Joel 3:3-7

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.^[a]

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.

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

Footnotes

• [a] Or "palaces"