Joel 3:16

Roar] suggests the lion. His voice] the thunder: cp. Psalms 29. The figure is of a great tempest with the cry of the beast and thunder combined. Shake] cp. Joel 2:10.

The hope.. the strength] RV 'a refuge.. a stronghold': cp. Psalms 14:6; Psalms 27:1; Psalms 31:4; Psalms 43:2; Psalms 46:1. The very sounds announcing the doom of the nations will herald a place of safety for Israel.

17. The prophet knew of no heavenly Jerusalem, and he thought of the final consummation of the people of God in Palestine. Holy] inviolable. No enemy should again pass through Jerusalem.

18. Judah shall be wonderfully productive: cp. Amos 9:13. The perennial spring of the Temple mountain, which Isaiah (Isaiah 8:6) and the author of Psalms 46 had mentioned as a symbol of Jehovah's presence, Joel saw, after the manner of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 47:1.), issuing as a stream to water the dry and desert portion of the land symbolised under the valley of Shittim, or, RM, 'Acacias' (which is the meaning of Shittim), since the acacia grows in very dry places. A Shittim E. of the Jordan is mentioned (Numbers 25:1; Numbers 33:49; Joshua 2:1), but it is not probably referred to here.

19. As a foil to the fertility of Judah is the desolation of Egypt and Edom, probably mentioned as typical examples of the countries hostile to Judah, and from which Israel had suffered the cruelties of warfare and massacre from the outset of their history. Edom, after the exile, was the object of bitter feeling for recent hostilities. Egypt, it may have been thought, had never adequately suffered for its treatment of Israel when in bondage, since it had escaped the overthrows of Assyria and Chaldea.

20. In their felicity, as described in Joel 3:17.