¹ “For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, ² I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into judgment with them there, on behalf of my people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations and have divided up my land, ³ and have cast lots for my people, and have traded a boy for a prostitute, and have sold a girl for wine and have drunk it. ⁴ “What are you to me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Are you paying me back for something? If you are paying me back, I will return your payment on your own head swiftly and speedily. ⁵ For you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried my rich treasures into your temples. ⁶ You have sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks in order to remove them far from their own border. ⁷ Behold, I will stir them up from the place to which you have sold them, and I will return your payment on your own head. ⁸ I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, to a nation far away, for the Lord has spoken. ⁹ Proclaim this among the nations: Consecrate for war; stir up the mighty men. Let all the men of war draw near; let them come up. ¹⁰ Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, “I am a warrior.” ¹¹ Hasten and come, all you surrounding nations, and gather yourselves there. Bring down your warriors, O Lord. ¹² Let the nations stir themselves up and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; for there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations. ¹³ Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Go in, tread, for the winepress is full. The vats overflow, for their evil is great. ¹⁴ Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. ¹⁵ The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. ¹⁶ The Lord roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth quake. But the Lord is a refuge to his people, a stronghold to the people of Israel. ¹⁷ “So you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who dwells in Zion, my holy mountain. And Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall never again pass through it. ¹⁸ “And in that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the streambeds of Judah shall flow with water; and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the Lord and water the Valley of Shittim. ¹⁹ “Egypt shall become a desolation and Edom a desolate wilderness, for the violence done to the people of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land. ²⁰ But Judah shall be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem to all generations. ²¹ I will avenge their blood, blood I have not avenged, for the Lord dwells in Zion.”

In 1963, Bob Dylan wrote his song “Seven Curses.” In the song, a young lady is trying to save her father’s life. He is scheduled to be hung for stealing a horse. The lecherous judge makes a deal with the young lady and promises to free her father. After she meets the judge’s demands she awakens the next morning to find that the judge did not free her father but, instead, after having used her, he commenced with the hanging. The girl, upon seeing her father’s broken body and realizing the wickedness of the judge, pronounces seven curses upon the judge. Here are the curses:

These be seven curses on a judge so cruel:
That one doctor will not save him
That two healers will not heal him
That three eyes will not see him
That four ears will not hear him
That five walls will not hide him
That six diggers will not bury him
And that seven deaths shall never kill him[1]

Bob Dylan was pretty adept at biblical imagery. He knew that seven was the number of completion. The point, then, is that the girl pronounces devastating, exhaustive, and complete judgment upon the judge for his wickedness and cruelty. He is cursed seven times. That is, he is cursed in totality.

This comes to mind when reading the first verses of Joel 3, which are verses describing the Lord’s judgment upon the wicked nations. But then these terrifying words of judgment for the world give way to words of mercy for God’s people. It is a fascinating way for Joel to end his book, and it is a message we desperately need to hear: devastating judgment is coming…but also lavish mercy.

The day will come when the world will sit down to a banquet of consequences.

I have mentioned before how, as a kid in school, I passed countless times beneath a large sign that the headmaster of our school had mounted above one of the stairwells coming out of the main building. It was a large wooden sign, painted white with black letters. It was a quote from Robert Louis Stevenson. It read, “Sooner or later, everybody sits down to a banquet of consequences.” That is not a bad message to share with young people…and it is precisely the message that the Lord shares with Israel’s enemies in Joel 3:1–15. This is a passage of judgment. Indeed, it is a divine summons to judgment.

¹ “For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, ² I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into judgment with them there, on behalf of my people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations and have divided up my land

Note, first, that this divine judgment recognizes two groups of people: (1) the people of God (i.e., Judah and Jerusalem, that is, Israel) and (2) “all the nations.” The fact that God “will gather all the nations” is important. Not too how a few verses down God will specify a few particular wicked peoples, but verse 2 sets the parameters: the world will enter into judgment. God’s people will not enter into judgment.

God will bring the nations “down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat.” Joseph Too Shao and Rosa Ching Shao observe of this interesting phrase:

This term only occurs in Joel (3:2, 12) and means “the valley of judgment of the Lord.” It may refer to a specific place…or be a symbolic reference to the final judgment. The reference to “Jehoshaphat” may allude to a previous judgment of God against Judah’s enemies in the time of King Jehoshaphat (2 Chr 20:1–30) and thereby serve as a reminder of God’s future judgment.[2]

Let us not get lost in the question of geography. Let us rather tremble before the certainty of judgment. The nations will be gathered. The nations will be judged. Why? For two reasons, verse 2 tells us:

• The nations have “scattered” God’s people “among the nations.”
• The nations have “divided up” Israel.

That is, the nations have risen up against the people of God, seeking to decimate them. The passage continues with further specifics:

³ and have cast lots for my people, and have traded a boy for a prostitute, and have sold a girl for wine and have drunk it.

The nations have “scattered” and “divided” Israel by casting lots. They have carved up the land and the people haphazardly, with bemused and treacherous abandon. Even worse, they have sold the children of Israel into slavery: “a boy for a prostitute” and “a girl for wine.” Of so little worth are the people of God to the nations that they have sold them off for hedonistic pleasures and for wanton debauchery. They have treated the children of Israel as mere bargaining chips in the pursuit of their own lusts.

This is scandalous! This is demonic! The Lord next moves to call out some of the worst offenders in this diabolical slave trade:

⁴ “What are you to me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Are you paying me back for something? If you are paying me back, I will return your payment on your own head swiftly and speedily.

This is rhetorical. The people of Tyre and Sidon and the regions of Philistia have debased themselves just as they have attacked the people of God. The question “What are you to me?” is to remind them that they not only are not immune from divine anger, they have instead stoked it to unimaginable extremes through their treachery. Do they think they are too good, too important, too valuable to be judged and disciplined? God even asks if revenge is behind their wickedness: “Are you paying me back for something?” God, of course, knows the reality of their hearts, yet He sounds here as if He is trying to understand how on earth they could be so wicked. Has God wronged them? Again, this is rhetorical, and God knows the answer. No, He has not wronged them and, whatever their motives, the divine response will be swift and decisive: “I will return your payment on your own head swiftly and speedily.”

The Lord continues to speak of the crimes of Tyre, Sidon, and Philistia (representing all the nations of the world, let us remember):

⁵ For you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried my rich treasures into your temples. ⁶ You have sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks in order to remove them far from their own border. ⁷ Behold, I will stir them up from the place to which you have sold them, and I will return your payment on your own head. ⁸ I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, to a nation far away, for the Lord has spoken.

The crimes of these people against Israel will be (1) undone and then (2) visited upon their own heads.

David Allan Hubbard has pointed out something interesting about the geographical locations mentioned in Joel 3: Tyre, Sidon, and “all the regions of Philistia.” Hubbard points out that it makes sense that these are named specifically because these are port cities and God is rebuking these pagan peoples for the selling the Israelites into slavery. And the Israelites are sold, we are told, to “the Greeks” (v.6), a sea-loving people. So the people of Israel, who, Hubbard points out, “had no love for the sea,” are sold to a sea-loving people, the Greeks. As a response, the people of Tyre, Sidon, and Philistia, who love the sea, will be sold to “the Sabeans” (v.8) a desert people.[3] In other words, the misery they sought to inflict on God’s people will be brought back upon their own heads as they are sent far from the sea into the desert.

The pronouncement of judgment now becomes an invitation to the nations.

⁹ Proclaim this among the nations: Consecrate for war; stir up the mighty men. Let all the men of war draw near; let them come up. ¹⁰ Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, “I am a warrior.” ¹¹ Hasten and come, all you surrounding nations, and gather yourselves there. Bring down your warriors, O Lord. ¹² Let the nations stir themselves up and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; for there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations.

In other words, “You want to fight against God and His people? Then prepare yourself and give it your best shot!”

These words about “plowshares” and “swords” in verse 10 may strike you as familiar and, if they do, this verse may also strike you as curious. This is because in Joel 3:10 the normal imagery is turned around. Normally, the prophets speak of swords being beaten into plowshares as a symbol of the coming of salvation and mercy. Consider Isaiah 2:

⁴ He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. ⁵ O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.

Do you see? In Isaiah 2, swords are beaten into plowshares as a sign of resolution and of the coming of peace. So, too, in Micah 4:

³ He shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide disputes for strong nations far away; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore

Again, that is a picture of conflict resolution, of the cessation of war. But in Joel 2 the image is turned on its head: God calls the nations to the valley of decision. He bids them bring their best and bring their all. Indeed, they are to beat their plowshares into swords and their pruning hooks into spears.

Next, the Lord seems to be speaking to the agents of His judgment, perhaps angels.

¹³ Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Go in, tread, for the winepress is full. The vats overflow, for their evil is great. ¹⁴ Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. ¹⁵ The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.

Duane Garrett believes that verse 13 (Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Go in, tread, for the winepress is full. The vats overflow, for their evil is great.) is “a miniature taunt song” and that verse 14 (Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision!) might be better rendered, “Mobs of people, mobs of people, in the Valley of Verdict!”[4]

In thinking about who the words of Joel 3:13 are addressed to (“Put in the sickle…”), it is worth noting that the image is picked up again in a truly chilling passage from Revelation 14:

¹⁴ Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand. ¹⁵ And another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, “Put in your sickle, and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.” ¹⁶ So he who sat on the cloud swung his sickle across the earth, and the earth was reaped. ¹⁷ Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. ¹⁸ And another angel came out from the altar, the angel who has authority over the fire, and he called with a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle, “Put in your sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe.” ¹⁹ So the angel swung his sickle across the earth and gathered the grape harvest of the earth and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. ²⁰ And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress, as high as a horse’s bridle, for 1,600 stadia.

Here, the Son of Man, Jesus, reaps the world with His sickle and is joined by angels who do the same.

Church! See here the judgment of God against the nations! World! See here the coming judgment against you!

Have you rejected Jesus, the Son of God? Have you stood against Him and His work in the world? See and hear and tremble and repent! The reaping of God’s judgment will be thorough and swift and devastating!

The day will come when God’s people will sit down to a banquet of mercy.

But for the people of God, mercy!

¹⁶ The Lord roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth quake. But the Lord is a refuge to his people, a stronghold to the people of Israel.

What a chilling scene! What a comforting scene! “The Lord roars from Zion!” The nations tremble with dread. The people of God take heart at the coming of their Savior. To the nations, God is a threat and a doom. To the people of God, though, “the Lord is a refuge.” He is safety! He is peace!

And what does the mercy of God look like? It looks like this:

¹⁷ “So you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who dwells in Zion, my holy mountain. And Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall never again pass through it. ¹⁸ “And in that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the streambeds of Judah shall flow with water; and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the Lord and water the Valley of Shittim. ¹⁹ “Egypt shall become a desolation and Edom a desolate wilderness, for the violence done to the people of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land. ²⁰ But Judah shall be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem to all generations. ²¹ I will avenge their blood, blood I have not avenged, for the Lord dwells in Zion.”

See the fruits of the restorative mercy and salvation of God:

• the removal of all doubts (“…you shall know that I am…”)
• the restoring of the certainty of relationship (“…I am the Lord your God…”)
• the unending presence of God (“…who dwells in Zion…”)
• the removal of all sin (“And Jerusalem shall be holy…”)
• the removal of all threats and enemies of God’s people (“…and strangers shall never again pass through it.”)
• untold blessings and provisions (“…sweet wine…milk…water…a fountain…”)
• creation will be made new (“…and water the Valley of Shittim.”)
• the establishment of justice with no further violation of it (“Egypt shall become a desolation…”)
• eternal life (“…Judah shall be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem to all generations.”)

This is what the Lord promises to His people. And this, church, is what Jesus Christ has secured for us through the shedding of His blood and through His resurrection from the dead. For these are precisely the images used of Jesus and said by Jesus in Revelation 21:

¹ Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. ² And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. ⁴ He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” ⁵ And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” ⁶ And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.

Joel was talking about Jesus, for it is Jesus, the God-man, who wins for us and secures for us and will bring about both this great judgment of the world and this great restoration and salvation of His people.

Come to Him! Come to Him today! Come and repent and believe!

 

[1] https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/seven-curses/

[2] Shao, Joseph Too, and Rosa Ching Shao. Joel, Nahum, and Malachi. Asia Bible Commentary. Gen. Ed. Andrew B. Spurgeon. (Carlisle, Cumbia: Langham Publishing, 2021), p.36.

[3] Hubbard, David Allan. Joel and Amos. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries. Vol. 25 (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1989), p.80–81.

[4] Garrett, Duane A. Hosea, Joel. The New American Commentary. Gen. Ed. E. Ray Clendenen. Old Testament vol. 19A (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1997), p.391–92.