Joel 2:12-32

Rend Your Heart

12 “Even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.”

13 Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.

14 Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing— grain offerings and drink offerings for the LORD your God.

15 Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly.

16 Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber.

17 Let the priests, who minister before the LORD, weep between the portico and the altar. Let them say, “Spare your people, LORD. Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’ ”

The LORD’s Answer

18 Then the LORD was jealous for his land and took pity on his people.

19 The LORD replied^[a] to them: “I am sending you grain, new wine and olive oil, enough to satisfy you fully; never again will I make you an object of scorn to the nations.

20 “I will drive the northern horde far from you, pushing it into a parched and barren land; its eastern ranks will drown in the Dead Sea and its western ranks in the Mediterranean Sea. And its stench will go up; its smell will rise.” Surely he has done great things!

21 Do not be afraid, land of Judah; be glad and rejoice. Surely the LORD has done great things!

22 Do not be afraid, you wild animals, for the pastures in the wilderness are becoming green. The trees are bearing their fruit; the fig tree and the vine yield their riches.

23 Be glad, people of Zion, rejoice in the LORD your God, for he has given you the autumn rains because he is faithful. He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before.

24 The threshing floors will be filled with grain; the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.

25 “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten— the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm^[b] — my great army that I sent among you.

26 You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the LORD your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed.

27 Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the LORD your God, and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed.

The Day of the LORD

28 “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.

29 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.

30 I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke.

31 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.

32 And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the LORD has said, even among the survivors whom the LORD calls.^[c]

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Joel 2:12-32 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOEL 2

In this chapter a further account is given of the judgment of the locusts and caterpillars, or of those who are designed by them, Joe 2:1-11; the people of the Jews are called to repentance, humiliation, and fasting, urged from the grace and goodness of God, his jealousy and pity for his people, and the answer of prayer that might he expected from him upon this, even to the removal of the calamity, Joe 2:12-20; a prophecy of good things, both temporal and spiritual, in the times of the Messiah, is delivered out as matter and occasion of great joy, Joe 2:21-27; and another concerning the effusion of the Spirit, which was fulfilled an the day of Pentecost, Joe 2:28-29; and the chapter is concluded with the judgments and desolations that should come upon the land of Judea after this, for their rejection of Christ, though the remnant according to the election of grace should be delivered and saved from the general destruction, Joe 2:30-32.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Cross References 74

1. S Deuteronomy 4:30; S Ezekiel 33:11; Jeremiah 4:1; S Hos 12:6
2. S 1 Samuel 7:3
3. Psalms 51:17; Psalms 34:18; Isaiah 57:15
4. S Genesis 37:29; S Numbers 14:6; Job 1:20
5. S Isaiah 19:22
6. S Deuteronomy 4:31
7. Exodus 34:6; S Psalms 86:5,15
8. S Jeremiah 18:8; John 4:2
9. Jeremiah 26:3; John 3:9
10. Amos 5:15; John 1:6
11. Jeremiah 31:14; Haggai 2:19; Zechariah 8:13; Malachi 3:10
12. S Joel 1:13
13. S Numbers 10:2
14. ver 1
15. S 2 Chronicles 20:3; Jeremiah 36:9
16. S Exodus 32:5; Numbers 10:3; Joel 1:14
17. S Exodus 19:10,22
18. Joel 1:2
19. Psalms 19:5
20. Joel 1:13
21. S Isaiah 22:12
22. Ezekiel 8:16; Matthew 23:35
23. Deuteronomy 9:26-29; Psalms 44:13
24. S 1 Kings 9:7; S Job 17:6
25. S Psalms 42:3
26. S Isaiah 26:11; Zechariah 1:14; Zechariah 8:2
27. S Psalms 72:13
28. Psalms 4:7
29. S Jeremiah 31:12
30. S Leviticus 26:5
31. S Ezekiel 34:29
32. Jeremiah 1:14-15
33. Zechariah 14:8
34. S Isaiah 34:3
35. S Isaiah 29:22; S Isaiah 54:4; Zephaniah 3:16-17
36. S Psalms 9:2
37. S Psalms 126:3; S Isaiah 25:1
38. S Psalms 65:12
39. S 1 Kings 4:25
40. S Numbers 16:14
41. Joel 1:18-20; Zechariah 8:12
42. Psalms 33:21; Psalms 97:12; Psalms 149:2; Isaiah 12:6; Isaiah 41:16; Isaiah 66:14; Habakkuk 3:18; Zechariah 10:7
43. S Isaiah 45:8
44. S Job 36:28; S Ezekiel 34:26
45. Psalms 84:6
46. S Leviticus 26:4; S Psalms 135:7; James 5:7
47. Leviticus 26:10; Malachi 3:10
48. S Proverbs 3:10; Joel 3:18; Amos 9:13
49. S Exodus 10:14; Amos 4:9
50. S Deuteronomy 28:39
51. S Joel 1:6
52. S Leviticus 26:5
53. S Leviticus 23:40; S Isaiah 62:9
54. S Psalms 126:3; S Isaiah 25:1
55. S Isaiah 29:22
56. S Exodus 6:7
57. S Exodus 6:2; S Isaiah 44:8; Joel 3:17
58. Isaiah 45:17; Isaiah 54:4; Zephaniah 3:11
59. S Isaiah 11:2; S Isaiah 44:3; Ezekiel 39:29
60. S Numbers 11:17; S Mark 1:8; Galatians 3:14
61. S 1 Samuel 19:20
62. Jeremiah 23:25
63. 1 Corinthians 12:13; Galatians 3:28
64. S Ezekiel 36:27
65. Luke 21:11
66. Mark 13:24-25
67. S ver 2; S Isaiah 22:5; S Jeremiah 4:23; S Matthew 24:29
68. Isaiah 13:9-10; S Joel 1:15; Obadiah 1:15; Malachi 3:2; Malachi 4:1,5
69. S Genesis 4:26; S Psalms 105:1
70. S Psalms 106:8; Acts 2:17-21*; Romans 10:13*
71. S Isaiah 46:13
72. Obadiah 1:17
73. S Isaiah 1:9; Isaiah 11:11; Micah 4:7; Micah 7:18; S Romans 9:27
74. Acts 2:39

Footnotes 3

[a]. Or Lord"will be jealous …" / "and take pity …" / 19"The " Lord"will reply"
[b]. The precise meaning of the four Hebrew words used here for locusts is uncertain.
[c]. In Hebrew texts 2:28-32 is numbered 3:1-5.