Joel 3:16-21

16 ¹The LORD roars from Zion, and ²utters his voice from Jerusalem, ³and the heavens and the earth quake. But the LORD is ⁴a refuge to his people, a stronghold to the people of Israel.

The Glorious Future of Judah

17 ⁵"So you shall know that I am the LORD your God, ⁶who dwells in Zion, ⁷my holy mountain. And Jerusalem shall be holy, and ⁸strangers shall never again pass through it.

18 "And in that day ⁹the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and ¹⁰all the streambeds of Judah shall flow with water; ¹¹and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the LORD and water the Valley of ¹²Shittim.

19 ¹³"Egypt shall become a desolation and ¹⁴Edom a desolate wilderness, ¹⁵for the violence done to the people of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land.

20 ¹⁶But Judah shall be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem to all generations.

21 ¹⁷I will avenge their blood, blood I have not avenged,^[a] ¹⁸for the LORD dwells in Zion."

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Joel 3:16-21 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOEL 3

This chapter, which some make the fourth, contains a prophecy of God's judgments on all the antichristian nations at the time of the Jews' conversion, and the reasons of them, Joe 3:1-3; a threatening of Tyre and Zidon, by way of retaliation, for carrying the riches of the Jews into their temples, and selling their persons to the Greeks, Joe 3:4-8; an alarm to prepare for the battle of Armageddon, or the destruction that shall be made in the valley of Jehoshaphat, Joe 3:9-15; and after that an account of the happy state of the church of Christ, their safety and security, plenty, prosperity, and purity, to the end of the world, Joe 3:16-21.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Cross References 18

1. Joel 2:11; Amos 1:2; [Jeremiah 25:30]
2. Joel 2:11; Amos 1:2; [Jeremiah 25:30]
3. Joel 2:10
4. Isaiah 4:6; Isaiah 25:4
5. Joel 2:27; [Ezekiel 6:7]
6. ver. 21; [Ezekiel 43:7]
7. Joel 2:1; Psalms 48:1; Isaiah 65:11; Jeremiah 31:23
8. Isaiah 52:1; Nahum 1:15; Zechariah 14:21; [Revelation 21:27; Revelation 22:15]
9. Jeremiah 31:12; Amos 9:13
10. Isaiah 30:25
11. Ezekiel 47:1
12. See Numbers 25:1
13. See Isaiah 19:1-17
14. See Isaiah 34:5
15. Obadiah 10
16. Psalms 125:1, 2; Ezekiel 37:25
17. Isaiah 4:4; Ezekiel 36:25, 29
18. [See ver. 17 above]

Footnotes 1

[a]. Or I will acquit their bloodguilt that I have not acquitted

The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.