Justin Houtz

Joel

DateVersionReading Plan
@November 8, 2023ESV (2016)ESV Prophets Plan 2023

Pericopes

  • The Lord Judges the Nations
  • The Glorious Future of Judah

Application

God will gather all nations and enter into judgment with them for scattering His people and dividing His land. He will stir His people from the place they had been sold (Tyre, Sidon and all the regions of Philistia) and return the payment on their own head. God calls for battle preparation as the nations will fight against Him in the Valley of Jehoshaphat (the valley of decision). The blood of God’s people will be avenged and He will bless Jerusalem with deliverance. God’s people shall know that He is LORD and “Judah shall be inhabited forever and Jerusalem to all generations” (Joel 3:21).

In the Believer’s Bible Commentary, there is a quote by Herbert F. Stevenson that captures well the chapter’s theme of divine judgment and the Day of the Lord:

Men dismiss the Biblical teaching concerning judgment to come, for individuals and nations, as a now outmoded concept. But the people of God have held fast through all the generations to the assurance that, in the “day of the Lord,” the Judge of all the earth will do right. That is our confidence, based upon the rock of Holy Scripture.

As time passes and we become engrossed in our daily lives, the more we can forget (or even deny) that history is moving toward something; that there is a glorious end to all of this. God has “fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30). While we may not know the day, the certainty of its coming should be held without question. This day is one God’s children are not to anticipate in dread but joyful expectation, resting on the promise that it will bring complete restoration, allowing those whom He has called to be hungry for its arrival.

Scripture Journal Notes

Commentaries & Resources Used