The land which is referred to here is Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside. That

land is in much dispute today and will continue to be so right up to and through this Day

of the Lord. It is salutary to appreciate that "the heavens are Thine" but so too is the

earth (Psa. 89: 11) and if He has decided to give a certain part of it to Abraham's seed

(Gen. 15: 18), then none can object and to fulfil that promise the people of Israel must,

one day in the future, receive it all and dwell in it.

Sooner or later one would expect the sneering challenge "Where is their God?" to be

loudly and clearly answered by the Lord. The consequences of this derisory remark fill

the rest of this prophecy, that is Joel 2: 18 - 3: 21, and make up the last member of the

structure given at the start of this study. However, to help us deal with what follows we

construct a structure for this remaining section:

2: 18, 19.

Good bestowed; land and people

2: 20.

Evil removed. Enemy cut off

2: 21-32.

Good bestowed; land and people

3: 1-16a.

Evil removed. Enemy cut off

3: 16b-18.

Good bestowed; land and people

3: 19.

Evil removed. Enemy cut off

3: 20, 21.

Good bestowed; land and people

Joel 2: 18. The word jealous, qanna, is better translated zealous and when applied to

God it is intended to show that He is not abstract, neither impersonal, nor cold, but that

He is a living, personal, loving God Whose love is intense and exclusive in the sense that

it does not tolerate rival gods (Exod. 20: 5). It is because He is the living personal God

Who is zealous that Prov. 3: 11, 12 records that "whom the Lord loveth, He correcteth".

Every father knows that his children need discipline administered in love.

Joel 2: 19. The Lord speaks and promises that there will be a time when He will send

the corn and the wine and the people shall be "satisfied". The N.I.V. puts it more

strongly saying He will send "enough to satisfy you fully", and Moffatt has "till you have

ample". These show that the Lord will indeed be bountiful and how He accomplishes

this is explained more fully in Joel 2: 21-27 which we shall consider in our next study.

However as well as restoring the corn, the wine and the oil to such an extent that the

people will be more than satisfied the Lord tells them that they shall no longer "be

taunted by the pagans" (Moffatt); they shall never again be "an object of scorn to the

nations" (N.I.V.). In such passages as Jer. 9: 13-16 and 13: 22-24 the Lord had

promised that if they forsook Him He would scatter them amongst the nations but

Ezekiel 11: 17 looks to the same time as Joel 2: 19 when God promised that He would

gather them and give them the land of Israel.

Joel 2: 20. How will God set about achieving these promises? First by removing the

evil and, in particular, the enemy described in Joel 2: 20. In the A.V. you will note that

the word army is in italics. This signifies that in the original the Hebrew word of army

was not there but the translators felt a word needed to be supplied for the English to be