 1 Chron. iv. 35,.v. 4, viii. 12, vi. 21, vii. 3; 2 Chron. xxix. 12; Neh. xi. 9), by the epithet “son of Pethuel” OMine, the openheartedness or sincerity of God). Nothing is known of the circumstances connected with his life, since the traditional legends as to his springing from Bethom (ByGar, al. OeBupayv in Ps. Epiph.), or Bethomeron in the tribe of Reuben (Ps. Doroth.), are quite unsupported. All that can be inferred with any certainty from his writings is, that he lived in Judah, and in all probability prophesied in Jerusalem. The date of his ministry is also a disputed point; though so much is certain, namely, that he did not live in the reign of Manasseh or Josiah, or even later, as some suppose, but was one of the earliest of the twelve minor prophets. For even Amos (i. 2) commences his prophecy with a passage from Joel (iu. 16), and closes it with the same promises, adopting in ch. ix. 13 the beautiful imagery of Joel, of the mountains dripping with new wine, and the hills overflowing (Joel ii. 18). And Isaiah, again, in his description of the coming judgment in ch. xiii., had Joel in his mind; and in ver. 6 he actually borrows a sentence from his prophecy (Joel i. 15), which is so peculiar that the agreement cannot be an accidental one. Consequently, Joel prophesied before Amos, i.c. before the twentyseven years of the contemporaneous reigns of Uzziah and Jeroboam 11. How long before, can only be inferred with any degree of probability from the historical circumstances to which he refers in his prophecy. The only enemies that he mentions besides Egypt and Edom (ch. ili. 19), as those whom the Lord would punish for the hostility they had shown towards the people of God, are Tyre and Zidon, and the coasts of Philistia (ch. iii. 4); but not the Syrians, who planned an expedition against Jerusalem after the comquest of Gath, which cost Joash not only the treasures of the temple and palace, but his own life also (2 Kings xii. 18 sqq.; 2 Chron. xxiv. 23 sqq-), on account of which Amos predicted the destruction of the kingdom of Syria, and the transportation of the people to Assyria (Amos i. 3-5). But inasmuch as this expedition of the Syrians was not “directed against the Philistines, so that only a single detachment made a passing raid into Judah on their return,” as Hengstenberg supposes, but was a direct attack upon the kingdom of Judah, to which the city of Gath, that Rehoboam had fortified, may still have belonged (see at 2 Kings xii. 18, 19), and inflicted a very severe defeat upon Judah, Joel would surely have mentioned the Syrians along with the other enemies of Judah, if he had prophesied after that event. And even if the absence of any reference to the hostility of the Syrians towards Judah is not strictly conclusive when taken by itself, it acquires great importance from the fact that the whole character of Joel’s prophecy points to the times before Amos and Hosea. We neither meet with any allusion to the sins which Hosea and Amos condemn on the part of Judah, and which brought about the Assyrian judgment; nor is idolatry, as it prevailed under Joram, Ahaziah, and Athaliah, ever mentioned at all; but, on the contrary, the Jehovah-worship, which Jehoiada the high priest restored when Joash ascended the throne (2 Kings xi. 17 sqq.; 2 Chron. xxii. 16 sqq.), is presupposed. with all its well-reeulated and priestly ceremonial. These circumstances speak very decidedly in favour of the conclusion that the first thirty years of the reign of Joash, during which the king had Jehoiada the high priest for his adviser, are to be regarded as the period of Joel's ministry. No well-founded objection can be brought against this on account of the position which his book occupies among the minor prophets, since there is no ground for the opinion that the writings of the twelve minor prophets are arranged with a strict regard to chronology.
2. Tue Boox or Jonn.—The writings of Joel. contain a connected prophetic proclamation, which is divided into two equal halves by ch. ii. 18 and 19a. In the first half the prophet depicts a terrible devastation of Judah by locusts and scorching heat; and describing this judgment as the harbinger, or rather as the dawn, of Jehovah’s great day of judgment, summons the people of all ranks to a general day of penitence, fasting, and prayer, in the sanctuary upon Zion, that the Lord may have compassion upon His nation (ch. i. 2-ii. 17). In the second half there follows, as the divine answer to the call of the people to repentance, the promise that the Lord will destroy the army of locusts, and bestow a rich harvest blessing upon the land by sending early and latter rain (ch. ii. 190- xxvil.), and then in the future pour out His Spirit upon all flesh (ch. ii. 28-32), and sit in judgment upon all nations, who have scattered His people and divided His land among them, and reward them according to their deeds; but that He will shelter His people from Zion, and glorify His land by rivers of abundant blessing (ch. iii.). These two halves are connected together by the statement that Jehovah manifests the jealousy of love for His land, and pity towards His people, and answers them (ch. ii. 18, 19a). So far the commentators are all agreed as to the contents of the book. But there are differences of opinion, more especially as to the true interpretation of the first half,—namely, whether the description of the terrible devastation by locusts is to be understood literally or allegorically.' The decision of this question depends upon the reply that is given to the prior question, whether ch. i. 2-
1 The allegorical exposition is found even in the Chaldee, where the four names of the locusts are rendered literally in ch. i. 4, whereas in ch. ii. 25 we find hostile tribes and kingdoms instead; also in Ephraem Syrus, Cyril of Alex., Theodoret, and Jerome, although Theodoret regards the literal interpretation as also admissible, and in Abarb., Luther, and many other expositors. And lately it has been vigorously defended by Hengstenberg in his Christology (i. p. 302 translation), and by Hiivernick (Jntroduction, ii. 2, p. 294 sqq.), who both of them agree with the fathers in regarding the four swarms of locusts as representing the imperial powers of Chaldea, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. On the other hand, Rufinus, Jarchi, Ab. Ezra, Day. Kimchi, support the literal view that Joel is describing a terrible devastation of the land by locusts; also Bochart, Pococke, J. H. Michaelis, and in the most recent times, Hofmann and Delitzsch.
ii. 17 contains a description of a present or a future judgment. If we observe, first of all, that the statement in ch. i. 18 and 19a, by which the promise is introduced, is expressed in four successive imperfects with Vav consec. (the standing form for historical narratives), there can be no doubt whatever that this remark contains a historical announcement of what has taken place on the part of the Lord in consequence of the penitential ery of the people. And if this be established, it follows still further that the first half of our book cannot contain the prediction of a strictly future judgment, but must describe a calamity which has at any rate in part already begun. This is confirmed by the fact that the prophet from the very outset (ch. i. 2-4) describes the devastation of the land by locusts as a present calamity, on the ground of which he summons the people to repentance. As Joel begins with an appeal to the old men, to see whether such things have happened in their own days, or the days of their fathers, and to relate them to their children and children’s children, and then describes the thing itself with simple perfects, 19) DN DIN, it is perfectly obvious that he is not speaking of something that s to take place in the future, but of a divine judgement that has been inflicted already.’ It is true that the prophets frequently employ preterites in their description of future events, but there is no analogous example that can be found of such a use of them as we find here in ch. i. 2-4; and the remark made by Hengstenberg, to the effect that we find the preterites employed in exactly the same manner in ch. iii., is simply incorrect. But if Joel had an existing calamity before his eye, and depicts it in ch. i. 2 sqq., the question in dispute from time immemorial, whether the description is to be understood allegorically or literally, is settled in favour of the literal view. “ An allegory must contain some significant marks of its being so. Where these are wanting, it is arbitrary to assume that it is an allegory at all.” And we have no such marks here, as we shall show in
our exposition in detail. “As it is a fact established by the
1 “Some imagine,” as Calvin well observes, ‘‘ that a punishment is here
threatened, which is to fall at some future time; but the context shows clearly enough that they are mistaken and mar the prophct’s true meaning. He is rather reproving the hardness of the people, because they do not feel their plagues.”
unanimous testimony of the most credible witnesses, that wherever swarms of locusts descend, all the vegetation in the fields immediately vanishes, just as if a curtain had been rolled up; that they spare neither the juicy bark of woody plants, nor the roots below the ground; that their cloud-like swarms darken the air, and render the sun and even men at a little distance off invisible; that their innumerable and closely compact army advances in military array in a straight course, most obstinately maintained; that it cannot be turned back or dispersed, either by natural obstacles or human force; that on its approach a loud roaring noise is heard like the rushing of a torrent, a waterfall, or a strong wind; that they no sooner settle to eat, than you hear on all sides the grating sound of their mandibles, and, as Volney expresses it, might fancy that you heard the foraging of an invisible army;—if we compare these and other natural observations with the statements of Joel, we shall find everywhere the most faithful picture, and nowhere any hyperbole requiring for its justification and explanation that the army of locusts should be paraphrased into an army of men; more especially as the devastation of a country by an army of locusts is far more terrible than that of an ordinary army; and there is no allusion, either expressed or hinted at, to a massacre among the people. And if we consider, still further, that the migratory locusts (Aecridium migratorium, in Oken, Allg. Naturgesch. vy. 3, p. 1514 sqq.) find their grave sometimes in dry and barren steppes, and sometimes in lakes and seas, it is impossible to comprehend how the promise in ch. 11. 20—one part of the army now devastating Judah shall be hurled into the southern desert, the van into the Dead Sea, and the rear into the Mediterranean—can harmonize with the allegorical view” (Delitasch)."
The only thing that appears to favour the idea that the locusts are used figuratively to represent hostile armies, is the circumstance that Joel discerns in the devastation of the locusts as depicted by him, the drawing near or coming of the day of the Lord (ch. i. 15, ii. 1), connected with the fact that Isaiah speaks of the judgment upon Baal, which was accomplished by
1 Proofs of this have been collected in great numbers by Sam. Bochart (Hieroz.), and both Oedmann (Vermischte Sammlungen, ii. 76 sqq. and vi. 74 sqq.) and Credner (appendix to his Commentary on Jocl) have contributed abundant gleanings gathered from the reports of travellers.
a hostile army, in the words of Joel (ch. i. 15; see Isa. xiii. 6). But on closer examination, this appearance does not rise into reality. It is true that by the “day of Jehovah” we cannot understand a different judgment from the devastation of the locusts, since such a supposition would be irreconcilable with ch. ii. 1 sqq. But the expression, “for the day of Jehovah is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty does it come,” shows that the prophet did not so completely identify the day of the Lord with the plague of locusts, as that it was exhausted by it, but that he merely saw in this the approach of the great day of judgment, 2.e. merely one element of the judgment, which falls in the course of ages upon the ungodly, and will be completed in the last judgment. One factor in the universal judgment is the judgment pronounced upon Babylon, and carried out by the Medes; so that it by no means follows from the occurrence of the words of Joel in the prophecy of Isaiah, that the latter put an allegorical interpretation upon Joel’s description of the devastation by the locusts.