THE BOOK OF JOEL
LESSON 1: INTRODUCTION
Almighty Lord,
Send Your Spirit, Lord, to guide us in our study of the
prophetic Book of Joel. The outpouring of Your Spirit upon all nations was a
promise You made to Joel that St. Peter quoted after the miracle of Pentecost.
Your Spirit guides us in the way of righteousness and helps us to discern truth
from false teachings. Help us to be that "faithful remnant" the Lord is calling
to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen.
+ + +
All who call on
the name of Yahweh will be saved, for on Mount Zion will be those who have
escaped, as Yahweh has said, and in Jerusalem a remnant whom Yahweh is calling.
Joel 3:5
Introduction
The Book of Joel is in the collection of the works of the second of the Twelve Minor Prophets in the canon of the Jewish Tanakh and most Christian Old Testaments. Joel comes after the Book of Hosea and before Amos. However, in the Greek version of the Septuagint, it comes fourth. Different Bible versions may list the chapters of Joel differently. The Hebrew Masoretic text divides the book into four chapters. Many modern versions follow that division, including the New Jerusalem Bible. However, the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate have three chapters, with the second and third chapters forming one chapter, as in the New American and Revised Standard Version editions. This study uses the New Jerusalem Bible translation.
The book contains no personal information about the inspired writer other than his name and that he was the son of Pethuel. Joel's Hebrew name, Yo'el, means "Yah (Yahweh) is God." It is a name found in the Bible for 15 men from several tribes of Israel.1 From the text of Joel, we can conclude:
The position of the Book of Joel in the Jewish and Latin Bible translations coming before Amos may be because one of the last verses of Joel (Joel 4:16a) and the start of Amos (Amos 1:2a) give the same message: "Yahweh roars from Zion, he thunders/makes himself heard from Jerusalem ...." Perhaps the positioning within the list of Minor Prophets was intended to tell the faithful to read Amos's oracles in the light of Joel's. Some scholars suggest that Joel 2:20 may refer to an Assyrian or Babylonian enemy coming from the north. The Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 BC, and the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in the Southern Kingdom of Judah in 587 BC.
In addition, in the last chapter of Joel (Joel 4:4-8), there is an oracle against the cities of the Phoenicians and Philistines, and in Amos, there is an oracle against the nations (Amos 9:7-10). The position of Joel in the Jewish and Latin canons, together with its prophecy of the outpouring of God's Spirit (Joel 3:1-5), signals Joel's importance in the Old Testament and increases its significance in the New, explicitly pointing to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Jesus's disciples at the Feast of Shavuot/Pentecost in AD 30. Fifty days after Jesus's Resurrection and ten days after His Ascension, St. Peter quoted from Joel 3:1-5 to explain their exuberance to the Jewish crowds because of the supernatural event of the coming of God's Spirit to Jesus's disciples praying in the Upper Room that morning, an event foretold in Joel 3:1-5.
The book's poetic first two chapters form a liturgical call to repentance, and the last is a promise of Yahweh's renewal and salvation for all nations. The book's theme is to call the covenant people to public repentance before the coming of the final "Day of Yahweh."
Plan of the Book of Joel
| BIBLICAL PERIOD |
After the Assyrian conquest of the
Northern Kingdom of Israel but before the Babylonian conquest and exile of
Judah OR In the post-exile period, after the captives returned to Judah |
|
| FOCUS | Calling the covenant people to public repentance before the coming of the final "Day of Yahweh" | |
| COVENANT | The Sinai Covenant | |
| SCRIPTURE | 1:1-------------------------------------------------3:1------------------------------------------------4:19 | |
| DIVISION |
The Invasion of Locusts and the Drought (1:2-2:27) |
The New Age and the Day of Yahweh (3:1-4:19) |
| TOPIC |
Title and Liturgy of Mourning and Entreaty (1:2-2:27) |
The Outpouring of God's Spirit (3:1-5) |
|
Yahweh's Answer and a Vision of Plenty (2:18-27) |
The Judgment of the Nations (4:1-17), and Israel's Glorious Future (4:18-21) |
|
| LOCATION | Judah | |
| TIME | ? c. 8th century BC or 5th century BC ? | |
The superscription does not mention any date or the reign of a king to tie Joel's ministry, unlike the books of Hosea, Amos, Micah, Zephaniah, Haggai, and Zechariah. For some scholars, the concept of the "Day of Yahweh" and the tone of lamentation support a date in the post-exilic period after Nehemiah ruled as the Persian governor of Judah during the reign of King Artaxerxes I of Person (465-424 BC) in the 5th century BC. However, others, like St. Jerome (Commentarii in Ioelem, 1, 8) and modern scholars like A. Kapelrod (Joel Studies, pages 179-80, Uppsala, 1948), propose a date in the 8th century BC, like Amos, during the reigns of King Uzziah of the Southern Kingdom (781-740 BC) and Jeroboam II, king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel (783-743 BC). They point to the selected position of the book in relation to Hosea and Amos, which shows collectors of the prophetic writings regarded the book as early, with Hosea being God's messenger to the Southern Kingdom of Judah and Amos, God's messenger to the Northern Kingdom of Israel.
| Important Dates and Events |
| 930 BC ~ After King Solomon's death, his kingdom was divided into the Northern Kingdom of Israel (with its capital at Samaria) and the Southern Kingdom of Judah (with Jerusalem as its capital). Jeroboam I was the king of the Northern Kingdom, and Rehoboam, son of Solomon, was the king of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. All the kings of Judah were descendants of King David. |
| 783 BC ~ Jeroboam II son of Jehoash, became king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. |
| 781 BC ~ Uzziah son of Amaziah, became king of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. |
| 743 BC ~ Zechariah son of King Jeroboam II, reigned for six months before being assassinated. Shallum son of Jabesh ruled for one month before being assassinated. Then, in the same year, Menahem son of Gadi, became king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. |
| 740 BC ~ Jotham son of Uzziah, became king of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. |
| 738 BC ~ Pekahiah son of Menahem, became king of the Northern Kingdom. |
| 737 BC ~ Pekah son of Remaliah, became king of the Northern Kingdom after the assassination of King Pekahiah. |
| 736 BC ~ Ahaz son of Jotham, became king of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. |
| 732 BC ~ Hoshea son of Elah, assassinated Pekah to become the last king of the Northern Kingdom. Neo-Assyrian King Tiglath-Pileser III conquered and annexed the northern parts of the Kingdom of Israel, including Galilee. |
| 727 BC ~ Shalmaneser V became king of Assyria. Hezekiah son of Ahaz, became king of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. For two decades, Judah remained an ally of Assyria. |
| 722 BC ~ Shalmaneser V died while besieging Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom. His successor, Sargon II, conquered and annexed the territory before exiling the people. |
| 716 BC ~ Hezekiah son of Ahaz, became king of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. |
| 705 BC ~ King Sargon II of Assyria died, sparking hope throughout the empire that Assyrian power would diminish. His son, Sennacherib, ascended the throne of Assyria. |
| 701 BC ~ King Hezekiah of the Southern Kingdom of Judah revolted against Assyrian domination, prompting Sennacherib to attack Judah. Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem, Lachish, and 44 other cities but spared Jerusalem after King Hezekiah paid tribute to the Assyrians. |
| 701-688 BC ~ King Hezekiah built a second city wall and tunnel to protect Jerusalem and its water supply from future Assyrian attacks. |
| 694 BC ~ King Sennacherib of Assyria completed his new palace at Nineveh, which included reliefs commemorating his 701 BC siege of Lachish. |
| 690 BC ~ Tirhakah became pharaoh of Ethiopia and Egypt and an ally of King Hezekiah against the Assyrians. |
| In 688 BC, Assyrian King Sennacherib attacked Jerusalem again. The city withstood his siege this time because God struck his army with a plague, and Sennacherib withdrew back to Assyria. |
| 686 BC ~ King Hezekiah died. |
| 681 BC ~ King Sennacherib of Assyria was murdered by his sons. |
| 614 BC ~ The Medo-Babylonian army sacked the Assyrian capital of Assur. |
| 612 BC ~ The Medo-Babylonians captured and destroyed the Assyrian capital of Nineveh. |
| 609 BC ~ Ashur-uballit II tried to rally the Assyrian army at Harran but was defeated and died in the battle, ending the ancient line of Assyrian kings and Assyria as a state. |
| 587-6 BC ~ Babylonians conquered Judah, destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple, and took the captive population into exile in Babylon. |
| 586 ~ The Babylonians killed the sons of King Zedekiah of Judah, blinded him, and took him as a prisoner in chains to Babylon. He was Judah's last Davidic king. |
| 539 BC ~ Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon. He allowed the exiled citizens of Judah to return to their homeland and rebuild their Temple in Jerusalem. |
| 445-433 BC ~ Nehemiah, a Jewish cupbearer to the Persian king, served as the Persian governor of Judah. Persian King Artaxerxes I (465-424) appointed Nehemiah the governor of Judah for 12 years. There were no more ruling kings of Judah. |
| 332/331 BC ~ Alexander the Great and his Greek army conquered the Persian Empire and its territories, including Judah. |
Endnote 1
The Hebrew name Joel (Yo'el) was relatively common among many of the tribes of Israel. Fifteen men bore the Hebrew name in Scripture:
1. A prince in the tribe of Simeon (1 Chron 4:35).
2. A Rubenite (1 Chr 5:4).
3. A chief in the tribe of Gad (1 Chron 5:12).
4. A Kohathrite Levite and ancestor of the prophet Samuel (1 Chron 6:21/23).
5. The elder son of Samuel the prophet (1 Sam 8:2).
6. The father of Herman, the chief singer of the Levitical Temple singers under David and
Solomon (1 Chron 15:17).
7. A man of the tribe of Issachar (1 Chron 7:3).
8. One of David's "mighty men" (1 Chron 11:38).
9. A chief of the Gershonite Levites when David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem (1
Chron 15:7, 11).
10. A Gershonite is listed among the Levites whom David organized to prepare for Solomon's building
of the Jerusalem Temple (1 Chron 23:8; 26:22).
11. A chief of Ephraim (1 Chron 29:12).
12. A Kohathite among the first Levites to respond to King Hezekiah's order to cleanse the
Temple (2 Chron 29:12).
13. A Minor prophet and son of Pethuel (Joel 1:1).
14. A member of the Nebo family (Ezra 10:43).
15. Overseer of postexile Jerusalem (Neh 11:9).
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