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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Joel 2:18 - 2:32
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God's Promise of Temporal and Spiritual Blessings
v. 18. Then, when the Lord saw that His people were truly penitent, will the Lord be jealous for His land, be filled with the zeal of His love, rather, He was so filled and acted accordingly, and pity His people.
v. 19. Yea, the Lord will answer and say unto His people, actuated with the zeal of His love for them, Behold, I will send you corn and wine and oil, the richest temporal blessings made possible by the renewed fertility of the land, and ye shall be satisfied therewith; and I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen, of which their prayer had complained,
v. 20. but I will remove far off from you the northern army, the swarms of locusts which came from that direction, and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, into the desert of Arabia, with his face toward the East Sea, that is, the Dead Sea, and his hinder part, his rearguard, toward the utmost sea, that is, the Mediterranean; and his stink shall come up, the terrible stench of the decaying insects, and his ill savor shall come up, because he hath done great things, the entire description picturing the rapid and total destruction of the great plague.
v. 21. Fear not, O land, the entire country being included in this new admonition, as before; be glad and rejoice, namely, over the hosts that laid waste the country; for the Lord will do great things, Jehovah is able to perform marvelous works in delivering His people.
v. 22. Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field, which had been so sorely in need of food supplies; for the pastures of the wilderness, of the great prairies of the South, do spring, once more verdant with an abundance of grass; for the tree beareth her fruit, as before the terrible visitation, the fig-tree and the vine do yield their strength, so as to bring forth fruit as of old.
v. 23. Be glad, then, ye children of Zion, the inhabitants of Judah, the children of the Lord, and rejoice in the Lord, your God, the God of the covenant, the Lord of mercy; for He hath given you the former rain moderately, literally, "a teacher for righteousness," or "rain in just measure," the meaning of the Hebrew word being in dispute to some extent; and He will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month, the former rain being due right after seeding-time, in the fall, and the latter rain coming just before harvest, in the spring.
v. 24. And the floors, the threshing-floors, shall be full of wheat, the result of a new, rich harvest, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil, the receptacles of the vineyards being unable to hold the rich measure of blessings.
v. 25. And I will restore to you, make up, the years that the locust hath eaten, the canker-worm and the caterpillar and the palmer-worm, My great army which I sent among you, the insects of 1:4 being named in the reverse order.
v. 26. And ye shall eat in plenty, having an abundance of the best food, and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord, your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you, making His wonders known through the manner in which He dealt with them; and My people shall never be ashamed, never be justly heaped with mockery and disgrace, since it would be so evident that the Lord was on their side. This would, moreover, be substantiated more than ever by the fullness of spiritual blessings which He intended to pour out upon His children after their restoration to His sonship.
v. 27. And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, as His chosen people, and that I am the Lord, your God, the God of the covenant, and none else; and My people, the true spiritual Israel, shall never be ashamed.
v. 28. And it shall come to pass afterward, in the Messianic period, toward which this prophecy converged, that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh, upon men of every race and nation; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, openly proclaiming the great deeds of God, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions, the great possibilities of the Lord's work and the energy for carrying out the plans of the Lord coming to them and urging them forward with irresistible power, the barriers of both sex and age being removed, except as limited in other parts of the Scripture;
v. 29. and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids, upon the lowliest of the land, in those days will I pour out My Spirit, all social distinction being abandoned in the New Testament era as far as the work of the Church is concerned. This prophecy was fulfilled, so far as its beginning is concerned, on the great Day of Pentecost, as Peter also states in the introduction to his powerful sermon held before the astonished inhabitants of the city of Jerusalem, Act_2:17-21. But this event by no means exhausted its wonderful promises; for the Spirit of the Lord is being poured out on the members of the Church of the New Testament today and will continue to be given to all true believers until the end of time. But this great and wonderful deed of the Lord is placed side by side with His judgment upon the nations.
v. 30. And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, strange and terrifying portents, blood and fire and pillars of smoke, miracles in the sky above and signs of His majesty on the earth beneath, blood and fire and smoky vapor.
v. 31. The sun shall be turned into darkness, being changed into a dark and cold mass, and the moon into blood, as bloody wars and devastations would occur on the earth, before the great and the terrible Day of the Lord come, namely, the day of the final Judgment. Cf 1Th_5:2; 1Co_1:8; 2Co_1:14; 2Th_2:8.
v. 32. And it shall come to pass, throughout this great period of the Lord's preparation for the final Judgment, during the entire Messianic period, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord, confessing Jehovah and accepting Him as the one Savior of mankind, shall be delivered, saved from the wrath to come; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, the Gospel-message proclaimed in and by the Church of God bringing redemption and the assurance of eternal life to all believers, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call, namely, the remainder according to the election of grace, the people whom the Lord has chosen from all nations of the earth. This glorious promise is held out to this day to all who turn to the Lord in repentance and faith, confessing His name as the only Savior and fervently calling upon Him for deliverance from all evil, especially that of the body of sin.