Joel 3:2-8

2 I will gather all nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat.^[a]There I will put them on trial for what they did to my inheritance, my people Israel, because they scattered my people among the nations and divided up my land.

3 They cast lots for my people and traded boys for prostitutes; they sold girls for wine to drink.

4 “Now what have you against me, Tyre and Sidon and all you regions of Philistia? Are you repaying me for something I have done? If you are paying me back, I will swiftly and speedily return on your own heads what you have done.

5 For you took my silver and my gold and carried off my finest treasures to your temples.^[b]

6 You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, that you might send them far from their homeland.

7 “See, I am going to rouse them out of the places to which you sold them, and I will return on your own heads what you have done.

8 I will sell your sons and daughters to the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far away.” The LORD has spoken.

Joel 3:2-8 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.

Cross References

• 1. Zephaniah 3:8
• 2. ver 12; S Isaiah 22:1
• 3. S Isaiah 13:9; S Jeremiah 2:35; S Ezekiel 36:5
• 4. S Genesis 11:4; S Leviticus 26:33
• 5. S Job 6:27; S Ezekiel 24:6
• 6. Joel 1:5; Amos 2:6
• 7. S Genesis 10:15; S Matthew 11:21
• 8. S Psalms 87:4; Isaiah 14:29-31; Jeremiah 47:1-7
• 9. S Leviticus 26:28; S Isaiah 34:8; S Ezekiel 25:15-17; Zechariah 9:5-7
• 10. S 1 Kings 15:18; S 2 Chronicles 21:16-17
• 11. Ezekiel 27:13; Zechariah 9:13
• 12. S Isaiah 43:5-6; Jeremiah 23:8
• 13. S Isaiah 66:6
• 14. Isaiah 60:14
• 15. Isaiah 14:2
• 16. S Genesis 10:7; S 2 Chronicles 9:1
• 17. S Isaiah 23:1; S Jeremiah 30:16

Footnotes

• [a]. "Jehoshaphat" means "the " Lord"judges" ; also in verse 12.
• [b]. Or "palaces"