Joel overview

by koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil, ThD)

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

conjoint researcher for Avondale College

Australia

2 March 2012

Chapter 1

1.    Joel son of Pethuel (pth = door, portal, “God is the portal”.

2.    Ever heard of this: Elders ask forefathers, thus two generations.

3.    Tell three generations about it. Add up, five generations x 40 years = 200 years it did not happen.

4.    Four kinds of locust:

a)       shearing locust = Babylon (Rabbi Abarbanel [1437-1509], Spain ***)

b)      increasing locust = Medo-Persia (***)

c)       nibbling locust = Greece (***)

d)      finishing locust = Rome (***)

5.    Awake, weep and wail all drunkards [those in a sleeping mode = ten virgins in Jesus parable] (Matthew 25:1-13)

6.    A persecuting nation has ascended upon the land [Holy Roman Empire]

7.    Vine of the Lord is laid waste for 1260 years according to Daniel 7:25, the little horn = Papacy function in Roman Catholic Church Empire during the Middle Ages).

8.    Lament over this persecution like a virgin

9.    During these 1260 years “meal offering and libation have been cut off from the house of the Lord. Priests and ministers of the Lord mourn and suffer. See Daniel 8:11-12 for similar actions by the Little Horn in Daniel 8.

10.                           Field has been plundered = evangelistic spreading of the gospel has been ransacked during this period. Oil has been cut off. See the oil issue in parable of the ten virgins of Jesus in Matthew 25:1-13.

11.                          Ashamed and wailing are plowmen and vinedressers for there is no harvest [for 1260 years between 538-1798]

12.                          All the trees have dried up “from the sons of man” [humanity].

13.                          Lament, wail, come ministers for mealofferings, libations are withheld [during 1260 years]. A proper view of atonement is hidden or misconstrued. The vicarius filii dei principle.

14.                          Fast, assemble, cry to the Lord.

15.                          Woe is the eschatological day of the Lord for it is near. Its character will be

a)    like plunder. It will come from the Almighty.

16.                          b)Food will be cut off

c)    No joy in God’s place of worship.

17.                          d) Wholesalers and storehouses will be worthless, corn dried out.

18.                          e) Dryness affects cattle

19.                          [Sun] flares and [sun] flames will burn all the trees of the field. Solar ejections. See online SOHO site.

Preceding the coming of the Lord (v.15) there will be a drought (17), no sheep (18), no water (v. 20), no food (v. 19).

Joel 2

1.    The Leitmotif or major theme of chapter one is taken up again: the day of the Lord.

Sound sophar in Zion, in My holy mountain. All inhabitants shall quake. The day of the Lord has come, [it did not come] it is near.

2.    Day of darkness [hoshek], gloom, of cloud, thick thickness, like dawn spread over the mountains, a numerous mighty people [angels], never seen before. After it there is no more until the years of generations. At the second coming there will be angels from horizon to horizon and there will be a lapse between this coming “until the years of the generations”. This last event is hell. That is the time when new generations will start. It is the new start. It is the new earth.

3.    The great brightness of the Second Coming will only be equaled one time again and that is before eternity and the new creation starts. That is the time when the hell fire burning takes place. Fire consumes before the Lord and flames blazes after Him. Even if the land was beautiful [like the garden of Eden] it will be a desert wasteland and there shall not be a remnant.

4.    The angels are moving like horses and they run.

5.    The angels sound like chariots and they run on mountain tops. No ANE chariots ever ran on mountain tops. Chariots are for the valleys not the mountains. It is simile. They leap like flames and fire consuming stubble. They are organized like people for a battle.

6.    Nations quake and faces are black with fear.

7.    Angels run like mighty men and scale walls and they do not run out of pace.

8.    They do not touch each other and keep to their course. They fall upon swords extended to them and will not grab gain. The image is the executive judgment of God at the very end of time, the last day of the Lord. The happy day of the Lord is when Jesus the Messiah came to live and die. The second happy day of the Lord is at his second coming but fearful for the unbeliever. The third day of the Lord is an executive judgment and it is just fearful. Notice that saints who are safely in the New Jerusalem or Zion city at that time (Psalm 46) will be noisy and happy but is silenced by the returning Warrior [Jesus the Messiah] Psalm 46:11.

9.    They run in the city, the wall, go up into the houses and come through the windows like a thief. See Jesus comparing His coming like a thief in the night.

10.“Before Him” the earth quakes. One can interpret that before the time of Him coming, the earth will quake or there will be earthquakes, heavens trembling, sun and moon darkening and the stars withdrawing their shining. At His second coming it will also happen and also at His third coming to eradicate evil.

11. When Christ come on high at the Second Coming, He speaks before His angels, He performs His words. Awesome is the second day of the Lord (second coming) and third day of the Lord (eradiction of evil, Warrior Messiah).

12. However, in the days of Joel [now] the people should do that which all generations should do: return to the Lord with all their hearts. A holistic return to the Lord with fasting, weeping and with lamentation. The Jewish Middle Ages commentator Redak, or Rabbi David Kimchi suggested that the return to the Lord is after the event but that is not the intention of Joel. He feels the term now is used because the prophet was prophesying shortly before the event. Yes, before the event but not shortly before the event. In 2:3-10 it is the fearful army which will do bad things in 2:11 it is the Lord’s army which will do good things at the second coming. Is 2:3-10 the last empire [USA] before the second coming of the Lord? Is that the period spanning after the Holy Roman Empire ending in 1798 and the Second Coming of the Lord? The answer on the first question is negative. It is not the USA. We have already explained the situation. Both actions are the same but viewed from two angles, one through the eyes of the bad and the other through the eyes of the good.

13. What the Lord is expecting is that people rend their hearts and not their clothes and return to the Lord. Why, He is gracious, merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness. He is even kind upon or over evil. Here we have the salvivic character of the Lord. Even the sinful reap from His beneficial character albeit a set period.