Joel 2:18

Then will the LORD be jealous for his land, and pity his people.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Joel 2:18-20. Then will the Lord be jealous for his land — If you do what I propose to you, if you sincerely humble yourselves before God, confess your sins, and truly repent of them, turning to God in newness of life, then will the Lord be concerned for the honour and welfare of that land which he has chosen to settle his worshippers in. Yea, the Lord will say, Behold, I will send you corn, &c. — I will restore your former plenty, and the nations about you shall have no more occasion to reproach your desolate condition. But I will remove far off from you the northern army — Or, enemy, nation, or people; that is, the locusts, which might enter Judea by the north, as Circassia and Mingrelia abound with them. Because Joel represents this army as coming from the north, some have been ready to imagine, that he was speaking not of real locusts, but of the Chaldeans, or some other desolating army of men that should come from that quarter. “But the Baron de Tott assures us, in a late publication of his, that he found locusts coming in great numbers from Tartary toward Constantinople, which lies to the south of that country. ‘I saw,’ says he,

‘no appearance of culture on my route, because the Noguais (the Tartars) avoid the cultivation of frequented places. Their harvest by the sides of roads would serve only as pasture to travellers’ horses. But if this precaution preserves them from such kind of depredation, nothing can protect their fields from a much more fatal scourge. Clouds of locusts frequently alight on their plains; and, giving the preference to their fields of millet, ravage them in an instant. Their approach darkens the horizon, and so enormous is their multitude, it hides the light of the sun. When the husbandmen happen to be sufficiently numerous, they sometimes divert the storm by their agitation and cries; but when they fail, the locusts alight on their fields, and there form a bed of six or seven inches thick. This plague, no doubt, would be more extensive in countries better cultivated; and Greece and Asia Minor would be more frequently exposed, did not the Black sea swallow up most of those swarms which attempt to pass that barrier. I have often seen the shores of the Pontus Euxinus, toward the Bosphorus of Thrace, covered with their dried remains, in such multitudes, that one could not walk along the strand without sinking half-leg deep into a bed of these skinny skeletons. Curious to know the true cause of their destruction, I sought the moment of observation, and was a witness of their ruin by a storm, which overtook them so near the shore, that their bodies were cast upon the land while yet entire. This produced an infection so great, that it was several days before they could be approached.’ — Memoirs, part 2. p. 58-60. They frequently then, according to this writer, in that part of the world, pass, or attempt to pass, from north to south. In Judea they have been supposed to go from the southeastward in a contrary direction. And if this is the common route they take there, it must have struck the Jews very much, when they found the prophet predicting the going of the locusts to the southward; and still more so when they found it exactly accomplished, as it was a demonstration of the perfect foreknowledge of Jehovah, perhaps of his guiding and directing those vast bodies of insects. The locusts, it is said, have no king, yet go they forth by bands, Proverbs 30:27. But if they have no king of their own species, they are undoubtedly under the direction of the God that made them: he is their king.” — Harmer, vol. 4. obs. 146.

Some of the locusts, which here are the subject of Joel’s prophecy, were to be driven by the wind into the desert, or, as it is here styled, a land barren and desolate; some into the Dead sea, called here the east sea, lying eastward of Jerusalem; some into the Mediterranean, or western sea, called here the utmost sea. By his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, is described the extent of the body, or army of locusts; the face meaning the foremost of them, and the hinder part the hindmost of them. And his stink shall come up — “That a strong and pestilential smell,” says Newcome, “arises from putrefied heaps of locusts, whether driven upon land or cast up from the sea in which they have perished, appears from the testimony of many writers. Among various other authorities to the same effect, St. Jerome is quoted by Bochart as saying, that in his time those troops of locusts which covered Judea were cast by the wind in mare primum et novissimum; and that, when the waters threw them up, their smell caused a pestilence. Thevenot says of them, They live not above six months; and when dead, the stench of them so corrupts and infects the air, that it often occasions dreadful pestilences. — City Remem. 1:123. There came such a stench from those which appeared at Novogorod in 1646, as not only offended the nose, but the brain: it was not to be endured: men were forced to wash their noses with vinegar, and hold handkerchiefs dipped in it continually to their nostrils, Ibid. 125. In Ethiopia, when they die and rot, they raise a pestilence. — Mead, 1:36.” Because he hath done great things — That is, committed great devastation. Or rather, although he hath done great things: though this army of insects, by God’s appointment, has made such destruction in the land, yet it shall come to this shameful end.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:15-27 The priests and rulers are to appoint a solemn fast. The sinner's supplication is, Spare us, good Lord. God is ready to succour his people; and he waits to be gracious. They prayed that God would spare them, and he answered them. His promises are real answers to the prayers of faith; with him saying and doing are not two things. Some understand these promises figuratively, as pointing to gospel grace, and as fulfilled in the abundant comforts treasured up for believers in the covenant of grace.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Then will the Lord be jealous for His land - Upon repentance, all is changed. Before, God seemed set upon their destruction. It was His great army which was ready to destroy them; He was at its head, giving the word. Now He is full of tender love for them, which resents injury done to them, as done to Himself. The word might more strictly perhaps be rendered, "And the Lord is jealous" . He would show how instantaneous the mercy and love of God for His people is, restrained while they are impenitent, flowing forth upon the first tokens of repentance. The word, "jealous for," when used of God, jealous for My holy Name Ezekiel 39:25, jealous for Jerusalem, Zechariah 1:14; Zechariah 8:2, is used, when God resents evil which had been actually inflicted.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

18. Then—when God sees His people penitent.

be jealous for his land—as a husband jealous of any dishonor done to the wife whom he loves, as if done to himself. The Hebrew comes from an Arabic root, "to be flushed in face" through indignation.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Then, when you follow my advice, saith Joel. and heartily you of your sins, and turn to God, &c.,

will the Lord be jealous, will show his love and zeal, for the credit of his land, the land of Canaan,

and pity his people; consider their prayers, their arguments, and tears, and upon the whole will deal so with them that they shall know I do own them for my people, and that I will do them good.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Then will the Lord be jealous for his land,.... Or "zealous" for it; for the honour of it, and the good of its inhabitants, and for the glory of his own name, it being the chief place in the world for his worship and service; and his indignation will be moved against those who have brought desolation on it:

and pity his people; as a father his children, who had suffered much, and had been reduced to great distress by the locusts, or by their enemies: this the prophet foretells would be done upon their repentance, fasting, prayers, and tears; or, as some think, this is a narrative of what had been done, and the prophet was a witness of; that the people meeting together with their princess and priests, and humbling themselves before the Lord, and crying to him, he expressed a zeal and compassion for them, and delivered them out of their troubles; for though their humiliation is not expressed, it may be understood and supposed, as doubtless, it was fact.

Geneva Study Bible

Then will the LORD be {m} jealous for his land, and pity his people.

(m) If they repent he shows that God will preserve and defend them with a most fervent affection.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18, 19. Then was Jehovah jealous for his land, and had pity on his people. And Jehovah answered and said, &c.] The future tenses of the A.V. are grammatically indefensible[42]. Though it is not expressly so stated, it is understood that the prophet’s exhortations had the intended effect; the people shewed themselves to be truly penitent; the priests interceded on their behalf; and the words quoted describe Jehovah’s gracious change of purpose, and the promises which He in consequence vouchsafed to His people.

[42] See the grounds for this statement in the writer’s Hebrew Tenses, § 82 Obs.

jealous for his land] Zechariah 1:14; Zechariah 8:2. Jehovah is “jealous,” when His power is doubted, or the honour which is His due is given to another (see Exodus 20:5; Deuteronomy 4:24; Deuteronomy 32:21; Isaiah 42:8; Zephaniah 3:8, noticing in each case the context): this happens, however, when His people or His land suffer, and the heathen argue in consequence that He is unable to relieve them; accordingly the feeling of “jealousy” prompts Him then to interpose on their behalf (Ezekiel 36:5-6; cf. Isaiah 9:7; Isaiah 37:32 [where zeal is a very inadequate rendering]).

Part II. Chap. Joel 2:18 to Joel 3:21Jehovah’s answer to His people’s prayer of penitence. He will remove from them the plague of locusts, and bestow upon them an abundance of both material and spiritual gifts (Joel 2:18-32); His judgment will alight only upon the nations who are their foes; His own people will dwell for ever securely under the protection of His presence (ch. 3).

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 18-27 form the sequel of this chapter in the Hebrew, but five additional verses make up the chapter in the Authorized Version. These are divisible into two parts. In the first division the prophet assures his countrymen of the bestowal of temporal mercies, and in the second of the promise of spiritual blessings. Verse 18. - The futures of this verse with vav consec, are properly taken as perfects; nor is there any inconsistency, provided we understand, as following ver. 17 and preceding ver. 18, the fact that the priests had engaged in the penitence enjoined, and offered the supplication to which they had been summoned; neither is the omission of any express mention of the circumstance thus supposed to intervene between these verses any valid objection, especially as the grammar favours the view in question. Then follows a manifestation of God's mercy in answer to the assumed penitence and prayer of his servants. God's jealousy and pity are both engaged - his jealousy for his land, and his compassion for his people. His jealousy is figurative, and the allusion is probably to that of a husband who is jealous on account of any dishonour done to his wife, and who resents it more keenly than a dishonour offered to himself. The pity is such as God ever manifests to his people when penitent; for "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." Joel 2:18

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Joel 2:18 and Joel 2:19 contain the historical statement, that in consequence of the penitential prayer of the priests, the Lord displayed His mercy to His people, and gave them a promise, the first part of which follows in Joel 2:19-27. Joel 2:18, Joel 2:19. "Then Jehovah was jealous for His land, and had compassion upon His people. And Jehovah answered, and said." The grammar requires that we should take the imperfects with Vav consec. in these clauses, as statements of what actually occurred. The passages in which imperfects with Vav cons. are either really or apparently used in a prophetic announcement of the future, are of a different kind; e.g., in Joel 2:23, where we find one in a subordinate clause preceded by perfects. As the verb ויּען describes the promise which follows, as an answer given by Jehovah to His people, we must assume that the priests had really offered the penitential and supplicatory prayer to which the prophet had summoned them in Joel 2:17. The circumstance that this is not expressly mentioned, neither warrants us in rendering the verbs in Joel 2:17 in the present, and taking them as statements of what the priest really did (Hitzig), nor in changing the historical tenses in Joel 2:18, Joel 2:19 into futures. We have rather simply to supply the execution of the prophet's command between Joel 2:17 and Joel 2:18. קנּא with ל, to be jealous for a person, i.e., to show the jealousy of love towards him, as in Exodus 39:25; Zechariah 1:14 (see at Exodus 20:5). חמל as in Exodus 2:6; 1 Samuel 23:21. In the answer from Jehovah which follows, the three features in the promise are not given according to their chronological order; but in order to add force to the description, we have first of all, in Joel 2:19, a promise of the relief of the distress at which both man and beast had sighed, and then, in Joel 2:20, a promise of the destruction of the devastator; and it is not till Joel 2:21-23 that the third feature is mentioned in the further development of the promise, viz., the teacher for righteousness. Then finally, in Joel 2:23-27, the fertilizing fall of rain, and the plentiful supply of the fruits of the ground that had been destroyed by the locusts, are more elaborately described, as the first blessing bestowed upon the people.