Key Themes in Joel

The day of the Lord: a day of judgment

1:1                    Title

The locust invasion

1:2-4                The warning about the plague of locusts

1:5-8                Drinkers called to mourning

1:9-10              The cessation of the temple offerings

1:11-14            The call to mourning and repentance

1:15                  The day of the Lord is drawing near

1:16-18            The effects of the plague

1:19-20            A prayer to the Lord

2:1-2                The day of the Lord is drawing near

2:2-11              The coming of a destroying army

The call to return to the Lord

2:12-14            The Lord’s offer of mercy

2:15-17            The call to national repentance

The day of the Lord: a day of salvation

2:18-20            The Lord has mercy on his people

2:21-24            A call to rejoicing

2:25-27            The promise of restoration

2:28-32            The outpouring of the Spirit of the Lord

3:1-8                The judgment of the nations

3:9-11              Preparations for war

3:12-16            Punishment for the sins of the nations

3:17-21            The promise of blessing for the people of God

Background and setting

It is impossible to date the book of Joel. It could have been written at any time between the ninth and the third centuries bc, a span of 600 years. It is, simply, the word of the Lord that came to Joel son of Pethuel (1:1), and it therefore tells us far more about the Lord than about the prophet Joel. God spoke to the people of Joel’s time and Joel’s nation, and God spoke effectively so the people responded to the prophet’s message – that much is clear within the text itself.

Precisely how Joel received the word of the Lord remains an open question. The indications are that he was intimately acquainted with the temple at Jerusalem. So the word of the Lord came to him – perhaps audibly, perhaps visually, perhaps a mixture of both, perhaps neither. The Hebrew text of the opening verse literally reads, ‘The word of the Lord that was to Joel’; it became a reality to him, and Joel believed that his very words were the actual words of the Lord, invested with divine accuracy and authority.

It is in many ways providential that the book cannot be dated or traced to a particular person in a particular setting. The events described in it are, at one and the same time, unprecedented and timeless. The message of Joel is, therefore, relevant to any situation in any generation.

Themes and relevance

Central to the book of Joel is the nightmarish and devastating experience of a locust invasion (1:2–2:11), an experience that raised all sorts of theological questions for God’s people: Why is this happening to us? What has caused it? What is God doing about it? What is God saying to us? Is there anything we can do to stop it now and prevent it happening again? These sorts of questions are not limited to the Ancient Near East, of course; they remain relevant to people of any country at any time of disaster, ‘natural’ or otherwise, including our own.

It is tempting to say that God plays no part in such crises and tragedies; but if we write God out of his creation and, in particular, out of the unpleasant and unacceptable aspects of the world which he has created, we will end up lost in a meaningless universe with no hope and no direction. There is a way back from the nightmare scenario depicted by Joel – famously, the Lord promises to pour out his Spirit on all people (2:28); everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (2:32); and after God’s judgment will come God’s blessing in the form of his presence among them (3:17-18, 20-21) – but the issues are deadly serious and the time is necessarily short.

Joel’s theology is robust and comprehensive. He sees the hand of God in the totality of human experience and talks of God’s personal and direct involvement in all human affairs (2:11, 18-27; 3:1-8). He might have been addressing a context and a culture where it was natural to talk in such blunt language about God’s action; however, the Israel of Joel’s day was no less secularised than our own generation. Joel had the courage to talk of God’s direct and personal involvement in current affairs and to assert that he and he alone had the answers to the national crisis: that would have been as contrary to contemporary worldviews and received wisdom as it would be today.

Is it time for us to return to such a robust and comprehensive theology? If we find it hard to accept Joel’s explanation of his particular set of circumstances, what is the alternative? Put bluntly: if God did not send the locusts, who did? We still have to investigate what we mean by such a statement, but we must not rationalise it so far that it becomes an ignored relic belonging to another world. For Joel’s agriculture-based economy, the locust plague threatened the basic necessities of daily living and therefore the economic stability of the nation. Where are the locusts today in our technologically brilliant but ethically bankrupt society?

One particular phrase acts like a refrain throughout Joel’s message: the day of the Lord (1:15; 2:1, 11, 31; 3:14). This is where Joel is most robust and direct. The locust invasion is a prelude to something far worse, probably enemy invasion from the north, and certainly a day of final judgment. Whatever else Joel may or may not be saying, he is emphasising as strongly as he knows how that that great and terrible day is imminent. Any present or pending disaster, such as the locusts, comes as a warning, a trumpet-blast in the ears of the complacent and heedless. God is speaking and he is speaking personally, directly and urgently. However, it should not be missed that Joel’s prophecies conclude with the reassuring promise of protection for Israel, for the Lord will be a refuge for his people (3:16) and they will know beyond doubt that their God dwells with them (3:17).

This blog post was extracted from the notes in the Bible Speaks Today NIV Study Bible, which is available now. The themes are expanded upon, and the text thoroughly expounded, in the new Tyndale Old Testament Commentary on Joel and Amos, which is one of the IVP October 2020 Releases.