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shall 'the glory of the Lord be revealed, and all flesh shall see it
together' (Isa. 40:3 -5).
When the Lord brings again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, Joel
declares that the Lord will also gather all nations, and bring then down into
the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for 'My people and
for My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations and parted
My land' (Joel 3:2). It should be noted how explicit the time note is of
this prophecy, 'For behold in those days and in that time' refer back to
chapter 2 where the words quoted by Peter on the day of Pentecost are found.
In response to the words 'I will also gather all nations' we read in verse
11:
'Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen (nations), and gather
yourselves together round about' (Joel 3:11).
The harvest is come (verse 13), and the same phenomenon that is
associated with the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord, is
repeated here:
'The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood'.
'For in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance'.
'The sun and the moon shall be darkened ... the Lord also shall roar
out of Zion ... the Lord your God dwelling in Zion' (Joel 2:31,32; 3:15
-17).
This gathering of the nations is comparable with the revelation of
Matthew 25:32 and this takes place
'When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels
with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory: and before
Him shall be gathered all nations' (Matt. 25:31,32),
and just as that is an inquisition into the way in which the nations have
treated Israel (Joel 3:2 -8), so there will be an inquisition as to the way
the nations have treated the Lord's brethren (Matt. 25:35 -44). For as Joel
3:12 declares 'there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about'. The
'mighty ones' of Joel 3:11 refer to the 'holy angels' who come with Him
(Matt. 25:31 and 2 Thess. 1:7).
So far we have limited our investigation to those passages which employ
either the word 'scatter' or 'gather'. We must, however, take the subject a
stage further and consider the bearing that certain other features have on
this great issue. We commence this second aspect of our study with Isaiah
27:12:
'And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall beat off
from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt, and ye shall be
gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel' (Isa. 27:12).
'Beat off' translates the Hebrew word chabat, the first occurrence of
which reads 'when thou beatest thine olive tree' (Deut. 24:20), and the
second 'and beat out that she had gleaned' (Ruth 2:17). In Judges 6:11 it
refers to 'threshing wheat' and in Isaiah 28:27 to beating out fitches with a
staff. The statement 'Ye shall be gathered one by one' (Isa. 27:12) seems to