Joel 2:20 Komentář

In this chapter we have, I. A further description of that terrible desolation which should be made in the land of Judah by the locusts and caterpillars (Joe 2:1-11). II. A serious call to the people, when they are under this sore judgment, to return and repent, to fast and pray, and to seek unto God for mercy, with directions how to do this aright (Joe 2:12-17). III. A promise that, upon their repentance, God would remove the judgment, would repair the breaches made upon them by it, and restore unto them plenty of all good things (Joe 2:18-27). IV. A prediction of the setting up of the kingdom of the Messiah in the world, by the pouring out of the Spirit in the latter days (Joe 2:28-32). Thus the beginning of this chapter is made terrible with the tokens of God's wrath, but the latter end of it made comfortable with the assurances of his favour, and it is in the way of repentance that this blessed change is made; so that, though it is only the last paragraph of the chapter that points directly at gospel-times, yet the whole may be improved as a type and figure, representing the curses of the law invading men for their sins, and the comforts of the gospel flowing in to them upon their repentance.

INTRODUCTION TO JOEL 2 In this chapter a further account is given of the judgment of the locusts and caterpillars, or of those who are designed by them, Joe 2:1; the people of the Jews are called to repentance, humiliation, and fasting, urged from the grace and goodness of God, his jealousy and pity for his people, and the answer of prayer that might he expected from him upon this, even to the removal of the calamity, Joe 2:12; a prophecy of good things, both temporal and spiritual, in the times of the Messiah, is delivered out as matter and occasion of great joy, Joe 2:21; and another concerning the effusion of the Spirit, which was fulfilled an the day of Pentecost, Joe 2:28; and the chapter is concluded with the judgments and desolations that should come upon the land of Judea after this, for their rejection of Christ, though the remnant according to the election of grace should be delivered and saved from the general destruction, Joe 2:30.

But I will remove far off from you the northern army,.... The army of the locusts, which came from the northern corner, as Aben Ezra and Kimchi; and is the first sense Jarchi makes mention of; though he says their Rabbins (b) interpret it of the evil imagination hid in the heart of men; and the two seas, later mentioned, of the two temples, first and second, destroyed by it; so, Kimchi says, they explain this verse of the days of the Messiah, and observes, the same sense they give; but Jarchi mentions another, according to which a people coming from the north are designed, even the kings of Assyria; and with this agrees the Targum, which paraphrases it, "and the people which come from the north I will remove far off from you;'' and indeed locusts do not usually come from the north, but from the south, or from the east; it was an east wind that brought the locusts into Egypt, Exo 10:13; though the word "northern" may be used of the locusts in the emblem, because the Assyrians or Chaldeans came from the north to Judea: and will drive him into a land barren and desolate: where there are no green grass, herbs, plants, and trees, to live upon, and so must starve and die: with his face towards the east sea; the front of this northern army was towards the east sea, into which it was drove and fell; that is, the sea of Chinnereth, or Gennesareth, the same with the lake of Tiberias, often mentioned in the New Testament; or the Salt sea, the same with the lake Asphaltites, or Dead sea, which was where Sodom and Gomorrah formerly stood, as is usually said; and both these were to the east of the land of Israel, as Kimchi and Ben Melech observe; and so either of them might be called the "eastern sea": and his hinder part towards the utmost sea; the rear of this army was towards the utmost sea, or hinder sea, as it is called in Zac 14:8; the western sea, as Kimchi and Ben Melech interpret it, the same with the Mediterranean sea, which lay to the west of the land of Israel; so the Egyptian locusts were cast into the Red sea, Exo 10:19; and Pliny (c) observes, that they are sometimes taken away with a wind, and fall into seas and lakes, and adds, perhaps this comes by chance; but what is here related came not by chance, but by the will and providence of God: and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up: that is, the stink and ill savour of the locusts shall come, up out of the seas and lakes into which they fell, and where they died and putrefied; or, being cast up from thence upon the shares, gave a most noisome stench; so Jerom on the place says, "in our times we have seen swarms of locusts cover the land of Judea, which upon the wind rising have been driven into the first and last seas; that is, into the Dead and Mediterranean seas; and when the shores of both seas have been filled with heaps of dead locusts, which the waters have thrown up, their rottenness and stench have been so very noxious as to corrupt the air, and produce a pestilence among men and beasts;'' or this may be understood of the fall and ruin of the enemies of the Jews, signified by these locusts; and some apply it to Sennacherib's army smote by the angel, when there fell in one night a hundred and fourscore and five thousand of them in the land of Israel, and lay unburied, Kg2 19:35; Theodoret interprets the seas of armies; the first sea of the army of the Babylonians, by which Nineveh the royal seat of the Assyrians was destroyed; and the other sea of the army of the Persians, who, under Cyrus, took Babylon, the metropolis of the Chaldean empire: because he hath done great things; evil things, as the Targum; either the locust, which had done much mischief to the fruits of the earth; or the enemy, signified by it, who had behaved proudly, and done much hurt to the inhabitants of Judea: or, "though he hath done great things" (d), as some render it, yet all this shall come to him. Some interpret it of God, "for he (God) hath done", or "will do, great things" (e); in the removing of the locusts, or in the destruction of those enemies they represented, as is expressly said of him in Joe 2:21. (b) Vid. T. Bab. Succah, fol. 52. 1. (c) Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 29. (d) "quamvis magna gesserit", Gataker. (e) "Quia magnifica Jehovah agit", Junius & Tremellius; "aget", Piscator, Liveleus, Castalio.

(Verse 18 and following) The Lord was zealous for His land, and spared His people. And the Lord answered and said to His people: Behold, I will send you grain and wine and oil, and you will be filled with them, and I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations. And I will remove him who is from the north far away from you, and I will drive him into a dry and desolate land: his face will be towards the eastern sea, and his end towards the western sea. And his stench will rise up, and his rottenness, for he has acted arrogantly. LXX: And the Lord was jealous for his land and spared his people and the Lord answered and said to his people: Behold, I will send you grain and wine and oil, and you will be filled with them, and I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations, and I will drive away the one from the north and bring him into a land that is without water, and I will destroy his face in the first sea and his hind parts in the last sea: and his stench will rise, and his decay will rise, because his works are magnified. After the priests prayed for the people and said: Spare, Lord, your people, and do not give your inheritance into reproach, and the people did what was commanded, to sanctify the fast, to preach healing, to gather (or compel) the multitude, to sanctify the Church, to choose the old men, to gather the little ones and those suckling at the breast, and for the bridegroom to go forth from his bed, and the bride from her chamber, and to serve not the flesh and pleasure, but the soul and tears. The Lord was zealous for his land, which he had previously treated as if it were foreign, and he had allowed the locusts to devastate it. He had spared the repentant ones so much that he made them worthy of his response and said, 'Because the locusts, the cankerworm, and the mildew have destroyed all your crops, I will give you grain and everything else that the prophet has described, and I will not deliver you to captivity again. I will also keep the Assyrians and the Chaldeans from the north, especially those from Babylon, far away from you.' As it is written, 'A numerous and mighty people, with fire devouring before them and flames burning behind them, like the appearance of horses.' And I will cast him into a land of solitude, says he, and his former parts shall fall into the Eastern Sea, and his latter parts into the Western Sea, and his stench shall ascend, that is, the one from the North, and his decay, because he has acted arrogantly. Often I have heard it said under the figure of the flight of locusts to describe the assault of the Chaldeans, by which Judaea was laid waste. Therefore, he keeps the metaphor in the remaining parts, and he speaks in this way, according to the location of the province, as if he seems to refer not to enemies, but to locusts. Even in our times, we have seen swarms of locusts cover the land of Judea, which later, with the mercy of the Lord, were driven by the wind into the sea, between the vestibule and the altar, that is, between the place of the cross and the resurrection, while the priests and the people were praying to the Lord and saying: Spare your people. The first and the last were cast into the sea. Understand the first sea that is near the desert and faces the East, which is the place where there were once Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which is now called the Dead Sea because no living creatures exist there." } But the western sea, which leads to Egypt, has on its shore Gaza, Ascalon, Azotus, Joppa, Caesarea, and other coastal cities. And when the shores of both seas were filled with heaps of dead locusts disgorged by the waters, the stench and decay of them was so harmful that it corrupted the air, and a pestilence arose affecting both animals and humans. The learned reader may inquire where this was done literally regarding the Chaldeans. Not long after these prophecies were made, as we read in Isaiah, one hundred eighty-five thousand Chaldeans were struck down by a raging angel in one night under the reign of King Hezekiah (Isa. XXXVII). This we will say according to history. However, according to allegory, every soul is the Lord's earth, in which the father of a family sows his seed, which when it grows among the wheat produces weeds, that is, oats and darnel, and offends its Lord. But afterwards it repents, and with weeping says: Spare, O Lord, your people. The Lord is zealous for his earth, and he will spare it, which he had previously despised, and he addresses it with his own words, saying: I will send you grain, of which it is written: Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces many fruits (John XII): and wine that gladdens the heart of man, and oil that makes the face shine, so that the old sorrow of sins may be tempered by the joy of wheat and wine and oil, that is, the joy of virtues, and they will have such an abundance of all good things that they will be filled and satisfied. And when they have achieved this, they will never be handed over as a reproach to the nations about whom the Apostle speaks: Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual wickedness in the celestial places (Ephesians 6:12). Also, the one who is from the north (about whom Jeremiah speaks: From the north evil will be kindled on all the inhabitants of the earth (Jeremiah 1:14): about whom Solomon also writes: The north wind is extremely harsh). I will remove him far away from you, and I will expel him into an uninhabited and deserted land, which has no knowledge of God, in which the Holy Spirit does not dwell. And his appearance will be in the first and last sea, among those who have opened the door of sin for him, and with whom he will remain until the end of his life, and its stench and decay even rises against those who promise great things to themselves, and they fall because of their pride: for human frailty is never secure, and the more we grow in virtues, the more we ought to fear falling from the heights. According to the letter, the swarms of locusts are more often brought by the south wind than the north wind, that is, they do not come from cold, but from heat: but since he was speaking about the Assyrians, putting the similitude of locusts, he included the north wind, so that we understand not a true locust, which usually comes from the south, but under the locust we understand the Assyrians and Chaldeans.

Joel, the prophet, offers evidence about [the devil] with these words: “And I will remove far off from you the northern one, and I will drive him into the land thirsty and desert, and I shall expel his face into the nearest sea and his hinder parts into the utmost sea.” We thank you, Lord, for this arrangement. What would the devil do if free, when he afflicts the world when bound?

“I will remove the northerner,” both the Assyrian and Babylonian. Someone may ask, “Since for its position Babylon is not situated north of Jerusalem, why does God say through the prophet, ‘I will remove the northerner far from you’ and ‘Out of the north evil shall break forth upon’ these people”? And we answer that first of all, these words are not said in consideration of the geographical position of Babylon and Jerusalem but of those northern nations subject to the Babylonians—the Arzanites, the Araratites2—who will come down to Jerusalem with the Babylonians. Second, it is because those who want to reach Jerusalem from the regions of Babylon, Persia and the east go up toward the region of the north and then come down toward Jerusalem in the south.

THE COMING JUDGMENT A MOTIVE TO REPENTANCE. PROMISE OF BLESSINGS IN THE LAST DAYS. (Joel 2:1-32) A more terrific judgment than that of the locusts is foretold, under imagery drawn from that of the calamity then engrossing the afflicted nation. He therefore exhorts to repentance, assuring the Jews of Jehovah's pity if they would repent. Promise of the Holy Spirit in the last days under Messiah, and the deliverance of all believers in Him. Blow . . . trumpet--to sound an alarm of coming war (Num 10:1-10; Hos 5:8; Amo 3:6); the office of the priests. Joe 1:15 is an anticipation of the fuller prophecy in this chapter.

the northern army--The Hebrew expresses that the north in relation to Palestine is not merely the quarter whence the invader comes, but is his native land, "the Northlander"; namely, the Assyrian or Babylonian (compare Jer 1:14-15; Zep 2:13). The locust's native country is not the north, but the south, the deserts of Arabia, Egypt, and Libya. Assyria and Babylon are the type and forerunner of all Israel's foes (Rome, and the final Antichrist), from whom God will at last deliver His people, as He did from Sennacherib (Kg2 19:35). face . . . hinder part--more applicable to a human army's van and rear, than to locusts. The northern invaders are to be dispersed in every other direction but that from which they had come: "a land barren and desolate," that is, Arabia-Deserta: "the eastern (or front) sea," that is, the Dead Sea: "the utmost (or hinder) sea," that is, the Mediterranean. In front and behind mean east and west; as, in marking the quarters of the world, they faced the east, which was therefore "in front"; the west was behind them; the south was on their right, and the north on their left. stink--metaphor from locusts, which perish when blown by a storm into the sea or the desert, and emit from their putrefying bodies such a stench as often breeds a pestilence. because he hath done great things--that is, because the invader hath haughtily magnified himself in his doings. Compare as to Sennacherib, Kg2 19:11-13, Kg2 19:22, Kg2 19:28. This is quite inapplicable to the locusts, who merely seek food, not self-glorification, in invading a country.

Summons to Penitential Prayer for the Removal of the Judgment - Joel 2:1-17 This section does not contain a fresh or second address of the prophet, but simply forms the second part of his sermon of repentance, in which he repeats with still greater emphasis the command already hinted at in Joe 1:14-15, that there should be a meeting of the congregation for humiliation and prayer, and assigns the reason in a comprehensive picture of the approach of Jehovah's great and terrible judgment-day (Joe 2:1-11), coupled with the cheering assurance that the Lord will still take compassion upon His people, according to His great grace, if they will return to Him with all their heart (Joe 2:12-14); and then closes with another summons to the whole congregation to assemble for this purpose in the house of the Lord, and with instructions how the priests are to pray to the Lord (Joe 2:15-17).