Joel

(to whom Jehovah is God ).

1. Eldest son of Samuel the prophet, ( 1 Samuel 8:2 ; 1 Chronicles 6:33 ; 15:17 ) and father of Heman the singer. (B.C. 1094.)
2. In ( 1 Chronicles 6:36 ) Authorized Version, Joel seems to be merely a corruption of Shaul in ver. 24.
3. A Simeonite chief. ( 1 Chronicles 4:35 )
4. A descendant of Reuben. Junius and Tremellius make him the son of Hanoeh, while others trace his descent through Carmi. ( 1 Chronicles 5:4 ) (B.C. before 1092.)
5. Chief of the Gadites, who dwelt in the land of Bashan. ( 1 Chronicles 5:12 ) (B.C. 782.)
6. The son of Izrahiah, of the tribe of Issachar. ( 1 Chronicles 7:3 )
7. The brother of Nathan of Zobah, ( 1 Chronicles 11:38 ) and one of Davids guard.
8. The chief of the Gershomites in the reign of David. ( 1 Chronicles 15:7 1 Chronicles 15:11 )
9. A Gershonite Levite in the reign of David, son of Jehiel, a descendant of Laadan, and probably the same as the preceding. ( 1 Chronicles 23:8 ; 26:22 ) (B.C. 1014.)
10. The son of Pedaiah, and a chief of the half-tribe of Manasseh west of Jordan, in the reign of David. ( 1 Chronicles 27:20 ) (B.C. 1014.)
11. A Kohathite Levite in the reign of Hezekiah. ( 2 Chronicles 29:12 ) (B.C. 726.)
12. One of the sons of Nebo, who returned with Ezra, and had married a foreign wife. ( Ezra 10:43 ) (B.C. 459.)
13. The son of Zichri, a Benjamite. ( Nehemiah 11:9 )
14. The second of the twelve minor prophets, the son of Pethuel, probably prophesied in Judah in the reign of Uzziah, about B.C. 800. The book of Joel contains a grand outline of the whole terrible scene, which was to be depicted more and more in detail by subsequent prophets. The proximate event to which the prophecy related was a public calamity, then impending on Judah, of a two-plague of locusts --and continuing for several years. The prophet exhorts the people to turn to God with penitence, fasting and prayer; and then, he says, the plague shall cease, and the rain descendent in its season, and the land yield her accustomed fruit. Nay, the time will be a most joyful one; for God, by the outpouring of his Spirit, will extend the blessings of true religion to heathen lands. The prophecy is referred to in Acts 2.