Jerusalem's fall starts with a plague of locusts
A SCEPTICAL BIBLE READING OF THE BOOK OF JOEL
Chapter One
The second of the 12 minor prophets focuses on the fall of Jerusalem.
Joel starts off on a grim note with a vision of a plague of locusts in Jerusalem.
Initially this is described in a realistic way with the emphasis on the effects
such a natural disaster might be expected to have, especially on agriculture
and the harvests. Food and grain are wiped out, as are the vineyards. It’s a
safe bet as prophesy goes as locust plagues were and still are not unknown in
the world. It was always going to be a matter of time before a locust swarm
attacked the lands around Jerusalem.
Joel implores the faithful to heed the signal as a warning from God, and
wear only sackcloth and to fast easily done given that there won’t be much left
to eat anyway). He may of course mean for the people to take to sackcloth now,
and stay that way for life to keep the locusts from every coming.
The lands are going to be laid waste, and there will be a terrible drought.
The people are advised to repent.
Chapter Two
Not content with locusts sweeping through Jerusalem like a raging forest
fire or wild stampeding horses, Joel throws in an earthquake now and warns of
the mass panic this will cause among the people (hardly surprising that latter
bit). Like many such doom-laden prophecies, Joel presents a sweeping
generalized bad weather forecast.
This calamity will pass though, which must be seen as a relief to all. The
people will find their faith restored from the fear induced by the disaster
movie scenarios they have lived through. The famous line “Your old men shall
dream dreams. Your young men will see visions,” (verse 28) follows. This means
that while the older generation will sleep soundly in their beds the young will
grow up and go on to se terrible sights of their own. Joel actually has a
vision of the visions the next generation of people in Jerusalem will see –
including a Gibbous blood red moon and the Sun blackened out (a solar
eclipse?). Even this isn’t the event itself of course, just a vision of it,
though the insinuation is of a vision coming true quite soon after it has been
seen. In such vision-literature past, present and future blur into one another,
giving the terrifying imagery a real sense of immediacy.
Chapter Three
The various races that have ever imprisoned, enslaved or persecuted the
children of Israel are to be punished by God, in effect extending the vision
beyond Jerusalem at a stroke. The accursed nations will be destroyed. The
children of Israel and Jerusalem will experience liberation at last. Egypt and
Edom are named as examples of the cities guaranteed destruction.
The peoples of the World are then to make their way to the valleys of
Jerusalem where God will pass direct judgement upon them. This will in effect
be the end of all things. Quite what will impel the peoples to travel to
Jerusalem is not stated.
This is rather a different apocalypse to that given in the New Testament
Revelation. In Joel, the Hebrew are spared the great persecution of the
Heathens that is the Judgment and God measures other races and individuals
according to how they treated his chosen people. In the Christian end of the
World, we are all wiped out and subjected to individual judgment, though a
select 144,000 will be allowed to live through the destruction. More on that
when I review revelation.
Arthur Chappell .
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