The Day of the LORD and the outpoured Spirit: Joel 2

Joel is the second book of the Twelve, the Minor Prophets. All we are told about the prophet is that he was the son of Pethuel (1:1). The book names no king and no date, and when it was written is among the most debated questions about any prophetic book. Some scholars place it early, in the ninth century BC during the reign of the child-king Joash, when priests and elders led the people and no king is mentioned. This fits the book's position before Amos in the Hebrew order of the Twelve. Most critical scholars place it after the exile, in the fifth or fourth century BC, because the temple is functioning, the people are scattered among the nations (3:2), Greeks are mentioned (3:6) and there is a city wall (2:9). The class does not depend on the date. In either case the audience is the worshipping community of Judah, gathered in Jerusalem at a time of national disaster.

The occasion is a plague of locusts, followed by drought, that has stripped the land of grain, wine and oil (chapter 1). Because the grain and drink offerings are cut off, the loss touches the temple as well as the table (1:9, 13). The prophet reads the disaster as a sign that the Day of the LORD is near, and chapter 2 opens with the alarm.

A note on numbering: in the Hebrew Bible Joel has four chapters. Joel 2:28-32 in English is chapter 3, verses 1-5 in Hebrew, and English chapter 3 is Hebrew chapter 4. Citations in this class use the English numbering.

Joel 2 is prophetic poetry, built from alarm, call, response and promise. The first half is a call to repentance, and the second half is the LORD's answer. The shift comes at verse 18 and is the pivot of the chapter. Joel's prophecy uses the vocabulary of other prophets, including the darkness of the Day of the LORD in Amos 5:18-20 and Zephaniah 1:14-15, and so should be read in their company.

The key phrase is the Day of the LORD. In the Old Testament it means a time when the LORD acts decisively in judgment and salvation, and it can refer to a historical event, such as the fall of a city, as well as to a final event. Prophets often present it as a near event that also points beyond itself. Joel moves between the two. The locust plague is a day of the LORD, and it also points to the great day (2:31).

A second question is the army in 2:1-11. Interpreters read it in three ways. One view takes it as the locust swarm itself, described in military terms, in line with 1:4 and the explicit statement in 2:25 that the locusts were the LORD's great army. A second takes it as a human invasion, perhaps from the north, in view of the 'northern army' in 2:20. A third takes it as an apocalyptic army of the final day. The text uses comparison, speaking of horses and chariots and warriors, which suggests a swarm described like an army. In any reading the army is the LORD's, and it is under his command (2:11).

The chapter follows the covenant pattern of Deuteronomy 28-30 and Solomon's prayer in 1 Kings 8: disaster, repentance, restoration. Then verses 28-32 reach to the largest scale of the Old Testament promise, from a local disaster to the end of the age.

Verses 1–2

The ram's horn (shofar) is blown to warn of an enemy or to call an assembly. 'The Day of the LORD is coming; indeed, it is near.' It is a day of darkness and cloud. The army advances like the dawn spreading over the mountains, which describes both its size and its slow, certain approach.

Verses 3–9

Fire devours before it, and the land ahead is like the garden of Eden while behind it is a desert, a good description of what locusts do to a field. The descriptions are of horses, chariots, ranks that do not break, walls scaled, houses entered like thieves. Each comparison is introduced by 'like', so the picture is of something that moves with the force of an army.

Verses 10–11

The cosmos itself shakes: earth quakes, heavens tremble, sun and moon darken. The army is not Joel's enemy, but the LORD's: he 'raises His voice in the presence of His army'. The section closes with a question: 'Who can endure it?'

Verses 12–14

'Yet even now,' declares the LORD, 'return to Me with all your heart.' The phrase 'even now' is the hinge of the book. The disaster is not too late. The returning is to be with fasting, weeping and mourning, but the prophet moves from outward signs to inward ones: 'rend your hearts and not your garments'. Tearing clothes was a normal sign of grief and repentance, and the prophet warns that it can be empty. The reason given for returning is the LORD's own character: 'He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion. And He relents from sending disaster.' This is a quotation from the LORD's self-description in Exodus 34:6. Jonah quotes it again, in anger, because it applies to Nineveh (Jonah 4:2). The prophet then adds a modest 'Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave a blessing behind Him'. The 'who knows' does not doubt God's character. It recognises that repentance cannot manipulate him. The blessing he may leave is grain and drink offerings, the very offerings that the plague had cut off (1:9).

Verses 15–17

The horn is blown again, this time for a fast and sacred assembly. Everyone is called: the old, the children, even nursing babies, and the bridegroom and bride, who would normally be excused from public duty (compare Deuteronomy 24:5). The priests stand between the portico and the altar and weep, the space nearest to where the sacrifices were offered. Their prayer asks the LORD to spare his people so that the nations will not say, 'Where is their God?' It is a prayer for God's reputation as well as Israel's life.

Verse 18

'Then the LORD became jealous for His land, and He spared His people.' The Hebrew verbs may be read as past or as a prophetic future. In either case the answer is given, and the LORD's jealousy is zeal for what is his, not a petty emotion.

Verses 19–27

The LORD promises grain, wine and oil, and says that his people will never again be a reproach among the nations. The 'northern army' is driven away to a barren land, into the eastern and western seas. The word used for the northern one is rare in Hebrew, and its identity is debated: some take it as a locust swarm, others as the symbol of an enemy. The command to the land, the animals and the children of Zion is the same: do not be afraid, rejoice. In verse 23 the Hebrew word behind 'autumn rains' (moreh) also means 'teacher', so some translations read 'a teacher of righteousness'. The LORD will repay the years the locusts ate, the swarming, young, destroying and devouring locusts, 'My great army that I sent against you'. The disaster was his instrument, and so is the restoration. The outcome is that they will know the LORD is present in Israel.

Verses 28–29

'And afterward, I will pour out My Spirit on all people.' The Hebrew says 'all flesh', everyone. Sons and daughters will prophesy, old men will dream, young men will see visions, and even servants of either sex will receive the Spirit. In the Old Testament the Spirit came on particular people for particular tasks: judges, kings, prophets. Moses had wished that all the LORD's people might be prophets (Numbers 11:29). Joel promises this wish. The divisions of age, sex and rank do not limit the Spirit.

Verses 30–32

Wonders in the heavens and on the earth come before the great and awesome Day: blood, fire, columns of smoke, the sun darkened and the moon turned to blood. Then the promise: 'everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved', with deliverance on Mount Zion among the remnant the LORD calls.

Joel 2 teaches that repentance rests on the character of God. The LORD gives the reason to return: he is gracious and compassionate. The same words are used in Exodus 34:6, Psalm 103:8 and Jonah 4:2, which makes them one of the central statements of the Old Testament about God. Repentance is not bargaining with an unwilling deity, and it is not a technique. It is a turning to a God who is already inclined to mercy.

It also teaches that God uses disaster in his purposes and restores what he took. The locusts were his army, and the restored years are his gift. It teaches that the Day of the LORD has two sides: darkness for those who resist and deliverance for those who call on him.

The promise of the Spirit in verses 28-29 belongs to a wider hope that runs through the prophets: the Spirit poured out in Isaiah 32:15 and 44:3, the Spirit placed within the people in Ezekiel 36:27 and 39:29. In Joel the gift is universal in its reach inside the covenant people. The doctrine of the Spirit developed from the occasional empowering of leaders to the indwelling of the whole community, and the New Testament shows this as having arrived.

The main connection is promise and fulfilment, and the New Testament makes it explicit. On the day of Pentecost, Peter explains the tongues of fire by saying that this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel, and he quotes Joel 2:28-32 (Acts 2:14-21). He changes 'afterward' to 'in the last days' (Acts 2:17), and so tells the hearers that the outpouring marks a new age. He then says that Jesus, exalted to the right hand of God, has received the promised Spirit from the Father and has poured out what they see and hear (Acts 2:33). The Spirit is poured out by Christ. John the Baptist had announced that the coming one would baptise with the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:11), and Jesus told his disciples to wait for the promise of the Father (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4-5).

Peter's quotation ends with verse 32, and he applies it to Jesus: everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Acts 2:21, 36-38). Paul does the same in Romans 10:9-13, where the 'Lord' of Joel 2:32, which in the Hebrew is the divine name YHWH, is the Lord Jesus. The apostles apply to Jesus a text that speaks of the LORD, and so say that he shares the divine name.

Other echoes are looser. The locusts that are like horses prepared for battle in Revelation 9:7 draw on Joel 2:4, and the darkened sun and moon of Joel 2:10, 31 appear in Jesus's teaching about the end (Matthew 24:29; Mark 13:24).