Joel

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Joel, Obadiah, Micah, by Dan Epp-Tiessen (Believers Church Bible Commentary)

Introduction

Relevance

Joel opens by summoning readers to listen to a remarkable story like never heard before (1:2-3). Although Joel’s dramatic, symbolic language makes the book challenging to understand, an overview of the “story” that Joel tells can help readers better comprehend the book and its individual passages. The first part of that story plunges readers into waves of catastrophic locust plagues that have consumed every shred of vegetation, including the entire human food supply (1:4-20). The devastation deepens into scorching drought, blazing fire, crushing invasion, earthquake, and cosmic darkening (1:12, 17-20; 2:2-11), although it is not always clear when the language is literal or figurative. This dizzying array of disasters is a manifestation of the “day of the LORD” (1:15; 2:1-2, 11). In the face of this desperate situation, God and the prophet call the community to turn wholeheartedly to God and gather at the temple for a service of lament and prayer (2:12-17).

The turning point in the book occurs at 2:18 when God suddenly becomes zealous on behalf of Israel, presumably in response to the community’s faithful turning to God. The entire tone of the book changes as it shifts to describing how God will undo the previous disasters by sending rain, granting abundant harvests, removing the locusts/invading army, and restoring national pride (2:18-27). God will also initiate spiritual renewal, pouring out the divine Spirit on all members of the community (3:28-29). Israel will come to know that the incomparable God dwells in its midst (2:27; 3:17). The day of the Lord, which earlier entailed Israel’s devastation, will arrive with dramatic signs to restore Israel and crush its enemies (2:30–3:21).

The story that Joel tells revolves around the theme of the “day of the LORD.” The day of the Lord is not a literal twenty-four-hour period but a time when God intervenes to assert divine sovereignty, punish evildoers, and accomplish God’s purposes (Epp-Tiessen: 25, 293–94). Many prophets foretell unfaithful Israel’s judgment on the day of the Lord. However, after the judgment a new day of the Lord may bring deliverance. In the first half of Joel, the day of the Lord spells disaster for Israel (1:15; 2:1, 11) while in the second half it will bring restoration (2:31–3:3; 3:14).

Few Christians are aware of how profoundly Joel has shaped Christian faith. Since the earliest days of the church, Christians have used Joel’s prophecy that God will pour out the Spirit on all flesh to understand what God was doing on and after Pentecost to empower believers with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:17-21). Joel’s description of the coming day of the Lord shaped how New Testament writers describe the ministry of Jesus, especially his second coming (Matt 24:29; Mark 13:24-25; Luke 21:11; Acts 2:19-20; Rev 6:12-13; 8:12). The early church drew on Joel’s assurance that “everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved” (2:32a) for language to express allegiance to Jesus (Acts 9:14, 21; 22:16; 1 Cor 1:2; 2 Tim 2:22).

The Prophet, Historical Context, and Composition

“Joel” is a common Old Testament name meaning “Yahweh is God.” “Yahweh” is the personal name of Israel’s God, usually rendered “LORD” in English. Beyond mentioning that Joel is the son of Pethuel (1:1), the book provides no information or stories about the prophet or his ministry. Prophetic books generally focus on the message rather than the life of the prophet.

While the headings and content of many prophetic books deliberately connect the prophet to a particular historical era, that is not the case with Joel. The book mentions no specific events or historical context in light of which the book should be interpreted. With respect to a potential date of composition, circumstantial evidence suggests sometime between 515 and 350 BCE. Joel reports atrocities against Judah like those experienced after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE (3:2-6, 19). Priests and elders function as leaders of the community, with no mention of a king, which reflects post-exilic life after Babylon terminated Judah’s monarchy. Joel assumes a functioning temple and priesthood, pointing to a date after the second temple was completed in 515 BCE. Joel’s numerous citations from other prophetic books suggest it was one of the latest prophetic collections to be compiled. Joel refers to the Greeks as traders (3:6), reflecting a date before 333 BCE when the Greeks became conquerors and rulers under Alexander the Great. Joel may have been composed somewhere around 400 BCE.

Multiple theories seek to outline the compositional history of Joel (Prinsloo: 2–5; Barton: 6–10). Some commentators believe that Joel records the public pronouncements of a prophet by that name (Craigie: 85–86). Differences in content between the two halves of the book, especially the different portrayals of how the day of the Lord will affect Israel, lead to the assertion that the first part of the book may record the pronouncements of a prophet named Joel, while the second half represents the work of scribal editors drawing on post-exilic prophetic themes (Barton: 12–14).

Joel lacks common prophetic expressions like, “Thus says the LORD” and “declares the LORD,” that are characteristic of prophetic speeches to a live audience. Perhaps the book does not record oral prophecies but from the beginning was “an artistic literary construction” (Wolff: 10). It is often noted that Joel features at least twenty close parallels to other biblical books, mostly prophetic writings (Wolff: 10–11; Crenshaw: 27–28; Barton: 23). The author or authors of Joel may have been students of prophetic literature who sought to affirm that earlier prophecies carried ongoing authority and relevance (Seitz: 29, 40–41).

Joel and the Book of the Twelve

In Jewish tradition since well before the time of Jesus, the twelve short prophetic books that follow Daniel in the Christian Bible are written on a single scroll called the “Book of the Twelve.” Biblical scholars used to believe that these books were thrown together somewhat haphazardly, but recent decades have seen a growing recognition that editors were intentional about the order because they wanted readers to hear the individual books in light of each other (Epp-Tiessen: 291–93).

Joel stands between Hosea and Amos and connects with both. Hosea concludes by calling Israel to return to God using heartfelt words of repentance (14:1-3), claiming that wise persons will understand and respond appropriately (14:9). By virtue of its location immediately after Hosea, Joel responds to this scenario, even using the same vocabulary as Hosea to call Israel to turn to God (2:12-13; Seitz: 55). According to both Hosea and Joel, Israel faces the threat of catastrophic judgment, that only heartfelt turning to God can avert. Joel’s community does turn to God, becoming a model of Hosea’s wise person who understands God’s ways and demonstrates the proper response (Seitz: 57).

A verse near the end of Joel describes how God roars like a lion to protect Israel (3:16a). The very same words at the beginning of Amos introduce God’s roaring in judgment against Israel and the nations (1:2a). To illustrate the amazing agricultural abundance of the new age, the conclusion to Joel paraphrases from the ending of Amos to describe the mountains flowing with wine and milk (3:18a; cf. Amos 9:13b). The judgment of the nations that the end of Joel foretells is spelled out in more detail at the beginning of Amos (1:3–2:3; Wolff: 3).

By virtue of its location near the beginning of the Book of the Twelve, Joel provides a guide for how to read the entire collection (Nogalski 2000: 94–109; 2011: 204, 211–13; Jeremias 2012: 77). Joel anticipates the disasters that many of the succeeding books foretell. The early reading community would have seen these prophecies as fulfilled by the devastating conquests of Assyria and especially Babylon. Joel identifies how Israel must respond in the face of such calamity. However, the books of the Twelve also assert that God will ultimately deliver Israel, just as Joel promises. Joel provides a microcosm of the Book of the Twelve, portraying a generalized picture of judgment but asserting that God is always eager to deliver those who turn to him (Seitz: 58, 63–64).

Outline of Joel

(from Epp-Tiessen: 91)

Heading and Prologue 1:1-3

Part 1: Catastrophes Call for Lament and Turning to God 1:4–2:17

Calls to Lament the Current Disaster 1:4-20

Imminent Day of the Lord Disasters Require Turning to God 2:1-17

Part 2: Images of God’s Future Deliverance 2:18–3:21

Near Future: God Will Reverse the Earlier Devastations 2:18-27

Distant Future: Signs of God’s Future Intervention 2:28-32

Distant Future: God Will Protect Judah/Jerusalem 3:1-21

Summary and Comment

Heading and Prologue (1:1-3)

The opening verse of Joel introduces the prophet in the briefest way, stating only that he is the son of Pethuel. The book claims great authority for itself and the prophet by designating his message as “The word of the LORD that came to Joel” (1:1 NRSV passim). The book also calls for attention by summoning the entire community to hear and pass on to succeeding generations a story like never heard before (1:2-3). Commentators often assume that this story refers to the locust plagues described after the prologue. However, Jeremias argues that it encompasses the entire book that moves through the threats posed by the terrifying day of the Lord to the remarkable deliverance that a more distant day of the Lord will bring. This should lead to recognition of God’s grace and goodness (2007: 12), and 1:2-3 likely serve as a prologue to the entire book, not just to the disasters of 1:4-20.

Part 1: Catastrophes Call for Lament and Turning to God 1:4–2:17

Calls to Lament the Current Disaster (1:4-20)

The unprecedented story that Joel recounts begins with four massive waves of locusts that have consumed every shred of vegetation (1:4). In the ancient Near East locusts were greatly feared because a swarm could number in the billions and destroy a community’s entire food supply. Joel depicts the crushing impact of the locusts by calling four different groups of people to lament their losses:

• Wine drinkers must wail because the fierce locust army has destroyed all the grape vines (1:5-7).
• The community must lament because the fields are devastated, and all three major food crops have failed: grains, wine, and olive oil (1:8-10).
• Joel summons agricultural workers to grieve, listing the many crops that have failed (1:11-12).
• Joel calls the priests to engage in rituals of lament because there is no produce for grain and drink offerings at the temple, on which the priests depended for their sustenance and which nurtured communion between Israel and God (1:9, 13). The priests must call a national service of lament at the temple to voice the people’s cries to God (1:14).

Whereas prophets often critique priests, rituals, sacrifices, and the temple establishment (Isa 1:11-17; Jer 6:13; 7:1-15, 21-23; 8:10-12; Hos 4:4-6; 5:1-2; 6:6; 8:11; Amos 5:21-24; 7:10-17; Mic 3:11-12; 6:6-8), Joel is somewhat unique in regarding each as essential for Israel’s well-being (1:13-14; 2:12-17; 3:16-18). If we read Joel alongside other prophets, the composite picture that emerges is that corporate worship with its rituals, sacrifices, and priests is essential for nurturing relationship with God. However, institutional religion can be corrupted to serve the interests of the elite, can provide a false sense of security, and can focus too narrowly on ritual and sacrifice at the expense of commitment to justice and righteousness.

In 1:15-20 the locust plague broadens into other calamities that include blistering drought and fire. The calls to lament now become actual words of lament, including the declaration “For the day of the LORD is near” (1:15a). One might interpret this statement as a warning that the locusts represent but a foretaste of the imminent day of the Lord that will bring even worse calamity. However, the following verse is a rhetorical question suggesting that the current catastrophe demonstrates that the day of the Lord has already arrived (1:16; Sweeney: 160).

The book of Joel was compiled in the post-exilic period when the Israelite community was struggling to recover from the Babylonian defeat of 586 BCE that had resulted in widespread killing, looting, famine, destruction, exile, and leveling of Jerusalem and its temple. Numerous passages interpret this catastrophe as representing God’s day-of-the-Lord judgment (Jer 4:9-10; Lam 1:12; 2:1, 22; Ezek 13:5; 34:12). Joel’s painfully realistic images of locust invasion, drought, and fire that manifest the day of the Lord are probably metaphorical representations of Judah’s devastation during and after the Babylonian conquest (Stulman and Kim: 193–95).

The book of Joel performs the pastoral act of acknowledging the trauma and losses that the community has suffered. Then it holds out words of hope. God is profoundly gracious, and turning to God is always possible (2:12-14). Ultimately, God will wrestle a bright future out of Israel’s calamity, reversing all the nasty consequences of the day-of-the-Lord disasters depicted in the first half of the book, ensuring Israel’s physical as well as its spiritual renewal (2:18–3:21).

Imminent Day of the Lord Disasters Require Turning to God (2:1-17)

Joel intensifies the calamity that the day of the Lord will bring by portraying the locust horde as God’s unstoppable army that terrorizes the population (2:6, 11), turns fruitful land into desert (2:3), and easily overruns and loots Jerusalem (2:7-9). The power of the locust army to darken the heavenly luminaries and shake the cosmos symbolizes its destructive abilities (2:10).

According to 1:4-20, the day of the Lord is already present, whereas 2:1b portrays it as a future threat. As suggested above, the images of invasion, devastation, and conquest in chapter 1 allude to the Babylonian destruction of Judah. By warning that the day of the Lord is an imminent threat, 2:1b blurs the timeframe and asserts that the day is not only a past and present reality but remains a future possibility. The question at the end of 2:11—Who can possibly endure the horrors of the day of the Lord?—takes readers into the pit of despair, thereby making them receptive to the hope offered by the next verses.

Hope of averting more day-of-the-Lord disaster is signaled by the fact that “Yet even now” (2:12a) God calls the community to turn to God (2:12-13a). Joel seconds this invitation and provides additional hope and motivation by citing a confession of faith about God’s gracious character (2:13b-c; cf. Exod 34:6-7; Num 14:18; Neh 9:17; Pss 86:15; 103:8; 145:8-9; Jon 4:2; Epp-Tiessen: 53–55). Joel commands the entire community to demonstrate its commitment through specific rituals like fasting and gathering at the temple for a service of lament (2:15-16). The priests must exercise faithful leadership by voicing the community’s petitions for deliverance (2:17).

Given how the catastrophic Babylonian destruction of Judah loomed so large over post-exilic Jewish memory and faith, the early readers of Joel would have seen the imagery of the day-of-the-Lord devastations as pointing to the losses their community had experienced. Joel performs a kind of drama that takes Israel into the depths of the day-of-the-Lord disaster and its lingering consequences (Stulman and Kim: 194–95; Seitz: 93). Joel verbally reenacts the suffering that the community has lived through, thereby expressing its grief and trauma. But Joel also asserts that in the depth of catastrophe it is always possible to turn and encounter the God who is gracious and merciful, and abounding in steadfast love (Seitz: 80, 93). The second half of Joel enacts the second half of the drama, focussing on God’s deliverance that the future day of the Lord will bring.

Part 2: Images of God’s Future Deliverance 2:18–3:21

Near Future: God Will Reverse the Earlier Devastations (2:18-27)

The turning point in the book happens between 2:17 and 2:18 when God suddenly becomes zealous and compassionate toward the land and Israel, implying that Israel did turn toward God. God will reverse the day-of-the-Lord devastations by destroying the locust army (2:20), repaying Israel for the damage that army caused (2:25), sending abundant rain (2:23), restoring fertility, and ensuring bountiful harvests (2:19, 22, 24, 26). God promises “I will no more make you a mockery [ḥerpah] among the nations” (2:19c). Since ḥerpah, which means “scorn,” “shame,” or “reproach,” is commonly used to describe the impact of the Babylonian destruction (Neh 1:3; 2:17; Ps 79:4, 12; Jer 23:40; 24:9; 29:18; 51:51; Lam 3:61; 5:1; Ezek 5:14, 15; 22:4; 36:15, 30; Dan 9:16), God is in essence promising healing from that catastrophe. God’s deliverance will also lead to a spiritual renewal as the people will praise God and recognize that their incomparable God dwells in their midst (2:26-27).

Distant Future: Signs of God’s Future Intervention (2:28-32 [3:1-5 in Hebrew])

The opening words, “Then afterward,” indicate that sometime after fulfillment of the promises in 2:18-27, God will act again in dramatic fashion. God promises to pour out the empowering divine Spirit on “all flesh” (2:28a), not just on male leaders as usually happens in the Old Testament. The Spirit will renew community life by enabling prophecy, dreams, and visions among young and old, women and men, and even slaves, both female and male.

Next, God foretells a series of earthly and heavenly disturbances that will portend the great and terrible day of the Lord (2:30-31). Elsewhere, such cosmic disfigurement results from God’s judgment (Isa 34:4, 8-10; Jer 4:23-26; Ezek 32:7-8), sometimes connected to the day of the Lord (Isa 13:9-10, 13; 34:8-10; Amos 5:18, 20; 8:9; Zeph 1:15). Such descriptions highlight the dramatic nature of God’s intervention that will rock the world. Joel reassures readers that everyone who calls on God’s name will be safe in the coming turmoil (2:32).

The early church drew extensively on Joel 2:28-32 to portray what God was doing through Jesus Christ. Peter’s Pentecost sermon quotes Joel at length, claiming that the broad outpouring of the Spirit on the Christian community fulfills Joel’s hopes (Acts 2:16-21). Joel’s words, “everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved” (2:32a), provided the church with language for expressing allegiance to Jesus (Acts 9:14, 21; 22:16; Rom 10:13; 1 Cor 1:2; 2 Tim 2:22). Joel’s description of cosmic upheaval (2:31-32; cf. 2:10; 3:15) nurtured Christian imagination about the turmoil that would signal the return of Jesus to establish God’s reign on earth (Matt 24:29; Mark 13:24-25; Luke 21:11; Acts 2:19-20; Rev 6:12-14; 8:12).

Distant Future: God Will Protect Judah/Jerusalem (3:1-21 [4:1-21 in Hebrew])

Whereas locust plagues are center stage in Joel 1–2, in chapter 3 the danger facing Israel is foreign aggression. The day of the Lord that once threatened Israel (1:15; 2:1-2, 11) now becomes the day when God will deliver Israel and destroy its enemies (3:14-18). Chapter 3 collects miscellaneous promises of deliverance focusing on two themes: God’s defeat of oppressive enemy nations (3:1-15), and God’s establishment of Zion as the base of operations for protecting and blessing Israel (3:16-21).

God promises to gather the nations in the Valley of Jehoshaphat and judge them for their atrocities against Israel (3:2-3). “Jehoshaphat” means “Yahweh judges.” Since there is no known valley by that name, the name probably symbolizes the courtroom where God will hold the nations accountable. Three of Israel’s close neighbors are singled out: Tyre, Sidon, and Philistia, probably representing a broader swath of peoples (3:4-8). God accuses the three of scattering the Israelites, selling them into slavery, looting, and carving up God’s land (3:2-6). This description evokes Judah’s experience in the aftermath of the Babylonian destruction when it was vulnerable to abuse by neighboring peoples.

God accuses Israel’s neighbors of selling Judah’s people to the distant Greeks, thereby highlighting the cruelty of the action and the impossibility of return (3:6). God promises to free and repatriate these dispersed slaves, empowering them to sell the children of their former captors to the Sabeans, a far-off desert people (3:7-8). While it may be morally and psychologically satisfying to anticipate enemies receiving some of their own medicine, and while it may be tempting to highlight how Israel’s God defends the weak and oppressed, we should recognize the moral shortcomings of Joel’s scenario. Israel’s deliverance is envisioned in terms of revenge against the nations, which is always a problematic notion (Epp-Tiessen: 304–8). Joel portrays God as outraged only when Israelites are sold into slavery. God’s revenge entails the innocent children of enemy peoples being ripped from their homes and enslaved in a distant land. Joel believes that God’s people must not be harmed, but committing atrocities against other peoples is appropriate if it represents retribution. Sometimes faithful appropriation of Scripture requires us to push back against the limited vision of specific biblical texts (see Conclusion below; also the essay, “Strategies for Interpreting Problematic Texts,” Epp-Tiessen: 308–15).

God commissions an anonymous messenger to order the nations to mobilize all their resources for war (3:9-11a). Farmers must beat their plowshares into swords and their pruning knives into spear heads (3:10a), reversing the “swords into plowshares” imagery of Isaiah 2:2-5 and Micah 4:1-5 that symbolizes a commitment to divert resources from military purposes to peaceful ones. Whereas Isaiah and Micah envision the nations making a pilgrimage to Zion where they learn the ways of God that lead to international peace and security, Joel portrays God luring the nations to their doom. Sometimes the Bible presents different perspectives on an issue. In such cases, Christians should bring conflicting texts into conversation with each other, and sometimes give greater weight to one over the other (Epp-Tiessen: 207–12; 308–15).

After the call to battle, it becomes clear that God is not summoning the nations for war but for judgment (3:12-13). God’s verdict is that the nations are guilty and deserve to be cut down like ripe grain and crushed like grapes in a winepress. The day of the Lord, accompanied by cosmic signs, will feature a huge massacre of Israel’s enemies (3:13-15).

The rest of the chapter focuses on God taking up residence on Zion (3:16, 17, 18, 21) and the benefits that result. Despite the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and all of Jerusalem’s struggles in succeeding centuries, Joel affirms that God dwells on Zion, making it the base of operations for delivering Israel. In many prophetic books, Zion functions as a core symbol for both the peace and security to be found in God and the hope for future deliverance (Epp-Tiessen: 315–17).

In 3:16a, Joel quotes Amos 1:2a in order to depict God as a fierce lion roaring from Zion, determined to protect Israel. In Amos, which follows immediately after Joel, God roars from Zion in judgment against Israel (1:2). Joel reverses the meaning of Amos’s image. Once Israel has suffered catastrophe as is the case for Joel, then God’s grace predominates over judgment. Editors have linked Joel and Amos so that they should be read together (Jeremias 2007: 53–54; Seitz: 212). Heard in isolation, God’s unconditional promises of deliverance in Joel could encourage complacency. Amos’s blistering attack on Israel’s social injustice asserts that human faithfulness always matters (Seitz: 214). Reading Joel and Amos together reminds us that we stand simultaneously under God’s roaring judgment on our sinfulness and under God’s roaring grace that delivers and blesses. Faithful interpretation must discern which type of roaring, and in what measure, God’s people need to hear in any specific moment of history.

According to Joel 3:16-21, God’s presence on Zion will lead to multiple interrelated benefits: recognition of God, sanctification of Jerusalem, military security, abundant rainfall and water, amazing fertility, revenge on historic enemies, and perpetual inhabitation of Judah’s territory. Given the struggles of Zion/Jerusalem in the centuries following the Babylonian destruction, early readers of Joel probably did not expect an immediate, literal fulfilment of Joel’s prophecies. As discussed earlier, the book of Joel represents a dramatic performance that takes readers through the suffering of the day of the Lord into the experience of God’s grace and deliverance.

Joel promises that Egypt and Edom will become a desolate wilderness because of their violence towards Judah (3:19). It is not clear why Egypt and Edom are singled out when enemies like Assyria and Babylon inflicted far more harm. Perhaps Egypt and Edom represent paradigmatic enemies that bookend Israel’s history and represent all enemies. Egypt was an ancient enemy from exodus times while Edom was a more recent threat after the Babylonian destruction of Judah (Epp-Tiessen: 118–19; see further discussion at “Obadiah,” Anabaptist Dictionary of the Bible). In contrast to the fate of Egypt and Edom, Judah and Jerusalem will be inhabited forever (3:20), implying a prosperous life under God’s protective care.

Conclusion and the Anabaptist Tradition

All of 3:1-21 is pervaded by the conviction that the destruction of enemies is required for Israel’s salvation. Given the violence and oppression inflicted on Israel by foreign nations, and the nasty political realities of the ancient world, it is realistic to believe that Israel’s restoration would require destruction of enemies. However, for Christians today it is dangerous to believe that the salvation of God’s people requires the destruction of their human enemies (Epp-Tiessen: 304–8). A central Christian conviction is that God’s people should participate in furthering God’s purposes in the world. If God’s purpose is to defeat our enemies as Joel claims, then it is easy to imagine that God wishes us to destroy our enemies. The community that Joel addressed was a relatively powerless remnant with little military muscle to attack its enemies. However, during centuries of European history, “Christian” nations initiated many wars and committed horrible atrocities because they believed that their welfare depended on defeating enemies whom they believed God wished to destroy. Similar convictions inspire a militaristic and aggressive mindset among too many contemporary North American Christians.

The way that Joel foretells the destruction of enemies in an abstract way, without attention to real human consequences, can make readers oblivious to the enormous suffering and loss that real wars inevitably unleash. If we follow Joel in believing that our well-being depends on the destruction of enemies, then we may embrace an “us versus them” mentality, selfishly seeking the welfare of our own nation and community at the expense of others and forgetting that our own thriving is linked to the thriving of others.

In the Old Testament, the formation of the Israelite people is central to God’s agenda. Given the challenging political realities of life in the ancient Near East, the creation of Israel required a territory and the defense of that territory. The New Testament reveals a significant shift in God’s agenda. The community of faith gathered around Jesus is not tied to a particular nation state. Our salvation does not involve the destruction of our human enemies because Jesus lived, died, and rose again for all humans and even for all of creation (Col 1:15-20). God’s goal is not the destruction of the nations but their healing and salvation. Through Jesus Christ God creates one new humanity in which the different factions of the human community are reconciled both to God and to each other (Eph 2:11-22).

The Anabaptist tradition insists that Christians should read all of Scripture through the interpretive lens of Jesus. We can affirm Joel’s insistence that God will be gracious and deliver. However, when Joel’s vision of salvation clashes with the New Testament vision and with Jesus’ call to love enemies and to seek their welfare (Matt 5:43-48; Luke 6:27-36), then we should give greater weight to the New Testament. The book of Joel seeks to provide hope and encouragement to a devastated people. Given the realities of the time, we should not unduly fault the book for envisioning the destruction of Israel’s enemies. However, because of God’s saving work through Jesus Christ we find our hope and security in Jesus. We can join the Apostle Paul as he surveys a host of potential human and even cosmic threats before concluding that nothing in all creation “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:39b; see Epp-Tiessen: 88–90).

Recommended Essays in the Commentary

Book of the Twelve
Day of the LORD
God’s Judgment
Salvation and the Destruction of Enemies
Strategies for Interpreting Problematic Texts
Zion Tradition

Bibliography

• Barton, John. Joel and Obadiah: A Commentary. Old Testament Library. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001.
• Craigie, Peter C. Twelve Prophets, Volume 1: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, and Jonah. The Daily Study Bible. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984.
• Crenshaw, James L. Joel: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible 24C. New York: Doubleday, 1995.
• Epp-Tiessen, Daniel. Joel, Obadiah, Micah. Believers Church Bible Commentary. Harrisonburg, VA: Herald, 2022.
• Jeremias, Jörg. Die Propheten Joel, Obadja, Jona, Micha. Das Alte Testament Deutsch 24.3. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2007.
• ______. “The Function of the Book of Joel for Reading the Twelve.” In Perspectives on the Formation of the Book of the Twelve: Methodological Foundations, Redactional Processes, Historical Insights, edited by Rainer Albertz, James D. Nogalski, and Jakob Wöhrle, 77–87. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 433. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012.
• Nogalski, James D. “Joel as ‘Literary Anchor’ for the Book of the Twelve.” In Reading and Hearing the Book of the Twelve, edited by James D. Nogalski and Marvin A. Sweeney, 91–109. SBL Symposium Series 15. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000.
• ______. The Book of the Twelve: Hosea–Jonah. Smyth and Helwys Bible Commentary. Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2011.
• Prinsloo, Willem S. The Theology of the Book of Joel. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 163. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1985.
• Seitz, Christopher R. Joel. International Theological Commentary. New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016.
• Stulman, Luis, and Hyun Chul Paul Kim. You Are My People: An Introduction to Prophetic Literature. Nashville: Abingdon, 2010.
• Sweeney, Marvin A. The Twelve Prophets: Volume 1, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah. Berit Olam: Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2000.
• Wolff, Hans Walter. Joel and Amos. Translated by Waldemar Janzen, S. Dean McBride, Jr., and Charles A. Muenchow. Hermeneia. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977.

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—Daniel Epp-Tiessen