JOEL: The second of the Minor Prophets in the
arrangement of the English version.
Date.
Little is
known of the prophet; he was the son of Pethuel,
probably a Judahite, and prophesied in Jerusalem;
but that he was a Levite does not follow from
i. 9,
13, ii. 17. By most scholars his date is placed in
the reign of Joash between 875 and 845
B.C. on the
ground that Amos used his book, that the descent
of the Edomites upon Judah under Joash was fresh
in his memory, and that his mention of temple,
priests, and ritual necessitates that early date.
Others place him in the times of Jeroboam II. and
Uzziah, others under Ahaz and Hezekiah,
still others in the last years of
Josiah, while several recent critics put
him in Persian or Greek times. Against a post-exilic
dating are the following considerations: The
position of the book in the Hebrew and Greek
canon is among the early prophets and before those
of the Chaldean period. Among the peoples named
in the book there appear neither Syrians, Greeks,
Persians, Babylonians, nor Assyrians, not even
Moabites or Ammonites, but only Philistines, Phenicians,
Egyptians, and Edomites. Nothing follows
from silence respecting a king and the northern
kingdom. Against the assertion that
iii. 2 and 6
imply the Babylonian or an Assyrian captivity, it
is to be noted that neither Babylonians nor Assyrians
are mentioned; Philistines and Phenicians
are the chief foes in iii. 4 (cf.
II Chron. xxi. 16-17,
where Philistines and Arabians are said to have
aided Jerusalem in the time of Jehoram, and
II Kings viii. 22). Characteristic are the "parting
of the land" and the selling of Judean prisoners
of war to foreign peoples, a practise of the
Phenieians (F. C. Movers,
Die Phönizier, ii. 3, 70
sqq., Bonn, 1845), who, by the ninth century, were
in commercial contact with the Greeks. The mention
of Egypt in
iii. 19
may be connected with the
expedition of Shishak of
I Kings xiv. 25 under Rehoboam. Against this the "bring again the captivity"
of
iii. 1
can not be urged, since in post-exilic
times this phrase means to restore and not
to return captives; and that Judah and Jerusalem
needed restoration when the northern tribes had
revolted, had assailed the capital, annexed Judean
territory, and sold captives into slavery no one will
deny. The conception of the book that Jerusalem
was the legitimate sanctuary is no proof of late
origin, since Isaiah and Micah have the same idea
(
Isa. ii. 2;
Mic. i. 2). Similarly, Joel's attitude to
the priesthood finds analogies in early prophetic
books. The linguistic test can not be employed,
since it gives no sure results. But more decisive
is the unquestionable dependence of Amos on Joel
(cf.
Amos i. 2, 9, 13 with
Joel iii. 16, 18), while the
gazam of
Amos iv. 9 is repeated only in
Joel i. 4, ii. 25,
and is not dependent in Joel upon Amos. If
Joel is placed in the early years of Joash when
Jehoiada was influential, the attitude toward the
priests is fully explained.
Contents.
The occasion of the book was a dire plague of
locusts, accompanied by a severe drought, the results and course of which are described
i. 2-ii. 17,
resulting in the prophet's call to fasting and repentance.
This fast must have been observed,
since in the second and remaining part
of the book promises of good abound,
relating to the immediate and the distant
future. The immediate outlook is the defeat
of the foe, healing and good fortune, so that Zion
rejoices in its God; in the distant future
(ii. 28)
Yahweh's spirit is to come on all flesh, making all
prophecy superfluous, while Zion is to dwell in security.
Its foes are to be gathered, a hostile army,
for judgment, and amid terrifying upheavals of
nature are to be reaped like a ripe harvest. The
book closes (iii. 18-21) with blessing upon Judah
and Jerusalem and promise of destruction for their
foes. The articulation of the book is good and its
parts are well related. The Day of Yahweh, which
in the first part appears as one of terror unless repentance
supervenes, is in the second part a day
of grace because that repentance has come. Against
Merx, the hostile peoples are not all mankind, but
the immediate neighbors of Judah, those who, in
accordance with the law of prophecy, were in the
ken of the prophet, viz., Tyre, Sidon, and Philistia.
This issues, however, in
chap. iii. in the distinction
between Israel as God's people and the people of
the world who are foes of God, a representation
which is repeated in Zech. xiv. 2. The place of
judgment of the world is the Valley of Jehoshaphat,
made memorable by the event narrated in
II Chron. xx. 22-26,
a place which recalled not only Jehoshaphat
but a noted judgment upon Judah's foes.
The plague of locusts is to be taken literally, not
metaphorically. The metaphoric interpretation depends
largely upon the fact that one of the names
for locusts in the Masoretic pointing means "northern,"
and Judah's enemies were northern, while the
locusts usually came from the south. But swarms
are sometimes brought from the northern Syrian
desert by a northeast wind. Moreover, the prediction
in ii. 20
is applicable to a swarm of locusts
driven into the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean,
not to a human enemy. There is no ground for
denying to the prophet the composition of the book
as a whole; the unity becomes clear when it is seen
that the phenomena of the first part are the basis
of the rest
(ii. 28-iii. 21).
(W. VOLCK†.)
It is now no longer possible to say, with the late
writer of the above article, that most scholars place
the date of Joel "in the reign of Joash between
875 and 845 B.C." [Joash of Judah really reigned
from 836 to 797 B.C.] It has been well said that
"the book is either very early or very late," and
recent critics almost unanimously place it in the
fourth century B.C., though a few still regard it as the
earliest of the prophetical writings. In answer to the
arguments for the older view it may be said: (1) It
is more likely that Joel, e.g. in
iii. 16, 18, borrowed
from Amos than that Amos, e.g., in
i. 2, ix. 13,
borrowed from Joel, for the former passages are
brought close together as would naturally be done
in a reproduction of earlier thoughts. (2) The attacks of the Edomites upon Judah (cf. iii. 19), during the helplessness of the latter just before and
for centuries after the exile, finally resulted in their
actual annexation of the country even to the north
of Hebron; and it is these relations with Edom
which form the chief subject of prophetic references
(see Ob. i. 8;
Jer. xlix. 7, 17, 20;
Ezek. xxv. 12, 14, xxxii. 29;
Mal. i. 4) to that inveterate
enemy of Judah. (3) There is no allusion to the
kingdom of northern Israel. (4) The detailed references
to the priesthood and the temple offerings
and services (i. 9, 13, 14, ii. 14-17) suggest the
later period of Jewish church influence rather than
the days of prophetic independence. (5) The exile
and dispersion and foreign occupation seem to be
presupposed in iii. 2, 17. (6) The allusion to the
"Grecians" (iii. 6) is best accounted for by the
effects of the Macedonian régime in Asia. (7) The
strongest argument for a late date is the apocalyptic
character of the book from ii. 28 to the end,
the general indefiniteness of the historical background,
and lack of specific allusion to contemporary
events and situations which forms such a
striking feature of the earlier prophets.
J. F. MCCURDY.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
The two best commentaries are by S. R.
Driver, in Cambridge Bible, 1897, and G. A. Smith, The
Book of the Twelve, London, 1898. Other commentaries are
by: A. F. Holzhausen, Hanover, 1829; C. A. Credner,
Halle, 1831; E. Meier, Tübingen, 1841; A. Wünsche,
Leipsic, 1872 (gives bibliography of Joel to 1872); E,
Montet, Geneva, 1877; A. Merx, Halle, 1879 (gives history
of interpretation down to Calvin); F. Hitzig, ed. J. Steiner,
Leipeic, 1881; A. Scholz, Würzburg, 1885; C. F. Kell,
Leipsic, 1888; E. le Savoureux, Paris, 1888; G. Preuss,
Halle, 1889; J. Wellhausen, Die kleinen Propheten, pp. 56
sqq., 207 sqq., Berlin, 1892; C. von Orelli, in Kurzgefasster
Kommentar, 3d ed., Munich, 1908, Eng. transl. of earlier
ed., The Twelve Minor Prophets, Edinburgh, 1893; W.
Nowack, Göttingen, 1897; I. T. Beck, ed. J. Lindenmeyer,
Gütersloh, 1898; J. Hyde, London, 1898; E. B. Pussy, Minor
Prophets, reissue, London, 1906; A. C. Gaeberlin, ib., 1909.
Questions of date, unity, genuineness, etc, are treated
in the works on Biblical Introduction, such as Driver's,
and in the commentaries. Special treatises are: H. Grätz,
Der einheitliche Charakter der Prophetie Joels, Breslau,
1873; W. L. Pearson, The Prophecy of Joel: its Unity,
its Aim, and the Age of its Composition, New York,
1885; G, Kessner, Das Zeitalter des Propheten Joel, Leipsic,
1888; H. Holzinger, in ZATW, 1889, pp. 89-131; F. W.
Farrar, The Minor Prophets, London, 1890; G. B. Gray,
in Expositor, Sept., 1893; G. G. Findlay, Books
of the Prophets, London, 1898; DB, ii. 672-878; EB, ii. 2492-2497; JE vii, 204-208.
