Joel 2:18-32

PROSPERITY AND THE SPIRIT

Joel 2:18

"THEN did Jehovah become jealous for His land, and took pity upon His people"-with these words Joel opens the second half of his book. Our Authorized Version renders them in the future tense, as the continuation of the prophet's discourse, which had threatened the Day of the Lord, urged the people to penitence, and now promises that their penitence shall be followed by the Lord's mercy. But such a rendering forces the grammar; and the Revised English Version is right in taking the verbs, as the vast majority of critics do, in the past. Joel's call to repentance has closed, and has been successful. The fast has been hallowed, the prayers are heard. Probably an interval has elapsed between Joel 2:17 and Joel 2:18, but, in any case, the people having repented, nothing more is said of their need of doing so, and instead we have from God Himself a series of promises, Joel 2:19, in answer to their cry for mercy. These promises relate to the physical calamity which has been suffered. God will destroy the locusts, still impending on the land, and restore the years which His great army has eaten. There follows in Joel 2:28 the promise of a great outpouring of the Spirit on all Israel, amid terrible manifestations in heaven and earth.