Joel 3:8 Kommentar

In the close of the foregoing chapter we had a gracious promise of deliverance in Mount Zion and Jerusalem; now this whole chapter is a comment upon that promise, showing what that deliverance shall be, how it shall be wrought by the destruction of the church's enemies, and how it shall be perfected in the everlasting rest and joy of the church. This was in part accomplished in the deliverance of Jerusalem from the attempt that Sennacherib made upon it in Hezekiah's time, and afterwards in the return of the Jews out of their captivity in Babylon, and other deliverances wrought for the Jewish church between that and Christ's coming. But it has a further reference, to the great redemption wrought out for us by Jesus Christ, and the destruction of our spiritual enemies and all their agents, and will have its full accomplishment in the judgment of the great day. Here is a prediction, I. Of God's reckoning with the enemies of his people for all the injuries and indignities that they had done them, and returning them upon their own head (Joe 3:1-8). II. Of God's judging all nations when the measure of their iniquity is full, and appearing publicly, to the everlasting confusion of all impenitent sinners and the everlasting comfort of all his faithful servants (Joe 3:9-17). III. Of the provision God has made for the refreshment of his people, for their safety and purity, when their enemies shall be made desolate (Joe 3:18-21). These promises were not of private interpretation only, but were written for our learning, "that we, through patience and comfort of this scripture, might have hope."

INTRODUCTION TO JOEL 3 This chapter, which some make the fourth, contains a prophecy of God's judgments on all the antichristian nations at the time of the Jews' conversion, and the reasons of them, Joe 3:1; a threatening of Tyre and Zidon, by way of retaliation, for carrying the riches of the Jews into their temples, and selling their persons to the Greeks, Joe 3:4; an alarm to prepare for the battle of Armageddon, or the destruction that shall be made in the valley of Jehoshaphat, Joe 3:9; and after that an account of the happy state of the church of Christ, their safety and security, plenty, prosperity, and purity, to the end of the world, Joe 3:16.

And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah,.... That is, deliver them into their hands, to dispose of them; this is thought to have been literally fulfilled in the Tyrians, when thirty thousand (g) of them were sold for slaves, upon the taking of their city by Alexander, who put some of them into the hands of the Jews, they being in friendship with him: it mystically designs the power that the Jewish church, converted, and in union with Gentile Christians, will have over the antichristian states: and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off; the inhabitants of Sheba, a country by the Jews reckoned the uttermost parts of the earth; see Mat 12:42. These are not the same with the Sabeans, the inhabitants of Arabia Deserts, that took away Job's oxen and asses; but rather those who were the inhabitants of Arabia Felix, which lay at a greater distance. So Strabo (h) says, the Sabeans inhabited Arabia Felix; and Diodorus Siculus (i) reckons the Sabeans as very populous, and one of the Arabian nations, who inhabited that Arabia which is called Felix, the metropolis of which is Saba; and he, as well as Strabo, observes, that this country produces many odoriferous plants, as cassia, cinnamon, frankincense, and calamus, or the sweet cane; hence incense is said to come "from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country", Jer 6:20; and since the Jews traded with these people for those spices, it is easy to conceive how they sold their captives to them: now these lived at a great distance, in the extreme parts of Arabia, both towards the Indian sea and the Arabian gulf. And Diodorus Siculus (k) observes, that , because of the distance of their situation, they never came into the power or under the dominion of any, or were never subdued. These seem to be the descendants of Cush, the son, of Ham; and if they were the descendants of Joktan, the son of Shem, as some think, these are placed by Vitringa (l) in Carmania; and where Pliny (m) makes mention of a city called Sabe, and of the river Sabis; and it is worthy of notice that the ancient Greek fathers (n), with one consent, interpret the Sabeans of the Saracens: and whether they may not design the Turks, in whose possession this country now is, and into whose hands the antichristian powers may be delivered by means of the Christians, both Jews and Gentiles, may be considered; for the Lord hath spoken it; and therefore it shall be accomplished. The Targum is, "for by the word of the Lord it is so decreed;'' whose counsels and decrees can never be frustrated. This, in an ancient book of the Jews called Mechilta, is referred to the prophecy of Noah concerning Canaan, whose sons inhabited Tyre, "a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren", Gen 9:25, as Jarchi observes. (g) Arriam. de Exped. Alexand. l. 2. c. 24. (h) Geograph. l. 16. p. 536. (i) Bibliothec. l. 3. p. 179, 180. (k) Ibid. p. 181. (l) Comment. in Jessiam, c. 43. 3. (m) Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 23. (n) In Catena Graec. Patr. apud Spanhem. Hist. Jobi, c. 3. p. 47.

(Verse 7, 8) Behold, I will raise them up from the place where you sold them, and I will turn your retribution upon your own heads. I will sell your sons and daughters into the hands of the sons of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, a distant nation. For the Lord has spoken. LXX: Behold, I will raise them up from the place where you sold them, and I will return your retribution upon your heads. I will sell your sons and daughters into the hands of the sons of Judah, and they will sell them into captivity to a distant nation, for the Lord has spoken. The Hebrew word Sabaim (), which Aquila and Symmachus translated as 'captives' according to the written text, was interpreted as 'captivity' in the Septuagint, which better signifies captives. However, the Sabaim people are said to come from India, from which the queen of Sheba also came to hear the wisdom of Solomon (3 Kings 10), about whom Isaiah also speaks: 'And the Sabaim, men of high rank, will come to you' (Isaiah 43:14). Hence, it is also said that incense (thus) comes from there, as Virgil says: 'From Sabaim, a wealthy kingdom, come the gift of frankincense' (Aeneid, Book I). . . . And a hundred altars burn with Sabean incense: though some suspect that they are Arabian. Therefore, the Jews promise to themselves, or rather dream, that in the last days they will be gathered by the Lord and brought back to Jerusalem. Not content with this happiness, they assert that God himself will deliver into their hands the sons and daughters of the Romans, so that the Jews may sell them, not to the Persians, Ethiopians, and other neighboring nations, but to the Sabaeans, a very distant people: because the Lord has spoken and will avenge the injury to his people. And to them and to our Jewish followers who promise for themselves a thousand-year kingdom in the borders of Judea, and a golden Jerusalem, and the blood of sacrifices, and sons and grandsons, and incredible delights, and gates adorned with a variety of gems. But we say that the Lord raised them up after his coming, and continues to raise them up daily, and will raise up those whom various errors led astray from their borders. 'I will raise them up beautifully,' he says, 'as if they were lying and falling, so that those who were lying in heresy may stand in the Church, giving to heretics what they did: That he may deliver their sons and daughters, whom they had instructed in the mysteries and in the fleshly things, into the hands of the sons of Judah, into the hands of those who became rulers of the Churches; and they are instructed in the armor of the Apostle, and they have the shield and spear of the Old and New Testament.' So when they capture them, they sell their sons and daughters to the Sabaeans, and make them slaves, so that they are far away from their borders; and when they are converted to better things, they begin to be subject to Ecclesiastical teachings.

GOD'S VENGEANCE ON ISRAEL'S FOES IN THE VALLEY OF JEHOSHAPHAT. HIS BLESSING ON THE CHURCH. (Joel 3:1-21) bring again the captivity--that is, reverse it. The Jews restrict this to the return from Babylon. Christians refer it to the coming of Christ. But the prophet comprises the whole redemption, beginning from the return out of Babylon, then continued from the first advent of Christ down to the last day (His second advent), when God will restore His Church to perfect felicity [CALVIN].

sell them to . . . Sabeans--The Persian Artaxerxes Mnemon and Darius Ochus, and chiefly the Greek Alexander, reduced the Phœnician and Philistine powers. Thirty thousand Tyrians after the capture of Tyre by the last conqueror, and multitudes of Philistines on the taking of Gaza, were sold as slaves. The Jews are here said to do that which the God of Judah does in vindication of their wrong, namely, sell the Phœnicians who sold them, to a people "far off," as was Greece, whither the Jews had been sold. The Sabeans at the most remote extremity of Arabia Felix are referred to (compare Jer 6:20; Mat 12:42).

(Heb. Bib. ch. 4.) Judgment upon the World of Nations, and Glorification of Zion- Joe 3:1, Joe 3:2. "For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall turn the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather together all nations, and bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will contend with them there concerning my people and my inheritance Israel, which they have scattered among the nations, and my land have they divided. Joe 3:3. And for my people they cast the lot; and gave the boy for a harlot, and the maiden they have sold for wine, and drunk (it)." The description of the judgment-day predicted in Joe 2:31 commences with an explanatory כּי. The train of thought is the following: When the day of the Lord comes, there will be deliverance upon Zion only for those who call upon the name of the Lord; for then will all the heathen nations that have displayed hostility to Jehovah's inheritance be judged in the valley of Jehoshaphat. By hinnēh, the fact to be announced is held up as something new and important. The notice as to the time points back to the "afterward" in Joe 2:28 : "in those days," viz., the days of the outpouring of the Spirit of God. This time is still further described by the apposition, "at that time, when I shall turn the captivity of Judah," as the time of the redemption of the people of God out of their prostrate condition, and out of every kind of distress. שׁוּב את שׁבוּת is not used here in the sense of "to bring back the prisoners," but, as in Hos 6:11, in the more comprehensive sense of restitutio in integrum, which does indeed include the gathering together of those who were dispersed, and the return of the captives, as one element, though it is not exhausted by this one element, but also embraces their elevation into a new and higher state of glory, transcending their earlier state of grace. In וקבּצתּי the prediction of judgment is appended to the previous definition of the time in the form of an apodosis. The article in כּל־הגּוים (all the nations) does not refer to "all those nations which were spoken of in Hos 1:1-11 and 2 under the figure of the locusts" (Hengstenberg), but is used because the prophet had in his mind all those nations upon which hostility towards Israel, the people of God, is charged immediately afterwards as a crime: so that the article is used in much the same manner as in Jer 49:36, because the notion, though in itself an indefinite one, is more fully defined in what follows (cf. Ewald, 227, a). The valley of Yehōshâphât, i.e., Jehovah judges, is not the valley in which the judgment upon several heathen nations took place under Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 20), and which received the name of Valley of blessing, from the feast of thanksgiving which Jehoshaphat held there (Ch2 20:22-26), as Ab. Ezra, Hofmann, Ewald, and others suppose; for the "Valley of blessing" was not "the valley of Kidron, which was selected for that festival in the road back from the desert of Tekoah to Jerusalem" (see Bertheau on 2 Chronicles l.c.), and still less "the plain of Jezreel" (Kliefoth), but was situated in the neighbourhood of the ruins of Bereikût, which have been discovered by Wolcott (see Ritter, Erdkunde, xv. p. 635, and Van de Velde, Mem. p. 292). On the other hand, the valley of Jehoshaphat is unquestionably to be sought for, according to this chapter (as compared with Zac 14:4), in or near Jerusalem; and the name, which does not occur anywhere else in either the Old or New Testament, excepting here and in Joe 3:12, is formed by Joel, like the name ‛ēmeq hechârūts in v. 14, from the judgment which Jehovah would hold upon the nations there. The tradition of the church (see Euseb. and Jerome in the Onom. s.v. κοιλάς, Caelas, and Itiner. Anton. p. 594; cf. Robinson, Pal. i. pp. 396, 397) has correctly assigned it to the valley of the Kidron, on the eastern side of Jerusalem, or rather to the northern part of that valley (Sa2 18:18), or valley of Shaveh (Gen 14:17). There would the Lord contend with the nations, hold judgment upon them, because they had attacked His people (nachălâthı̄, the people of Jehovah, as in Joe 2:17) and His kingdom ('artsı̄). The dispersion of Israel among the nations, and the division (חלּק) of the Lord's land, cannot, of course, refer to the invasion of Judah by the Philistines and Arabians in the time of Joram (Ch2 21:16-17). For although these foes did actually conquer Jerusalem and plunder it, and carried off, among other captives, even the sons of the king himself, this transportation of a number of prisoners cannot be called a dispersion of the people of Israel among the heathen; still less can the plundering of the land and capital be called a division of the land of Jehovah; to say nothing of the fact, that the reference here is to the judgment which would come upon all nations after the outpouring of the Spirit of God upon all flesh, and that it is not till Joe 3:4-8 that Joel proceeds to speak of the calamities which neighbouring nations had inflicted upon the kingdom of Judah. The words presuppose as facts that have already occurred, both the dispersion of the whole nation of Israel in exile among the heathen, and the conquest and capture of the whole land by heathen nations, and that in the extent to which they took place under the Chaldeans and Romans alone.