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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 Joel 3:13 and Revelation 14:18

Hebrew Bible · New Testament

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Summary

Joel uses agricultural language to describe future judgment, calling for a sickle to gather the harvest and a wine press to crush overflowing grapes. Revelation echoes this, describing angels sent to harvest and crush the grapes in the wine press.

Passages

Joel 3:13

Hebrew Bible
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.
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Joel

Revelation 14:18

New Testament
14 Then I looked, and a white cloud appeared, and seated on the cloud was one like a son of man! He had a golden crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. 15 Then another angel came out of the temple, shouting in a loud voice to the one seated on the cloud, “Use your sickle and start to reap, because the time to reap has come, since the earth’s harvest is ripe!” 16 So the one seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was reaped. 17 Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he, too, had a sharp sickle. 18 Another angel, who was in charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to the angel who had the sharp sickle, “Use your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes off the vine of the earth, because its grapes are now ripe.” 19 So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and gathered the grapes from the vineyard of the earth and tossed them into the great winepress of the wrath of God. 20 Then the winepress was stomped outside the city, and blood poured out of the winepress up to the height of horses’ bridles for a distance of almost 200 miles.
92–96 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Revelation

References

"... The phrase πέμψον τὸ δρέπανόν σου, “send your sickle,” repeated with some variation in v 18—πέμψον σου τὸ δρέπανον τὸ ὀξύ, “send your sharp sickle”—is an allusion to Joel 3:13 ... While it is not immediately evident why the two commands in Joel 4:13 (“Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe” and “Go in, tread, for the wine press is full”) are transformed into commands from one angelic being to another here in vv 15 and 18, the answer may lie in the traditional Jewish exegesis of this passage found in the Midrash of Psalm 8 ... In this midrash, God commands angels to harvest and to tread the winepress, while in Rev 14:14–20, some angels command other angels to perform tasks that are metaphors for divine judgment. The role of angels as reapers is explicitly stated in the Matthaean interpretation of the parable of the sower in Matt 13:39, οἱ δὲ θερισταὶ ἄγγελοί εἰσιν, “And the reapers are angels”. In Mark 13:26–27 = Matt 24:30–31, the returning Son of man sends his angels to gather the elect from all parts of the world, and this older logion is probably the source of Matthew 13:39. In Jewish tradition, however, there are angels of punishment, as in Revelation 9:15, who are agents of God in punishing and destroying humans ..."
Hulisani Ramantswana, “Day Two of Creation: Why Is the Rāqîaʿ (Firmament) Not Pronounced Good?” JSem 22.1 (2013): 991–992.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Joel 3:13 and Revelation 14:18

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