Bible Truth Daily Devotion

Joel 3:1-21

What will happen to Israel in the end time?  Will there be a battle in an unprecedented scale?  This chapter touches on the subject of end time. 

Commentary:

Joel 3:2. Some may suggest that the book was written after the exile.  The perfect tense in the word “scattered” supports the exile as an incidence that had occurred.  Nevertheless, dating the book after the exile would have difficulties explaining some important features of the book.  For example, the book emphasizes the stoppage of the temple offering due to the locust plague in 1:9.  If the book was written after the exile, when the temple had already been destroyed, offering would have stopped anyway.  That would not make sense at all.  Moreover, if the people were already scattered, the trumpet call to gather the people to repentance would not be possible. 

There can be a logical explanation to the contradiction of tense.  It is based on the omniscience of God.  God had spoken and Joel had written the future event in past tense because He saw it as something that would surely come to pass.  Joel’s prophecy of the scattering of the nation of Israel would then be fulfilled in near term, a matter of hundreds of years.  The fulfillment of this prophecy of scattering would establish the book to be included in the canon of prophetic books in OT. 

The omniscience and the omnipotence of God surely are shown in the far term fulfillment in verse 2.  The gathering of the Jews from the nations would be fulfilled over two thousand years later.  Surely God not only know what will happen but is actively making it happen. 

(The valley of Jehoshaphat is not a physical place.  It is an inference of a location in which God will judge, the meaning of the name of Jehoshaphat. The location may be the valley of Armageddon, where the final battle will occur (Joel 3:12-13 and Rev. 16:13-16).)

Joel 3:16-17. In the day of the LORD, God will appear from Zion, which is Jerusalem.  God will fight this war for His people.  This is consistent with the prophecy in Revelation 19:11-21, when Jesus will come riding on a white horse.  When it is all said and done, God will dwell among His people in Jerusalem. 

Meditation:

There is amazing accuracy in the prophecy.  The people of Israel were exiled and gathered.  And then the end would come.   Are you ready to see Jesus? 

Prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are omnipotent and omniscience.  We can trust that everything that you desire would come to pass.  We ask that you would prepare us to do your work at the last hour.  In Jesus’ name we pray.  Amen.