Texts in Conversation
Joel and Zephaniah both describe the future Day of the Lord with language of alarm, darkness, and overwhelming terror, using nearly identical language to describe its nearness. This similarly suggests that one text may have drawn upon the other or that both reflect a common prophetic tradition.
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Joel 2:1
Hebrew Bible
1 Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm signal on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land shake with fear, for the day of the Lord is about to come. Indeed, it is near! 2 It will be a day of dreadful darkness, a day of foreboding storm clouds, like blackness spread over the mountains. It is a huge and powerful army—there has never been anything like it ever before, and there will not be anything like it for many generations to come! 3 Like fire they devour everything in their path; a flame blazes behind them. The land looks like the Garden of Eden before them, but behind them there is only a desolate wilderness—for nothing escapes them!
Date: 6th Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Zephaniah 1:14
Hebrew Bible
12 At that time I will search through Jerusalem with lamps. I will punish the people who are entrenched in their sin, those who think to themselves, ‘The Lord neither rewards nor punishes.’ 13 Their wealth will be stolen and their houses ruined! They will not live in the houses they have built, nor will they drink the wine from the vineyards they have planted. 14 The Lord’s great day of judgment is almost here; it is approaching very rapidly! There will be a bitter sound on the Lord’s day of judgment; at that time warriors will cry out in battle. 15 That day will be a day of God’s anger, a day of distress and hardship, a day of devastation and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and dark skies, 16 a day of trumpet blasts and battle cries. Judgment will fall on the fortified cities and the high corner towers.
Date: 6th Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... A distinctive characteristic of [Joel], its use of specific phrases from other canonical works, gives Joel the appearance of a learned interpreter. Where earlier prophets claim to have received their words directly from YHWH, Joel frequently "cites" predecessors. In some instances he probably draws on phrases in vogue at the time, but sometimes Joel may actually quote written texts ... (compare Joel 1:15 - Ezekiel 30:2; Joel 2:2 - Zephaniah 1:14-15; Joel 2:6 - Nahum 2:11; Joel 2:14 - Jonah 3:9; Joel 2:17 - Psalm 79:10; Joel 3:5 - Obadiah 17; Joel 4:1 - Jeremiah 33:15; Joel 4:2 - Isaiah 66:18) ... Establishing priority in such cases is notoriously difficult, and determining dates for insertions into older prophetic complexes seldom carries much conviction (e.g., Isaiah 13:6, 16; Amos 9:13). The texts under scrutiny do include some rather late postexilic entries, particularly Obadiah and Malachi ..."
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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