The Prophet Joel painted by Michelangelo and his assistants for the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican between 1508 to 1512
Transitioning to the Prophet Joel
The Connection Between Humanity and the Earth in Scripture
Joel 1 The Locust as God’s Judgment on the People
Joel 2: 1-27 The Day of the LORD Averted
The Evolution of the Day of the LORD as Salvation or Judgment
Let us Beat Swords Into Plowshares, a sculpture by Evgeniy Vuchetich, given by the Soviet Union to the United Nations in 1959
1 For then, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, 2 I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will enter into judgment with them there, on account of my people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations. They have divided my land, 3 and cast lots for my people, and traded boys for prostitutes, and sold girls for wine, and drunk it down.
4 What are you to me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Are you paying me back for something? If you are paying me back, I will turn your deeds back upon your own heads swiftly and speedily. 5 For you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried my rich treasures into your temples. 6 You have sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, removing them far from their own border. 7 But now I will rouse them to leave the places to which you have sold them, and I will turn your deeds back upon your own heads. 8 I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, to a nation far away; for the LORD has spoken.
9 Proclaim this among the nations:
Prepare war, stir up the warriors. Let all the soldiers draw near, let them come up.
10 Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears;
let the weakling say, “I am a warrior.”
11 Come quickly, all you nations all around, gather yourselves there.
Bring down your warriors, O LORD.
12 Let the nations rouse themselves, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat;
for there I will sit to judge all the neighboring nations.
13 Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe.
Go in, tread, for the wine press is full.
The vats overflow, for their wickedness is great.
14 Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision!
For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.
15 The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.
16 The LORD roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth shake. But the LORD is a refuge for his people, a stronghold for the people of Israel.
17 So you shall know that I, the LORD your God, dwell in Zion, my holy mountain.
And Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall never again pass through it.
18 In that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine,
the hills shall flow with milk, and all the stream beds of Judah shall flow with water;
a fountain shall come forth from the house of the LORD and water the Wadi Shittim.
19 Egypt shall become a desolation and Edom a desolate wilderness,
because of the violence done to the people of Judah,
in whose land they have shed innocent blood.
20 But Judah shall be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem to all generations.
21 I will avenge their blood, and I will not clear the guilty, for the LORD dwells in Zion.
This final chapter of Joel may seem bloodthirsty and distasteful to many modern Christians who have grown up without the experience of war and famine devastating their land. The image of God as the divine warrior who humiliates the enemies of the people of God may seem like a remnant of a more violent time, but it also reflects our ability to trust in our own military might to secure our future rather than God being the defender of Israel (or any other nation). In the aftermath of the Babylonian exile the military power Israel or Judah could exert was shattered. Although we do not know much about the geopolitics of the fourth and fifth century BCE it is clear that Joel’s complaints against the other nations parallel the events listed in other prophets. The army of locusts which devastated the land in Joel 1-2 for a community which suffered a series of crises as it tried to regain its footing in the land must have seemed like the straw that broke the camel’s back. (Birch, 1997, p. 162) As Judah and Jerusalem imagine a hopeful future beyond the locusts and the evil inflicted on them by their neighbors in their troubled past it involves both the renewal of the agricultural prosperity of the land and the removal of the threat of their neighbors.
Although the United States has been involved in conflicts during the fifty years of my life, these conflicts have always taken place in some other land and have been conducted by a volunteer military whose experiences are not shared by the majority of the population. In contrast in Israel:
Every forty-four years out of the last four thousand, on average, an army has marched through it, whether to conquer it, to rescue it from someone else, to use it as a neutral battleground on which to fight a different enemy, or to take advantage of is as the natural route for getting somewhere else to fight there instead. (Wright, 1992, p. 3)
Especially at this juncture of history where Jerusalem and Judah are a weak client state of Persia surrounded by hostile neighbors, the people were scattered among the nations, the land was divided up after the conquest of Babylon and is only partially restored after Persia allows some of the people to resettle, and where slavery for men and women and even children is a recent memory their desire for justice on their oppressors is understandable. More critical in Joel’s vision is that the LORD has taken offense at the misuse of “my people and my heritage Israel.” The nations have taken advantage of Israel’s inability to protect itself through multiple crises and have profited off this weakness to obtain land, and to either be those who captured people to sell into slavery or served as markets where slaves were sold to other nations.
Human trafficking or slavery was an assumed part of conflicts in the ancient world. One of the bounties that armies marching through a land would take is from selling both the defeated enemy, but also captured civilians into slavery. Both the economic and the human capital of Judah and Jerusalem have been plundered and moved through the seaports of Tyre and Sidon and Philistia. Families cry out for their lost generations and God promises to return them home to Judea and to do to Phoenicia (Tyre and Sidon) and Philistia what they did to God’s people and inheritance. The silver and gold will be returned from their temples (or palaces)[1] and while the children of Israel were sold into slavery among the Greeks, the Sabeans in the south are the promised destination of the children of these nations.
In verse nine the text becomes more poetic as the LORD issues a challenge to the nations. It is important to note that the LORD is not telling Israel to prepare for war but throws down the gauntlet to challenge the nations to face God at the valley of judgment.[2] Although the famous image of Isaiah 2: 1-4 and Micah 4: 1-3 where the nations turn their swords into plowshares[3] and spears into pruning hooks (or knives) is reversed here so that the nations are invited to take up what weapons they can fashion if they choose to oppose the LORD who awaits their arrival as a divine warrior. The image of God treading the winepress echoes Isaiah 63: 1-6:
“Who is this that comes from Edom, from Bozrah in garments stained crimson? Who is this so splendidly robed marching in his great might?”“ It is I, announcing vindication, mighty to save.: “Why are your robes red, and your garments like theirs who tread the wine press?” “I have trodden the wine press alone, and from the peoples no one was with me; I trod them in anger and trampled them in wrath; their juice spattered on my garments, and stained all my robes. For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year for my redeeming work had come. I looked and there was no helper; I stared, but there was no one to sustain me; so my own arm brought me victory, and my wrath sustained me. I trampled down peoples in my anger, I crushed them in my wrath,and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.
The God of Israel will not allow the oppression of God’s people and God’s inheritance to go on indefinitely and the wickedness of the world must be eliminated. The scene is violent and there is no way around the violence of the imagery, but the nations are invited to gather before the LORD and only their continued opposition to the LORD has brought about this bloody moment. The advent of God’s presence brings about a cosmic reaction as the sun and moon are darkened and the earth shakes. The imagery is similar to Amos 1: 1-2 but also reflects the common Jewish thought that the creation itself reacts to the divine presence drawing near.
The presence of God as the divine warrior and protector of the people ensures the safety of Zion. God’s presence sanctifies the land, but that sanctification for Joel also means the exclusion of the nations (Gentiles). (Collins, 2013, p. 28) Perhaps this is only the exclusion of political occupation, but as mentioned in the previous post Joel does not see this vision of God’s Spirit being poured upon all the people as including the nations. This restoration of safety by the exclusion of the nations and the punishment of those who had oppressed Israel probably stretches to the limit of the imagination of Joel. The later expansion of this vision in the early Christians would be a struggle documented in the book of Acts. It also echoes the renewal of agricultural prosperity from Joel 2: 18-27. The wine that had dried up in chapter one now drips from the mountains, the sheep and cattle who were dying of starvation now produce milk in the hills, and the creeks dried up in the drought now flow with water. In an image that echoes Ezekiel 47: 1-12, water now flows from the temple of God and flows out to provide water for the Wadi Shittim.
From the position of many Western Christians who have not experienced the oppression of an external enemy or the life-threatening environmental crisis of Joel these images of God may seem difficult to square with the God of love proclaimed in many churches. Yet, for Joel and most other Jewish and early Christians God judges because God cares about God’s people, God’s land, and God’s inheritance. For those who have lived in the shadow of terror where children have become the victims of human trafficking, where men and women of all ages are sold into slavery and where violence has ruled the land their hope is for a God who can and will defend them.
Prior to becoming a pastor, I served as an officer in the Army during the time the peacekeeping missions in Bosnia. The experience of Bosnia or Rwanda is probably closer to the experience of Judah and Jerusalem than the peaceful existence of the United States throughout my lifetime. Years ago, I encountered Miroslav Volf’s profound reflections on forgiveness in light of his experiences as a Croatian in the aftermath of the desolation of his country and people by the Serbians, and Exclusion and Embrace is one of the books I use frequently to inform how I encounter the God of the scriptures who comes to provide judgment on earth. As Volf states:
Most people who insist on God’s “nonviolence” cannot resist using violence themselves (or tacitly sanctioning its use by others). They deem the talk of God’s judgment irreverent, but think nothing of entrusting judgment into human hands, persuaded presumably that this is less dangerous and more humane than to believe in a God who judges! That we should bring “down the powerful from their thrones” (Luke 1: 51-52) seems responsible; that God should do the same, as the song of that revolutionary Virgin explicitly states, seems crude. And so, violence thrives, secretly nourished by belief in a God who refuses to wield the sword.
My thesis that the practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many Christians, especially theologians in the West. To the person who is inclined to dismiss it, I suggest imagining that you are delivering a lecture in a war zone (which is where a paper that underlies this chapter was originally delivered). Among your listeners are people whose cities and villages have been first plundered, then burned and leveled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit. The topic of the lecture: a Christian attitude toward violence. The thesis: we should not retaliate since God is perfect noncoercive love. Soon you would discover it takes the quiet suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence corresponds to God’s refusal to judge. In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die. And as one watches it die, one will do well to reflect about many other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind. (Volf, 1996, pp. 303-304)
These images may never be easy for many Christians to read, but they are an essential part of the hope of a people who are unable to defend themselves. God is their divine warrior who provides not only protection but prosperity and turns away the warring of the nations. In the language of Psalm 46:
Come, behold the works of the LORD; see what desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. “Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.” (Psalm 46: 8-10)
Only when we step away from our privileged and hear these words from the troubled world that Joel inhabits can we properly hear these words of hope that Joel speaks to this grieving community. There is no hope of a future that can be separated from physical safety for themselves and their children. I do think God calls on us for our imaginations to continue to expand as we envision a future for ourselves and our enemies, but it is also critical to understand that the prophets speak to a specific people with specific traumas that need to be healed. Perhaps for Joel it is only the nations mobilizing with their swords and spears that can finally bring them to the point that Isaiah and Micah can hope for where nations no longer train for war and the instruments of war are returned to implements of agriculture. For Joel forgiveness is not possible for the nations before justice (or retribution) for the wrong his people have suffered has been exacted by their God. Joel’s voice is not unique in scripture, but it is also not the only voice.
[1] The word in Hebrew can mean either temple or palaces. Likely this refers to the items taken from the temple of the LORD or from the household of the king since most people would not have access to large amounts of silver or gold.
[2] Jehoshaphat means the LORD judges.
[3] Or mattocks. As James D. Nogalski notes this probably refers to a mattock which is smaller than an animal pulled plowshare and would be turned into a short sword rather than what is often seen in sculptures. (Nogalski, 2023, p. 166)
Mosaic Mural of Pentecost by Manuel Perez Paredes in Nuestro Senor del Veneno Temple, Mexico City
28 Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.
29 Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit.
30 I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke.
31 The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes.
32 Then everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls.
This short portion of Joel is the best known among Christian readers because it is the scripture quoted by Peter to explain to the crowds what they were seeing at Pentecost. The final verse of this passage is also echoed by Paul in Romans 10:13 and may also influence Paul’s language in Galatians 3:28. Yet, it is important to hear this text both within its original context as well as these references in Acts and Romans. For Joel, this passage occurs within the context of the LORD turning the disaster of the locusts away and restoring the people to prosperity. Once the immediate needs of the people, the animals, and the land are met a prophetic vision of hope emerges.
Several prophets have a vision of God decisively turning the heart of the people around after the restoration of the covenant. For example:
The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt — a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. Jeremiah 31: 31-34
I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. Ezekiel 36: 25-27
Just as the law is placed upon the hearts of the people and all know the LORD in Jeremiah, or the people are given a new heart and God’s spirit is placed within them in Ezekiel, now the LORD pours the Spirit of God on all flesh. It is likely that Joel understood ‘all flesh’ to be ‘all the remnant of Israel or Judah’ rather than ‘all humanity.’ Even the disciples at Pentecost probably understood this outpouring of the Spirit being to the faithful Jewish people and their remnant scattered among the nations, the book of Acts narrates this shift to accepting the Gentiles as a part of the community of faith. The radicality of Joel’s vision is that the recipients of God’s Spirit are both men and women, from young to old, and across social status.
Throughout the book of Joel, the day of the LORD has been reflected in an environmental disaster upon the earth. Locusts and drought were the armies that devastated the land, destroyed the crops and the pastures, and threatened the lives of both animals and humans. The day of the LORD continues to be reflected in the heavens. In language similar to the signs and wonders in Egypt and the experience of the exodus: the sun is darkened,[1] blood (like the Nile River turned to blood),[2] and a column of smoke becomes a visual representation of God’s presence.[3] New to Joel is the moon being turned to blood as a precursor of the day of the LORD. Yet, the day of the LORD is a time for repentance and calling on the name of the LORD. It is God who will allow the remnant to see the blessing on the other side of the great and terrible day of the LORD.
The words of Joel provide the scripture shaped language needed for Peter to describe the experience of God’s Spirit coming upon the disciples at Pentecost. The ability to speak in the tongues of the faithful from across the world becomes a new window into a vision when God pours out the Spirit generously upon the people. The early Christians would be shocked by the expansiveness of God’s vision as they are moved throughout the known world to share the gospel of Christ as they also see people of both genders, of every social class and age, and now from every nation brought into this new people of God who see visions and prophesy because they have received the gift of God’s Spirit.
[1] Exodus 10: 21-29
[2] Exodus 7: 14-25
[3] Exodus 13: 21-22
Lamentations over the Death of the First Born of Egypt by Charles Sprague Pearce (1877)
Joel, Amos, Obadiah, and Zephaniah all use the phrase ‘the day of the LORD’ to refer to a time where the LORD the God of Israel intervened in the life of Israel for salvation or judgment. Although this phrase is mainly used in these prophets, there are a number of similar phrases and ideas that pervade both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. The concept that the God of Israel intervenes in history is a central feature of the scriptures and probably originates for Israel in the memory of the deliverance of the people from their slavery in Egypt. Particularly at the critical moment in the story of Israel where the firstborn children of Egypt are struck down this is viewed as the critical day of God’s intervention for the people. Although the signs and wonders (or plagues as they are commonly referred) arrayed against the Egyptians unfold over an extended period of time, it is the final one that will be memorialized in the celebration of the Passover:
Remember this day on which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, because the LORD brought you out from there by strength of hand…You shall tell your child on that day, ‘It is because of what the LORD did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ Exodus 13: 1,8.
In Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel there are often key ‘days’ when the LORD delivers an enemy into the hands of the people or an individual. For example:
On the day when the LORD gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua spoke to the LORD; and he said in the sight of Israel, “Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and Moon, in the valley of Aijalon.” And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Joshua 10: 12-13.
Then Deborah said to Barak, “Up! For this is the day on which the LORD has given Sisera into your hand. The LORD is indeed going before you. Judges 4: 14.
This very day the LORD will deliver you (Goliath) into my (David) hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the Philistine army this very day to the birds of the air and the wild animals of the earth, so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the LORD does not save by sword and spear; for the battle is the LORD’s and he will give you into our hand. 1 Samuel 17: 46-47.[1]
Throughout these the image of God as the divine warrior who defends Israel and fights on their behalf in their wars is present. When Israel was unfaithful the LORD would not go out before them, and the results were disastrous[2] but God was not actively opposing Israel, merely withdrawing support for a time.
It is probably the prophet Amos who first utilizes the day of the LORD as a judgment. Amos’ ministry is during the time of King Uzziah (Azariah) of Judah (783-742 BCE) and King Jeroboam II of Israel (786-746 BCE)[3] when Jeroboam seems to be restoring the boundaries of Israel. Amos is a shrill and unwelcome voice challenging the assumptions of the king of Israel and those religious leaders in the north who believed that God would always intervene for Israel. Amos’ dark vision of the day of the LORD as judgment begins:
Alas for you who desire the day of the LORD! Why do you want the day of the LORD? It is darkness and not light; as if someone fled from a lion and was met by a bear; or went into a house and rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake. Is not the day of the LORD darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it. Amos 5: 18-20
Other prophets will follow Amos’ lead to talk about the day of the LORD as a day or wrath or punishment by Assyria, by Babylon,[4] or by environmental destruction by locusts and drought.[5] Sometimes the day of the LORD’s wrath will be directed at the nations or the enemies of Israel[6] but within the prophets the day of the LORD as wrath or judgment can often be paired with the day of the LORD as salvation.[7] These visions of the day of the LORD’s deliverance can move towards a utopian vision of divine closeness and prosperity for the people expressed in very poetic ways:
Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit. I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes. Then everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls. Joel 2:28-32
On that day there shall not be either cold or frost. And there shall be continuous day (it is known to the LORD), not day and not night, for at evening time there shall be light. On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea; it shall continue in summer as in winter. And the LORD will become king over all the earth; on that day the LORD will be one and his name one. Zechariah 14:6-9
The New Testament picks up these threads and weaves them into a new expectation of a coming day of God. The synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) all share a common expectation of a day of judgment[8] as does Paul.[9] Yet, this time of the Son of Man’s return, the judgment of God, or the day of the Lord are now also times of expectation for the elect. It can be a great day of wrath[10] and the great day of God.[11]
The God of both Judaism and Christianity is a God who is engaged in the life of the world. Many in Christianity have reduced these concepts of the day of the Lord to refer only to the end of history and the establishment of the kingdom of God at some time in the future. The day of the Lord can refer to some type of establishment of God’s presence among the people in the future, but it may also refer to God’s judgment as it is being experienced or anticipated in the present or God’s deliverance expected or experienced. There is a poetic vision of hope that often expresses itself within the hope for the future, but that poetic side can also view the past and present through the dark lens of judgment. The gift and challenge of the bible is that it can use the same idea in multiple ways to remind the people of God’s continuing activity in the life of the people and the world. Sometimes people of faith understood the community’s life as having strayed from the will of God and God worked through the environment, through the nations, and through the prophets warning to call the people to return. Yet, for the people of faith, God’s intervention in history is often a hoped-for experience. The day of the Lord can be darkness or light, destruction or deliverance. Yet, God’s judgment is often followed by God’s renewed presence and recommitment to the people.
[1] See also 1 Samuel 3: 12, 4: 12-13, 24:10
[2] For example, the story of Achan son of Carmi taking some of the devoted things that God instructed the people to destroy in Joshua 7.
[3] This is the time of the rise of the Assyrian empire which will eventually capture Israel and Judah will be miraculously saved.
[4] Isaiah 13, Jeremiah 4:9, 25:33, Lamentations 1:12, Zephaniah 1: 7-10, 14
[6] Jeremiah 50: 21, Obadiah 1: 15
[7] Isaiah 49:8, Jeremiah 39: 16, Joel 2: 18-27, Zephaniah 3: 8, 11, Zechariah 14:6-7.
[8] Matthew 11:22, 12: 36, 24:42,50, 25:31-45, Mark 13: 32, Luke 22-37
[9] Romans 2: 5, 16, 1 Thessalonians 5: 2-8
[10] Romans 2:5, Revelation 6:17
[11] Jude 1:6, Revelation 16:14
Millions of swarming Australian plague locusts on the move By CSIRO, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35486123
1 Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming, it is near —
2 a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come.
3 Fire devours in front of them, and behind them a flame burns. Before them the land is like the garden of Eden, but after them a desolate wilderness, and nothing escapes them.
4 They have the appearance of horses, and like war-horses they charge.
5 As with the rumbling of chariots, they leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring the stubble, like a powerful army drawn up for battle.
6 Before them peoples are in anguish, all faces grow pale.
7 Like warriors they charge, like soldiers they scale the wall. Each keeps to its own course, they do not swerve from their paths.
8 They do not jostle one another, each keeps to its own track; they burst through the weapons and are not halted.
9 They leap upon the city, they run upon the walls; they climb up into the houses, they enter through the windows like a thief.
10 The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.
11 The LORD utters his voice at the head of his army; how vast is his host! Numberless are those who obey his command. Truly the day of the LORD is great; terrible indeed — who can endure it?
12 Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
13 rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.
14 Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the LORD, your God?
15 Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly;
16 gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy.
17 Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep. Let them say, “Spare your people, O LORD, and do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?'”
One of the choices that any reader of Joel has to make is whether the imagery in chapter two continues to be a metaphor for the invasion of locusts or whether this is now an invasion from a conquering army. Those who believe this is describing an invasion of an actual army will point to the language in verse twenty of ‘the northern army’ as evidence of a literal army since a human army (at this time) would invade from the north rather than across the desert to the east and Egypt was no longer the primary threat from the south. Locust plagues in this part of the world tend to originate in Africa and spread from the south and southeast through the Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent. My perspective throughout this chapter is that this is using the metaphor of a military invasion to describe the swarm of locusts which has brought the region to the brink. It may be a restatement of the same condition of chapter one of the approach of a new swarm, but repetition in Hebrew poetry and in the prophets is a common rhetorical device used to, “intensify the impression on the reader.” (Collins, 2013, p. 18)
The prophet Joel is the sentinel raising the alarm in Zion to awaken the people that this invasion of locusts is the day of the LORD’s judgment. Like Jeremiah or Ezekiel,[1] Joel is now charged to raise the alarm for the people to give them a chance to return to the LORD and plead for mercy. For Joel this crisis is not a prelude to God’s action of judgment, the insectile invasion which has threatened the life of the people, the animals, and the land itself the dark day of the LORD that nothing can stand before. Life hangs in the balance and the only hope is that the LORD will relent and turn the plague of locusts away.
Joel’s language echoes the language of other prophets as he narrates the situation. The day of the LORD as a time of judgment goes back to the 8th century BCE prophet Amos who indicates that the day of the LORD is a day of darkness. The day of the LORD being near and being a day of clouds and thick darkness echoes the language of Zephaniah 1: 7, 15. Later in verse eleven the language is similar to Malachi 4: 5 and 3:2. Finally verse fourteen echoes the King of Nineveh in Jonah 3:9 when he declares, “Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.” Joel is likely familiar with these passages, and they may provide him the language to articulate his understanding of God’s action upon Israel. Joel has demonstrated that he is immersed in the language and imagery of the scriptures, and they form the lexicon he uses to describe the experience of this crisis.
As mentioned above, I view this language as metaphorically describing the locust swarm. Although the language of an invading army could be literal, and armies do destroy both the land and the people, the particular choices that Joel makes poetically describe the swarm as well. The day of thick darkness and the blackness on the mountains may indicate a swarm so thick it obscures the sun and covers the ground. The sound of a locust swarm has been described as a roar with constant popping like a brush or forest fire. (Birch, 1997, p. 143) Revelation will use the metaphor of approaching horses to describe the locusts in that vision (Revelation 9:7). No walls or weapons are able to repel this locust horde which enters the city unopposed and emerges in the houses of the city. There is no sanctuary from this immense horde which decimates fields and households. These insignificant insects come together to be a gathered horde of ‘mighty warriors’[2]
Joel’s responsibility to sound the shofar (trumpet) and alert the people is because the LORD wants the people to return to the LORD. The alarm is so that the people do not have to endure the unendurable day of the LORD. Even now, with the locust swarm on the horizon there is a chance that God will lead this devouring army away, but the time for action is now. The actions of public repentance: fasting, weeping and morning are the appropriate start, but they are not sufficient. Joel’s well-known call to “rend your hearts and not your clothing” indicates that something more than ceremony is needed. The heart in Hebrew is the seat of volition and will and Joel is calling for people not merely to be ‘broken-hearted’ but to make a change. This is a call to action. The crisis is at hand and the communal actions of blowing the shofar, sanctifying a fast, calling a solemn assembly, and gathering the people where there are no exemptions: the infant to the elderly. This solemn communal activity takes precedence over celebrating the joy of a new marriage. The life of the people is at stake and both public and private change is necessary in this moment. There is still a hope that God may relent, that God may remember that Israel is God’s inheritance and has a responsibility to ensure the continuation of the people. The call goes up to remind God that God’s honor will suffer if the people cease to exist because the death of the people will cause the nations to question. “Where is their God?”
Joel expects the priests to both set an example for the people but also to intercede with God for the people. Like Moses standing between God and the people after the golden calf, the priests stand between the vestibule and the altar on behalf of the people. In a world where the priests and those in the temple would be the only ones with access to the scriptures they are called to interpret to the people what this repentant life will look like. They will be responsible for both interceding before God and teaching the covenant way of life that the LORD is expecting from the people. The existence of the people hangs in the balance as the priests begin to intercede and lead the solemn assembly. They act in hope that the LORD will prove to be a God who is gracious and abounding in steadfast love who will turn away the impending disaster and leave a blessing in its place.
Threshing Place in Santorini, Greece. Photo by Stan Zurek – CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=917402
18 Then the LORD became jealous for his land, and had pity on his people.
19 In response to his people the LORD said: I am sending you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a mockery among the nations.
20 I will remove the northern army far from you, and drive it into a parched and desolate land, its front into the eastern sea, and its rear into the western sea; its stench and foul smell will rise up. Surely he has done great things!
21 Do not fear, O soil; be glad and rejoice, for the LORD has done great things!
22 Do not fear, you animals of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears its fruit, the fig tree and vine give their full yield.
23 O children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the LORD your God; for he has given the early rain for your vindication, he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the later rain, as before.
24 The threshing floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.
25 I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent against you.
26 You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame.
27 You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I, the LORD, am your God and there is no other. And my people shall never again be put to shame.
The crisis is averted, the relationship is restored, the curse is turned away and blessings for the people are returned. This oracle of reassurance given to Joel promises renewal for the people, the animals, and the land. Grain, wine, and oil return to nourish the people. The ‘northern army’ is driven to the east and west where it dies in the sea and in the wilderness. As mentioned above I believe that Joel’s imagery is describing the locust swarm and not an army, and the death of the locusts in the wilderness would create a stench. The language is reminiscent of the end of the ‘wonder’ of locusts in Exodus 10:19 where the locusts are driven into the Red Sea. With the locusts gone the soil can recover, the wilderness can provide the grass the cattle desire, the trees and the vines are once again fruitful. The signs of abundance have returned in the aftermath of the curse. The return of the people has led to the return of God’s blessings on the land. The drought ends with the return of the early and late rains and the harvest fills the threshing floor and the vats. The years of scarcity will be replaced by years of abundance and the people will be satisfied and live in prosperity.
This joyous vision of renewed prosperity for the people, the animals, and the soil ends with the promise of the LORD’s dwelling in the midst of Israel. One of the recurring themes in scriptures is the desire of God to dwell among God’s people. The disobedience of the people causes God to withdraw, but the entire purpose of the tabernacle or temple is to give a place for God’s presence among the people. In a similar way Jeremiah can echo this vision:
But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. Jeremiah 31: 33-34
The people will no longer know shame. Instead, the people will know the LORD. The renewed relationship with the people and the land opens up a hopeful vision of the future where the people know the will of God.
[1] Jeremiah 4:5, Ezekiel 3: 17-21, 33:1-9
[2] The warriors mentioned in verse seven is the Hebrew gibborim which are the elite warriors or men of status (officers, leaders). The labeling of these grasshoppers as gibborim poetically shows how these pests have become more threatening than the greatest warriors of an enemy army.
Millions of swarming Australian plague locusts on the move By CSIRO, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35486123
1 The word of the LORD that came to Joel son of Pethuel:
2 Hear this, O elders, give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your ancestors?
3 Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.
4 What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.
5 Wake up, you drunkards, and weep; and wail, all you wine-drinkers, over the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth.
6 For a nation has invaded my land, powerful and innumerable; its teeth are lions’ teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness.
7 It has laid waste my vines, and splintered my fig trees; it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down; their branches have turned white.
8 Lament like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
9 The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the LORD. The priests mourn, the ministers of the LORD.
10 The fields are devastated, the ground mourns; for the grain is destroyed, the wine dries up, the oil fails.
11 Be dismayed, you farmers, wail, you vinedressers, over the wheat and the barley; for the crops of the field are ruined.
12 The vine withers, the fig tree droops. Pomegranate, palm, and apple — all the trees of the field are dried up; surely, joy withers away among the people.
13 Put on sackcloth and lament, you priests; wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, pass the night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God! Grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.
14 Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD.
15 Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.
16 Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God?
17 The seed shrivels under the clods, the storehouses are desolate; the granaries are ruined because the grain has failed.
18 How the animals groan! The herds of cattle wander about because there is no pasture for them; even the flocks of sheep are dazed.
19 To you, O LORD, I cry. For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flames have burned all the trees of the field.
20 Even the wild animals cry to you because the watercourses are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
The prophet Joel looks at the environmental disaster that threatens the people, the animals, and the land itself through the word that he receives from the LORD the God of Israel. The destruction of the locusts and the drought have brought life in Israel to a critical point and Joel calls upon the priests to lead the people in the actions that demonstrate to the LORD the people’s desire to repent and restore the relationship with God. Even though Joel never indicates what actions the people need to repent from he sounds a clarion call to awake from their slumber and realize that the only hope that the people has is to remember their covenant with God, to show that they intend to be obedient, and pray for God to restore their fortunes. Joel’s shrill cry to the people points the way to a future beyond the judgment of God.
The book of Joel begins with the declaration that the word of the LORD came to Joel. This is a formula that is common in the prophets, but unlike many of the major and minor prophets there are no details in this introduction to locate the prophet in the time of a king or a major event. The only information we have on Joel is the name of his father (a name not used elsewhere in scriptures). The name Joel is common in genealogies, and it means ‘YHWH is God.’ It is the same components of Elijah’s name in reverse order. Scholars best guess to the context for Joel is the mid to late Persian empire before 343 BCE, but as mentioned in Transitioning to the Prophet Joel this educated guess is based upon clues throughout the short book.
The first recorded word of the prophet Joel is “hear” (Hebrew shemah) which immediately calls the attentive ear to Deuteronomy where the people of Israel are called to “hear.” The central commandment for the Jewish way of life comes from Deuteronomy 6: 4-5:
Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.
Deuteronomy articulates a way of life centered around obedience to the commandments of God. It concludes with blessings if the people live wisely in accordance with the commandments of God and curses if they foolishly abandon the way of their God. As James D. Nogalski points out, many of the same elements in these curses articulated in Deuteronomy 28:15-68 are being experienced in this initial chapter of Joel: heat and drought (22-24), attack by locusts (28, 38, 42), devastated vineyards and olive groves (39-40) and the loss of both the harvest of trees and the fields (42). (Nogalski, 2023, p. 86) Joel is a writer who has access to the scriptures, which becomes apparent by his use of imagery found throughout scripture, and it is not surprising that his insight is framed in the language of Deuteronomy. Yet, Joel’s hope is also framed in the language of Deuteronomy:
When all these things have happened to you, the blessings and the curses that I have set before you, if you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God has driven you, and return to the LORD your God, and you and your children obey him with all your heart and with all your soul, just as I am commanding you today, then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you…and the LORD your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all your undertakings, in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your soil. For the LORD your God will again take delight in prospering you, just as he delighted in prospering your ancestors. (Deuteronomy 30: 1-3, 9)
In calling the inhabitants of the land to hear, Joel wants them to understand that the environmental catastrophe they are enduring is a work of God to call them back to obedience. Joel is reminding the people how to interpret their lives theologically and calling them to repentance so that this judgment of God may be reversed, and they may experience prosperity again.
Viewing an infestation of locusts, drought, and wildfire through the lens of a punishment of God may seem like an alien concept to most who live in the modern world of weather forecasts, insecticides, and scientific explanations. People who proclaim natural disasters like hurricanes, tornados, droughts, or wildfires as a judgment of God are often viewed in our world as people disconnected from modern society. They are crazy or delusional or they are pushing a judgmental view of God to maintain power over their followers. Joel may have been looked on as a voice out of tune with the rest of society even two millennia in the past. Prophets have rarely been welcomed in their time, and it would be easy to dismiss Joel’s correlation between these disasters and God, but the reality of this short book being included in our scriptures encourages us to slow down and reconsider our world in a different framework than we are used to employing.
Joel asks the elders among his hearers to look to their experience and the experience of their ancestors and see if they can find something comparable in their memory or the stories of their parents and grandparents. The word elders may refer to the leaders of the people, but it may be simply asking the elderly among the people to look back upon the longer span of their lives and look back into the past as far as their memories and stories will allow. Joel wants them to examine and discover that what is happening to their land in the present is not normal, it is like the onslaught of locusts Egypt experienced in the Exodus (Exodus 10: 1-20). This event is to be remembered by them and the future generations so they may return to the ways of God, and their descendants may not encounter these life-threatening conditions.
Most of the people reading this reflection are probably not connected to the land and the annual cycle of preparing, planting, growing, and harvesting that life depends upon. In a drought the prices may increase at the grocery store and municipalities may limit the amount of water to be utilized on landscaping, but life continues without interruption. Some have looked at Joel and thought the situation of the people of Joel’s time was not worth comparing to the military invasions that other prophets dealt with, but that would misunderstand the threat to life. Four different words[1] are used for locusts, and Joel 2:25 indicates that this invasion of locusts may have continued for years. If it was a single lost harvest people may rely on reserves of seed and food from previous years. There is no hardware store or nursery where the people can go to purchase new seeds, they rely on the previous year’s harvest for what will be planted. Not only is one harvest ruined. This crisis places the cycle of production itself at risk. Often the invasion of armies has used the metaphor of locust who eat everything to denote their destructiveness, now in Joel the metaphor is reversed: the invading army is the locusts.
Joel calls the people to wake from their stupor and realize the perilous situation they are in and the hope that their rituals can offer. Not only the wheat and barley have suffered from this invasion of locusts, but the vines and trees are also dying. The wine of the vineyard has been cut off and the vines are laid waste. Even more catastrophic than the devastation of the vineyards is the locusts eating the bark off the trees. Trees without bark will die, it may be a slow death, but even if the bark of a tree is removed in a ring (a process called girdling) the tree cannot endure. The white branches on the trees are probably mildew or signs of disease.
For Joel the proper response is lament and grief. Public grief for a broken relationship like a virgin mourning the loss of a husband that was promised. Not only the people involved in the activity of planting and harvesting are to mourn but the priests are to mourn as well. No food among the people means no sacrifices to bring to the altar and the priests are suffering along with the people. Without the offerings the priests have no way to feed themselves and their families. Unlike Amos or Isaiah[2] who are critical of the actions of sacrificing and piety, Joel is calling the priests to lead the people in these actions which demonstrate their repentance. Wearing sackcloth both during the day and at night, fasting, lamenting, wailing, calling a solemn assembly, and crying out to God are all appropriate actions in the face of this disaster.
Their broken relationship with God is a problem for the people, but also for the creation. The animals also cry out to God, both the wild animals and the domestic, in the absence of food and water. The pastures of the wilderness, the grazing land for cattle, have been destroyed by wildfire caused by the drought. Even the sheep, which are able to subsist in rockier terrain and are able to eat a more varied diet, are struggling in the decimated land. The animals know who to cry out to, but the people of the land need to prophet to awaken them and help them realize how to respond.
[1] Four is a common pattern in judgments, possible referencing the four corners of the earth or the four winds. See for example Jeremiah 15:3, Ezekiel 14: 21, Daniel 7 and 8, Zechariah 1: 18 and 6:1 and of course the four horsemen of Revelation 6: 1-8.
[2] Amos 5:21, Isaiah 1:13
And Elohim Created Adam by William Blake – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=147900
The fields are devastated, the ground mourns; Joel 1:10a
One of the concepts that I’ve felt drawn to in Hebrew thought is the way the earth is personified and often bears the consequences of human activity. Humanity is connected with the earth in a way that is often missed in English and this connection starts at the very beginning of the Bible. The man (adam)[1] is formed from dust the soil (adamah) and when the man eats the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil God’s declaration has the earth bear the curse but also reiterates the linkage between the man and the ground:
And to the man (adam) he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground (adamah) because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground (adamah), for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Genesis 3: 17-19
This theme continues in Cain and Abel as the personified ground cries out in protest against Cain’s murder of his brother:
And the LORD said, “What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground (adamah)! And now you are cursed from the ground (adamah), which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” Genesis 4: 10-12
The consequence of the wickedness of humanity leads a grieving God to blot out human beings from creation along with all the other animals (Genesis 6:6-7) and in the aftermath of the flood God tells Noah:
The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Genesis 9:2
This recapitulates the call of humanity to rule over creation in Genesis 1: 28-30. How humanity exercises this rule will be important for both humanity and the entire creation.
This imagery in Genesis is picked up by the prophets and highlights the connection between the disobedience of the people of God and the earth’s plight. For example, Isaiah states:
The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers; the heavens languish together with the earth. The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt; therefore the inhabitants of the earth dwindled, and few people are left. Isaiah 24: 4-6
Or in Jeremiah:
How long will the land mourn, and the grass of every field wither? For the wickedness of those who live in it the animals and the birds are swept away, and because people said, “He is blind to our ways.” Jeremiah 12: 4
For the prophet Joel the disobedience of the people is the cause of the environmental disaster that they are encountering where the crops, vines, trees, cattle, sheep, and wild animals are all suffering because of humanity. The land becomes the first victim of the curse on behalf of humanity and although humanity will eventually suffer the earth is the first bearer of these curses so that humanity has a chance to understand and repent. As in the signs and wonders (plagues) in Egypt (Exodus 7-11) the environmental disasters all refrain from the loss of human life until the final sign. The blessings and curses in Deuteronomy 27-30 also share this pattern where the land’s prosperity is linked to the obedience of the people and there is always an opportunity for the people to repent and receive the blessing of the LORD. As we will see in the prophet Joel, the expected repentance will lead to not only a reversal of the current curse on the land but to a time of the LORD’s prosperity.
In the New Testament this way of thinking emerges in Paul’s Letter to the Romans as Paul leans into his vision of hope. Paul articulates a bold hope for all of creation when he proclaims:
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. Romans 8: 19-23
Humanity’s disobedience to God’s will impacts the creation. Although Joel never articulates what actions lead to God’s judgment on the earth through locusts and drought, as we look at natural disasters perhaps this is an opportunity to consider our impact on the world. I write this from North Texas which has had the second hottest and second driest August ever recorded, with temperatures frequently above 105 degrees (and heat index frequently above 115) I wonder what are the things that this community needs to repent of. I do believe that the way we utilize our environment impacts the climate from the fossil fuels we burn to power our lifestyles to the concrete, asphalt, and steel that lay as a hot blanket on the soil. The worldview of Genesis, Deuteronomy, the prophets (and the bible in general) would be critical of the societal drive for acquisition and the lack of care for the world we inhabit. I also have been questioning the disconnect that most urban and suburban people have from the soil. We may be insulated from the consequences of our actions but the impacts for the earth may only grow more dire.
[1] Adam can be a proper name, but it is also the generic term for ‘the man’.
Grigory Mekheev, Exodus (2000) artist shared work under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
<A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.>
1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
3 You turn us back to dust, and say, “Turn back, you mortals.”
4 For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night.
5 You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning;
6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.
7 For we are consumed by your anger; by your wrath we are overwhelmed.
8 You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance.
9 For all our days pass away under your wrath; our years come to an end like a sigh.
10 The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.
11 Who considers the power of your anger? Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.
12 So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.
13 Turn, O LORD! How long? Have compassion on your servants!
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us, and as many years as we have seen evil.
16 Let your work be manifest to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.
17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands — O prosper the work of our hands!
We can only guess at the reason the editor of Psalms assembled the collections of songs and prayers in the order they did, but the ending of book three with the darkest two psalms of the collection which enter the dark night of the individual soul and the community lament over the loss of the Davidic king, the land, the temple, and Zion is suggestively answered by a psalm attributed to Moses. A community that has lost its land now learns again that God is their dwelling place. A community wondering about how they will survive in a foreign land remembers the person that God used to lead them out of the land of Egypt. In a time when God’s judgment seems like it will never end the people of Israel are taken back to when their lives were threatened by God’s anger and Moses stood between God and the people asking God to change God’s mind about the judgment God intended.
The beginning of this psalm is often used in funeral services and many people may stop at the comforting tone of verse one. Beth Tanner notes that the translation of the Hebrew by many translations as “our dwelling place” misses the emphasis of the Hebrew which translated literally is “Lord, a dwelling place YOU have been to us.” (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 691) God has provided a place for the people as a place of refuge and safety, rather than the people being entitled to God being that dwelling place. The psalm rests in the space of insecurity where the people are reliant upon God’s steadfast love and compassion for their continued existence, and they do not take this for granted. They know that their lives hang in the balance between their experience of God’s wrath and the promise of God’s compassion.
This psalm attributed to Moses also mirrors the language of Exodus 32-34 where Moses stands in the space between God and the people. Moses led the people to Mount Sinai where Moses received the commandments and the instructions for the Tabernacle, but while Moses was on the mountain the people constructed the golden calf. God’s anger burns hot against the people and poses a lethal threat to the people of Israel. Moses confronts both the people of Israel and the God of Israel and boldly asks God to repent of God’s anger and spare God’s people. In Exodus 34 God’s declaration makes it clear that God is choosing to be a God who is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” (Exodus 34: 6-7) God’s anger had threatened to consume the people, but now God’s presence will continue to abide among the people in their wilderness journey and in their new residence in the promised land. God chooses to continue to be a dwelling place for a people who have failed to keep God’s covenant.
The psalm oscillates between the permanence and steadfast nature of God and the frailty and transience of human life. In the Hebrew God is the eternal and mighty great birth mother[1] of the world while humans are pulverized dust.[2] The seventy or eighty years of a mortal life is comparatively a couple hours of lost sleep to God (a watch in the night). Reminding God of the fragility of human life the psalmist asks for God’s compassion upon these frail beings unable to live in the presence of God’s wrath without being consumed. The psalmist asks God for the ability to count the days of God’s anger so they will understand that there is an end.
I am writing this post near the end of August in Texas in 2023 which has been a brutally hot summer in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex where I live. Through July and the first twenty days of August there have been over forty days above 100 degrees, no rain, and temperatures rarely drop below 80 degrees at night. Looking at the forecast through the end of August, there is no change in sight and although I know that the temperature has to change at some point as we enter into the fall, the oppressive temperatures and the worsening drought makes every day harder. As the plants die and the soil is blown about by the hot winds it can seem like the present experience will never change. Yet, I know that September is on the horizon, and that eventually the cooler temperatures will come. It may seem trivial compared to the struggles of the people of Israel during the Exodus or during the exile in Babylon, but without a hope that things will change in the future the blast furnace of the present would be hard to endure. And just as I have no control over the weather, the people of Israel could not control how long they would be in exile. They rely upon their God’s compassion to change their situation.
For the people of Israel their problem is that God is angry with them, and that God has been angry for a long time. In the midst of God’s anger, they are like grass dying under unrelenting temperatures and persistent drought. They are waiting for the return of God’s compassion to nourish their life and God’s steadfast love to cause them to grow again. They hope, pray, and long for the end of this time of tribulation and hope to know and even longer time of gladness, joy, and growth. In their sojourn in a land that is not their own they can only rely upon God to be a place of shelter in their homelessness.
[1] The NRSV follows the Greek Septuagint reading “to mold or to form” but the Hebrew indicates that God gives birth to the earth and the world. Parallel language to Deuteronomy 32:18 “You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.” (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 692)
[2] It is possible that there is an echo of Genesis 3:19, but a different word for dust is used here. The word in Psalms is only used here and is likely derived from the word for being crushed or pulverized. (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 692)
The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem by Romans Under the Command of Titus, A.D. 70 by David Roberts 1850
<A Maskil of Ethan the Ezrahite.>
1 I will sing of your steadfast love, O LORD, forever; with my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations.
2 I declare that your steadfast love is established forever; your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.
3 You said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to my servant David:
4 ‘I will establish your descendants forever, and build your throne for all generations.'” Selah
5 Let the heavens praise your wonders, O LORD, your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones.
6 For who in the skies can be compared to the LORD? Who among the heavenly beings is like the LORD,
7 a God feared in the council of the holy ones, great and awesome above all that are around him?
8 O LORD God of hosts, who is as mighty as you, O LORD? Your faithfulness surrounds you.
9 You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them.
10 You crushed Rahab like a carcass; you scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.
11 The heavens are yours, the earth also is yours; the world and all that is in it — you have founded them.
12 The north and the south — you created them; Tabor and Hermon joyously praise your name.
13 You have a mighty arm; strong is your hand, high your right hand.
14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.
15 Happy are the people who know the festal shout, who walk, O LORD, in the light of your countenance;
16 they exult in your name all day long, and extol your righteousness.
17 For you are the glory of their strength; by your favor our horn is exalted.
18 For our shield belongs to the LORD, our king to the Holy One of Israel.
19 Then you spoke in a vision to your faithful one, and said: “I have set the crown on one who is mighty, I have exalted one chosen from the people.
20 I have found my servant David; with my holy oil I have anointed him;
21 my hand shall always remain with him; my arm also shall strengthen him.
22 The enemy shall not outwit him, the wicked shall not humble him.
23 I will crush his foes before him and strike down those who hate him.
24 My faithfulness and steadfast love shall be with him; and in my name his horn shall be exalted.
25 I will set his hand on the sea and his right hand on the rivers.
26 He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation!’
27 I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.
28 Forever I will keep my steadfast love for him, and my covenant with him will stand firm.
29 I will establish his line forever, and his throne as long as the heavens endure.
30 If his children forsake my law and do not walk according to my ordinances,
31 if they violate my statutes and do not keep my commandments,
32 then I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with scourges;
33 but I will not remove from him my steadfast love, or be false to my faithfulness.
34 I will not violate my covenant, or alter the word that went forth from my lips.
35 Once and for all I have sworn by my holiness; I will not lie to David.
36 His line shall continue forever, and his throne endure before me like the sun.
37 It shall be established forever like the moon, an enduring witness in the skies.” Selah
38 But now you have spurned and rejected him; you are full of wrath against your anointed.
39 You have renounced the covenant with your servant; you have defiled his crown in the dust.
40 You have broken through all his walls; you have laid his strongholds in ruins.
41 All who pass by plunder him; he has become the scorn of his neighbors.
42 You have exalted the right hand of his foes; you have made all his enemies rejoice.
43 Moreover, you have turned back the edge of his sword, and you have not supported him in battle.
44 You have removed the scepter from his hand, and hurled his throne to the ground.
45 You have cut short the days of his youth; you have covered him with shame. Selah
46 How long, O LORD? Will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire?
47 Remember how short my time is — for what vanity you have created all mortals!
48 Who can live and never see death? Who can escape the power of Sheol? Selah
49 Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David?
50 Remember, O Lord, how your servant is taunted; how I bear in my bosom the insults of the peoples,
51 with which your enemies taunt, O LORD, with which they taunted the footsteps of your anointed.
52 Blessed be the LORD forever. Amen and Amen.
The approach to Psalm 89 will be different than my approach to most of the other psalms because it evokes for me an important question that continues to be wrestled with in communities of faith. This psalm likely originates in the collapse of the Davidic line of kings in the aftermath of Babylon’s destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE and wrestles with the contrast between the psalmist’s understanding of God’s promises and their present experience. It is plausible that Psalm 89 may be a combination of one (or more) psalms which expressed the royal theology of the Davidic kings with the tough questions of verse thirty-eight onward. Like Psalm 88 it takes us into the darkness of the psalmist’s experience where no light appears on the horizon, but unlike the previous psalm this is the experience of the community of the faithful questioning how the God’s faithfulness proved unfaithful. The psalm is still processing the anger, grief, and the disillusionment over the loss of institutions they thought would continue perpetually.
The language of Psalm 89 weaves together the kingdom of God and the monarchy of David into a common tapestry. Psalm 89 is built upon the words through the prophet Nathan to David in 2 Samuel 7: 8-17, but the rough edges of this prophecy where the ‘seeds of arrogance’ (Nancy de Claisse-Walford, 2014, p. 681) seen in David are smoothed out. Like Psalm 2 the strength of the Davidic kings is directly linked to the strength of the LORD. Their victories are the LORD’s victories, their enemies are the LORD’s enemies, their unfaithfulness is punished but they are never separated from God’s steadfast love and faithfulness (unlike King Saul or the Kings of Northern Israel). The first seventy percent of the psalm weaves God’s reign which is founded on steadfast love and faithfulness into experience of life under David’s descendants. The royal theology is expressed through the temple, and the temple, Jerusalem, and the Davidic kings all become important symbols of God’s reign on earth. The covenant language of Psalm 89 leaves no space for God to change God’s mind despite the unfaithfulness of many of the kings in Jerusalem. Yet, when the seam holding God’s reign and the Davidic king’s reign unravels in verse thirty-eight, the psalmist now takes God to task for renouncing the covenant. The situation of humiliation that the people experience now moves the psalmist to the dangerous and perhaps blasphemous conclusion that God whose reign is built on steadfast love and faithfulness has now proven unfaithful. God who was once Father and Rock who exalted David’s horn and strengthened his arm now strengthens the arms of the foes of the people, has rejected God’s children, and has renounced the covenant.
Moving beyond the psalm for the moment, the close alliance of God’s kingdom with any individual or government always presents the danger of idolatry. King David occupies an almost mythical role in the story of Israel as the ‘once and future king’ who was a man after God’s own heart. The narrative of David in First and Second Samuel, and the experience of the Davidic kings in First and Second Kings is often disconnected from the interwoven theology which connects the stability of the kings in Jerusalem with a larger vision of God’s cosmic reign over the forces of creation and the nations of the world. When the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon occurs and the Davidic line of kings seems to be a stump which is cutdown and never to rise again the Jewish people would have to reckon with their relationship with God in a new way and to discover their new identity as a people of God in exile without king, temple, or land. They would have to reimagine the role of David within their life of faith and to reexamine how the hopes of 2 Samuel 7 and Psalm 89: 1-36 ended in the desolation of 2 Kings 25 and Psalm 89: 37-51.
Although the United States there is the concept of the ‘separation of the church and the state’ there is also a semi-religious understanding of manifest destiny and exceptionalism which exists within the political language of the country. Recently there has been a strong movement among both individuals and churches towards a Christian nationalism which weaves these ideas of manifest destiny and exceptionalism into a religious retelling of the story of the United States which ignores many aspects of the country’s past and present. This Christian nationalism has coalesced around the Republican Party in the United States and is still wielded by former President Trump to link his presidency with the faith of many of his followers. The almost messianic fervor that some have placed upon him and the sharp polarization between adherents and opponents highlights the danger of this interweaving of God’s reign and any individual or political group.
As an heir of the Lutheran reformation, I am a part of what is sometimes referred to as the magisterial reformation. The magisterial reformation includes the Lutheran, Reformed, and Anglican reform movements that still believed that secular authority should be followed (in contrast to the radical reformers who rejected any secular authority). Yet, the Lutheran (as well as Reformed and Catholic churches) in Germany had to struggle with the demands for loyalty from the National Socialist party as they assumed power in the 1930s. Many prominent Lutheran scholars, like Paul Althaus,[1] welcomed the rise of the National Socialist and Althaus viewed the government of the state as an order of God’s creation which was given by God. If the government of the state was an order of creation it was not subject to critique by the church, but there were others in the church who would criticize the National Socialist. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is the most well known of these resisters to the demands of loyalty. For Bonhoeffer he viewed the government as a vessel God uses to preserve life and when the government fails in its responsibility the church has a responsibility to speak. Many in Germany in the 1930s were able to combine their practice of Christianity with the demands of the state. Looking back upon this time it is easy to wonder how many people of faith were able to participate in or tolerate actions which seem antithetical to the scriptures, yet it is amazing how malleable peoples’ interpretation of scripture can be to fit their political dispositions.
Within Psalm 89 the kingdom of God and the reign of the Davidic kings is woven together until the tapestry is ripped apart by the experience of the present. There were Christians during the Third Reich who viewed Adolf Hitler as God’s gift to Christianity[2] and I fear there are many Christians in the United States making a similar mistake today. Unfortunately for many in Germany and in the United States participation in these movements has drowned out critical voices that questioned this interweaving of God and nationalism. For Judaism the crisis of exile in Babylon led to a reexamination of their faith in light of their new situation. I fear that for many Christians the eventual collapse of Christian nationalism will lead to an abandonment of their faith.
For me the conclusion of this psalm in verse fifty-two is also a moment of hope. It closes the third book of the psalter and brings this open question into the continued act of praise. Even when there are no easy answers for shattered symbols, broken communities, and even a broken nation there is a community that sits in the discomfort and still brings these questions into the blessing of their God. It closes with a double ‘amen’ which acknowledges the still unanswered questions of the prayers while allowing them to be lifted up to the God who may be Father, may be opponent but still remains connected to the community of the faithful. Elie Wiesel in his memoirs All Rivers Run to the Sea captures the relationship of these faithful crying out to God when he says of his own experience of the Holocaust:
I have never renounced my faith in God. I have risen against His justice, protested His silence and sometimes His absence, but my anger rises up within faith, not outside of it. (Wiesel, 1994, p. 84)
[1] Paul Althaus was not an isolated example, but he was in the 1930s viewed as the leading scholar on Luther’s theology. When I was studying in seminary in the early 2000s his works The Theology of Martin Luther and The Ethics of Martin Luther were still used.
[2] Paul Althaus in 1933 stated, “Our Protestant churches have greeted the turning point of 1933 as a gift and miracle of God” (Ericksen, 2012, p. 37)
Marc Chagall, Solitude (1933)
<A Song. A Psalm of the Korahites. To the leader: according to Mahalath Leannoth. A Maskil of Heman the Ezrahite.>
1 O LORD, God of my salvation, when, at night, I cry out in your presence,
2 let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry.
3 For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol.
4 I am counted among those who go down to the Pit; I am like those who have no help,
5 like those forsaken among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand.
6 You have put me in the depths of the Pit, in the regions dark and deep.
7 Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah
8 You have caused my companions to shun me; you have made me a thing of horror to them. I am shut in so that I cannot escape;
9 my eye grows dim through sorrow. Every day I call on you, O LORD; I spread out my hands to you.
10 Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the shades rise up to praise you? Selah
11 Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, or your faithfulness in Abaddon?
12 Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your saving help in the land of forgetfulness?
13 But I, O LORD, cry out to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you.
14 O LORD, why do you cast me off? Why do you hide your face from me?
15 Wretched and close to death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors; I am desperate.
16 Your wrath has swept over me; your dread assaults destroy me.
17 They surround me like a flood all day long; from all sides they close in on me.
18 You have caused friend and neighbor to shun me; my companions are in darkness.
Psalms 88 and 89 stand together at the end of book three of the book of Psalms and take us into the darkest despair of the entire book. (Nancy de Claisse-Walford, 2014, p. 668) Both prayers are appeals for help that have no resolution within the psalm and while Psalm 89 is a prayer grieving the destruction of Judah and the loss of the promises to the line of David, Psalm 88 is the prayer of an individual who is either metaphorically or physically at the point where, “Death is so near and so real that it becomes the subject of the lament.” (Mays, 1994, p. 282) This is not the type of prayer that was taught in Sunday school, nor is this psalm used in the worship of most churches. Its vision of the world is darker than many churches are comfortable with but it also speaks honestly to the experience of deep darkness that many both inside and outside the church experience. The daring language of the psalm, which is willing to declare that God is responsible for their dire circumstance, turns on the head the vision of Psalm 56:4 or Romans 8:31 as it wonders, “if God is against me, who can be for me?” The psalmist’s words break forth from the dark night of the soul where their abandonment by God and their companions leaves only darkness to know them.
The psalm is attributed to Heman the Ezrahite. It is possible that the intent is to attribute the psalm to Heman who is listed as one of the wise men who Solomon surpasses in 1 Kings 4:31 or Heman the singer, one of the Kohathites appointed by David in 1 Chronicles 6:33. It is also possible that it is the same individual referred to in both 1 Kings and 1 Chronicles (singers/psalmists would be considered wise in Hebrew society) but it is also likely that the Heman referred to in the psalm is a different person unmentioned elsewhere in scripture. Regardless of the authorship of the psalm, it speaks in the brutally honest language of the Hebrew Scriptures that many contemporary Christians have little exposure to.
The psalm begins in a pious cry out to God, crying out to God for God’s attention to the prayers of the one dependent on God’s salvation. The prayer uses three different words for ‘crying out’ to God in verse 1, 9b and 13 (NIB IV: 1027) exhausting the language of prayer as they desperately seek an answer from the God who is both their only hope of salvation and the source of their troubles. The psalm begins with language that would is the traditional language of prayer learned in worship. Yet, once the prayer begins the dam holding back the psalmist’s words breaks and their desperation and abandonment cannot be contained. The pain of the psalmist rushes forth from the shattered walls of convention and flows into an irresistibly honest prayer that emerges from the space of death, darkness, and despair.
The stakes of this prayer are incredibly high for the psalmist. The very center of their life[1] is threatened. The psalmist deploys an incredible number of words for death: Sheol, the Pit, like the dead, slain, grave, those you remember no more, cut off from your hands, in the regions dark and deep, shades (Hebrew Rephaim), Abaddon, darkness, the land of forgetfulness. Almost every line has the presence of death within this prayer. This deployment is especially striking when compared to the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures which rarely talk about death and the afterlife. In verses three to five the mentions of death indicate the serious nature of the psalmist’s petitions but the jarring realization comes in verse six when the psalmist turns their invective to God and declares that God is the one responsible for the psalmist’s situation. God may be the psalmist’s salvation but God is also, in this psalm, the psalmist’s oppressor.
The psalmist girds up their loins and stands before God in accusation declaring that God has put them at death’s door, that God’s wrath is actively overwhelming the psalmist in waves, and God has caused the alienation of the psalmist from their companions. Many Christians are not familiar with this type of accusatory language directed at God and are surprised at the directness of this psalm or Jeremiah’s accusations of God.[2] As mentioned in my comments on Psalm 86 there is a relationship between the servant and their Lord, and here the servant boldly claims that their Lord has violated their relationship. Where the servant needed protection, their Lord has overwhelmed them with wrath. Where the servant looks for a compassionate answer, the answer[3] they receive is unbearable. The actions of God have alienated the servant from both God and their companions making them, like Job, one despised and one cursed by God.
The psalmist’s eyes growing dim is not a statement of eyesight, but indicates that their vitality is failing. Physically and mentally, they are dying and yet they continue to cry out to God. They cry out from a place of “abandonment and lostness…so great that it saturates the soul so there is room for nothing else.” (Nancy de Claisse-Walford, 2014, p. 671) But it is heartbreaking that for the psalmist it is God who has cast them into this space of darkness and death and then turns away from their cries. In a series of six rhetorical questions: Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the shades rise up to praise you? Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your saving help in the land of forgetfulness? Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, or your faithfulness in Abaddon? The answer to each of these rhetorical questions in the vision of the psalmist is no! As mentioned above the Hebrew scriptures rarely talk about death and the afterlife and there is no conception of heaven and hell as destinations for the people of God in the psalms. Psalm 88 deploys this shocking set of questions to the God of life to get their either unresponsive or oppressive God to relent and deliver their servant from death or the relationship will be broken and God will be the unfaithful one who broke it. In the Psalms when the concept of death, Sheol, the Pit, or Abaddon are mentioned it is assumed that there is no longer any communication between the deceased and God.[4] The only freedom this psalm offers the psalmist is the freedom of the dead where God either does not remember or has actively cut off God’s servant. (Nancy de Claisse-Walford, 2014, p. 671) Yet the psalmist cries out to their Lord as a servant desiring to continue to serve their God in the land of the living.
The psalmist cries out one final time in verse thirteen. Their prayers come before God and even boldly confront[5] God asking God to relent. God’s anger has left the psalmist in the space of darkness and death. There is no escape for the servant from the anxiety filled and deathly state of the servant’s life. There is no answer as the psalm reaches its final gasp, there is only the cry of the servant thrown “against a dark and terrifying void” (Nancy de Claisse-Walford, 2014, p. 669) The final word of the psalm is darkness.[6] The sad final phrase is obscured by the NRSV’s translation. The NIV’s “darkness is my closest friend” or Beth Tanner’s “only darkness knows me” (Nancy de Claisse-Walford, 2014, p. 670) better captures the isolation and abandonment that the psalm closes with. We may rebel against a psalm where death and darkness have the final word, but the book of Psalms reminds us that there are times where the faithful ones of God may find themselves in the God forsaken place where God seems silent, absent, or angry; where relationships prove themselves unfaithful, and where the agonizing prayer breaks forth to God from the death’s door where no light seems to be able to penetrate the darkness of the faithful one’s world.
Nobody would choose to walk into the place of depression and suffering where death and darkness seem to be their only companion, but even people of faith may find themselves in these spaces that appear devoid of God’s steadfast love and compassion. Depression can make the world feel like a place where darkness is the sufferer’s only companion and death may cry out to them. Even faithful people can suffer from bouts of depression so deep that suicide and death seem closer than God. God does not condemn these words of the psalmist as faithless, instead they are placed within the scriptures of God’s people. From a Christian perspective we may answer the rhetorical questions of Psalm 68 differently than the psalmist: from a Christian perspective, to quote Paul, “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” (Romans 14:8) Yet, this psalm invites us to walk into the swampland of the soul, pitch a tent, and get to know the lay of the land. It invites us to dwell in the God forsaken place of the crucifixion without immediately jumping forward to the surprise of the resurrection. Sometimes resurrection takes time, sometimes prayers end in darkness as they await a response from God, and sometimes faithful ones walk through the valley of the shadow of death. This uncomfortable psalm invites us into an honest relationship with God that demonstrates a confrontational or defiant calling upon God to act in compassion and love rather than abandonment or wrath. We may not like that darkness has the last word and we may want a happy ending to occur within eighteen verses, but sometimes we dwell in darkness and hope for a light which we cannot see but our faith longs for.
[1] The NRSV’s ‘soul’ in verse 3 is the Hebrew nephesh which occurs frequently in the psalms but the modern idea of ‘soul’ comes from Greek thought instead of Hebrew thought. The Hebrew nephesh is closer to ‘life itself’ or ‘the essence of life.’
[2] For example: Jeremiah 15: 17-18, 20: 7-10. Particularly in Jeremiah 20 our English translations often soften the shocking language or Jeremiah.
[3] The Hebrew word translated ‘waves’ also can means ‘answer.’
[4] See for example Psalm 6:5, Psalm 30:9. The contrary point will be argued by Psalm 139:8 where even if the psalmist makes their bed in Sheol, God is present there.
[5] The Hebrew verb qdm can mean either come before or confront.
[6] The final word of the psalm is the Hebrew hoshek (darkness).
Sign of the Rose 