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About this book

Joel

About this book
Chapter 3

1 “For look! In those days and at that time I will return the exiles to Judah and Jerusalem. 2 Then I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. I will enter into judgment against them there concerning my people Israel who are my inheritance, whom they scattered among the nations.⁠ They partitioned my land, 3 and they cast lots for my people.⁠ They traded a boy for a prostitute; they sold a little girl for wine so they could drink. 4 Why are you doing these things to me, Tyre and Sidon? Are you trying to get even with me, land of Philistia? If you are, I will very quickly repay you for what you have done! 5 For you took my silver and my gold and brought my precious valuables to your own palaces. 6 You sold Judeans and Jerusalemites to the Greeks, removing them far from their own country. 7 Look! I am rousing them from that place to which you sold them. I will repay you for what you have done! 8 I will sell your sons and daughters to the people of Judah. They will sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far away.” Indeed, the Lord has spoken. 9 Proclaim this among the nations: “Prepare for a holy war! Call out the warriors! Let all these fighting men approach and attack! 10 Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, ‘I too am a warrior!’⁠ 11 Lend your aid and come, all you surrounding nations, and gather yourselves to that place.” Bring down, O Lord, your warriors! 12 “Let the nations be roused and let them go up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will sit in judgment on all the surrounding nations.⁠ 13 Rush forth with the sickle, for the harvest is ripe! Come, stomp the grapes, for the winepress is full! The vats overflow. Indeed, their evil is great!”⁠ 14 Crowds, great crowds are in the Valley of Decision, for the day of the Lord is near in the Valley of Decision! 15 The sun and moon are darkened; the stars withhold their brightness. 16 The Lord roars from Zion; from Jerusalem his voice bellows out.⁠ The heavens and the earth shake.⁠ But the Lord is a refuge for his people; he is a stronghold for the citizens of Israel.⁠ 17 “You will be convinced that I, the Lord, am your God, dwelling on Zion, my holy mountain. Jerusalem will be holy— conquering armies will no longer pass through it. 18 On that day the mountains will drip with sweet wine,⁠ and the hills will flow with milk. All the dry stream beds of Judah will flow with water. A spring will flow out from the temple of the Lord, watering the Valley of Acacia Trees.⁠ 19 Egypt will be desolate,⁠ and Edom will be a desolate wilderness because of the violence they did to the people of Judah, in whose land they shed innocent blood. 20 But Judah will reside securely forever, and Jerusalem will be secure from one generation to the next. 21 I will avenge their blood that I had not previously acquitted.” It is the Lord who dwells in Zion!

Texts in conversation

Compare Isaiah 2:4 and Joel 3:10

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Isaiah depicts a peaceful future where the nations resolve conflicts through divine judgment and transform their weapons into farm tools, symbolizing lasting peace. Joel reverses this, calling for these tools to be reforged into weapons as war comes.

Passages

Isaiah 2:4

Hebrew Bible
2 In future days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will endure as the most important of mountains and will be the most prominent of hills. All the nations will stream to it; 3 many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the temple of the God of Jacob, so he can teach us his requirements, and we can follow his standards.” For Zion will be the center for moral instruction; the Lord’s message will issue from Jerusalem. 4 He will judge disputes between nations; he will settle cases for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations will not take up the sword against other nations, and they will no longer train for war. 5 O descendants of Jacob, come, let us walk in the Lord’s guiding light. 6 Indeed, O Lord, you have abandoned your people, the descendants of Jacob. For diviners from the east are everywhere; they consult omen readers like the Philistines do. Plenty of foreigners are around.
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

Joel 3:10

Hebrew Bible
8 I will sell your sons and daughters to the people of Judah. They will sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far away.” Indeed, the Lord has spoken. 9 Proclaim this among the nations: “Prepare for a holy war! Call out the warriors! Let all these fighting men approach and attack! 10 Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, ‘I too am a warrior!’ 11 Lend your aid and come, all you surrounding nations, and gather yourselves to that place.” Bring down, O Lord, your warriors! 12 “Let the nations be roused and let them go up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will sit in judgment on all the surrounding nations.
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Joel

References

"... the oracle against Judah in Amos 2:4–5 focuses on breaches of law and statutes, unlike the one against Israel (2:6–16) which refers to social injustice and oppression of the poor which are major themes throughout the book. This may indicate that Amos’s words were redirected against Judah after the fall of the northern kingdom and Amos 9:11–15, which ends with words very similar to the vocabulary of Jeremiah 1:10, is best understood as having been added when the prophecy was reinterpreted during the Babylonian exile. Some commentators argue that Zechariah 13:2–6 is a reworking, in part, of Amos 7:10–17, which in turn may be linked with stories of an encounter between a prophet and priest at Bethel in 1 Kings 13. Another sign of development is the reversal of the oracle in Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3 about future international peace in Joel 3:10 (4:10 in MT) who proclaims that ploughshares are to be turned back into swords and pruning hooks into spears; although it isn’t clear in which direction the influence has occurred. Other factors may have contributed to the shape of the collection such as verbal links between neighbouring books: ‘The Lord roars from Zion’ in the final oracle of Joel and again in the first in Amos 1:2 ..."
Janet E. Tollington, “Prophecy,” in The Biblical World, ed. Katharine J. Dell, 2nd ed., Routledge Worlds (Abingdon: Routledge, 2022), 137–150.

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Isaiah 2:4 and Joel 3:10

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