Joel 3:1-8

Yahweh’s Judgment on the Nations

1 For look! In those days, and in that time, when I will return the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,

2 I will gather all the nations, and I will bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will argue {a case against them} there concerning my people and my inheritance Israel whom they have scattered among the nations, and my land [that] they have divided.

3 For my people they cast lots, and {they traded} the male child for the prostitute, and the female child they sold for wine and they drank [it].

4 What [are] you to me, [O] Tyre and [O] Sidon, and all of the regions of Philistia? Are you repaying to me what is deserved? If you [are] recompensing me, I will return swiftly [and] quickly what you deserve on your head!

5 For you have taken my silver and my gold, and my beautiful treasures you have carried into your temples.

6 And the sons of Judah and Jerusalem you sold to the sons of the Greeks, in order to remove them from their border.

7 Look! I [am] rousing them from the place where you have sold them, and I will return what you deserve on your head!

8 I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they will sell them to [the] Sabeans and to a nation far [away], for Yahweh has spoken.

Joel 3:1-8 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.

Footnotes

• [a]. Joel 3:1-21 in the English Bible is 4:1-21 in the Hebrew Bible
• [b]. Or "restore"
• [c]. Literally "a matter with them"
• [d]. Hebrew "lot"
• [e]. Literally "gave"