Joel 2:18

Then will the LORD be jealous for his land, and pity his people.

Ver. 18. Then will the Lord be jealous (or, zealous) for his land] Then dicto citius straight upon it: no sooner shall you repent (as is prescribed) but the Lord will be jealous, &c. Of God's jealousy for his people, See Trapp on "Zechariah 1:14 ; Zec 8:2 " And of the happy effect of fasting turned to feasting, See Trapp on " Zec 8:19 " see also Jdg 20:23 Ezr 9:6 Daniel 9:20 2 Chronicles 20:3; 2Ch 20:24-25 Bacah turned into Berachah; besides the constant experience of these and former times, of the happy success and unmiscarrying returns of holy fasting and prayer; no instance to the contrary. God usually answers his humbling people, as here, according to the desire of their hearts: neither so only, but according to the request of their lips also, Psalms 21:2, he fits his mercy ad cardinem desiderii; and lets it be to his, even as they will. They say, "Spare thy people," and accordingly he will pity or "spare his people," saith the prophet. They would not have God to give "his heritage to reproach" by inflicting famine upon them, as if they served a hard master that would affamish them. To this God gives a full answer in the next verse, "Behold, I will send you corn," &c. Again, they desire God to take care of his own great name, and to vindicate it. I will, saith God, by doing greatest things for you, Joel 2:20, and by causing the blasphemers to return and discern that "their rock is not as your Rock, themselves being judges," Deuteronomy 32:31; and that to ask, "Where is now their God?" is as great folly as if one should say, between the space of the new and old moon, Where is now the moon? when as it is never nearer the sun than at that time. There are some interpreters of good note, that read this verse not in the future, but in the preter tense, thus, Then was the Lord zealous for his land, and pitied his people; sc. when once he saw them seriously to repent he did all this that followeth for them. Neither maketh it anything against this interpretation, that the repentance of this people, their assembling and fasting, &c., is not recorded. For no more is it that Moses went to Pharaoh according to God's command, to threaten those swarms of flies, Exodus 8:20, or that Isaiah took his son Shearjashub, and went to Ahaz to confirm and comfort him, as God had commanded, Isaiah 7:3, which yet we doubt not but the prophet did. This is an ordinary aposiopesis.

And pity his people] Or, spare them, pardon them. The word signifies to show mercy to him whom by all right thou mayest justly destroy, Ezekiel 5:11 1 Samuel 15:3. Oh the Divine rhetoric and omnipotent efficacy of repentance! This is the rainbow, which if God seeth shining in our hearts, he will never drown our souls. Dat poenitentiam et postea indulgentiam (Fulgent.). He gives his people to repent, and then spareth them "as a man spareth his own son that serveth him," Malachi 3:17. But it is otherwise with those that partake not of the Divine nature: they are fierce, and implacable, as is the devil, who works effectually in them, as a smith doth in his forge. Henry IV, Emperor of Germany, came in the midst of a sore winter, upon his bare feet, to the gates of the castle of Canusium, and stood there fasting from morning to night for three days together, waiting for the judicial sentence of the pope, and craving pardon of him; which yet he could not obtain by his own or others' tears, or by the intercession of any saint, save only of a certain harlot, with whom the pope was then taking his filthy pleasure. The emperor mistook, who thought that the pope could be pacified by fasting and prayer. This god required another kind sacrifice than these.