Joel is a short book of three chapters, but it covers human history from 606 B.C. to the millennium. A major revelation in Joel is that God has raised up four empires symbolized by four kinds of locusts, beginning with Babylon and continuing with Medo-Persia, Greece, and the Roman Empire, to devastate the one small nation of Israel, God’s elect. Today this devastation is still going on. Along the way, while such a history was proceeding, God poured out Himself as the incarnated, crucified, resurrected, and ascended One, the processed and consummated Triune God as the Spirit, upon the believers of Christ. That outpouring produced the church and began the age of mystery. Everything concerning the church is a mystery, and this mystery is the manifestation of Christ. Now we are here in the church doing things in a mysterious way to usher in the final appearing of Christ to bring in the age of restoration, the thousand-year kingdom, which is the prelude to the new heaven and the new earth with the New Jerusalem. This is the revelation in the book of Joel.
Let us now go on to consider further the content of Joel in 2:12—3:21. In this portion we have the turn of Jehovah to His elect, Israel (2:12-32), the judgment of Christ upon the nations (3:1-15), and the victory of Christ with His overcomers over the nations and His reign among Israel in the age of restoration (3:9-13, 16-21).
Jehovah wanted His elect to turn to Him. Verses 12 through 17 of chapter two reveal in what way they should return to their God.
Jehovah wanted His elect to turn to Him with all their heart (v. 12a).
He wanted them to turn to Him also with fasting, weeping, and mourning (v. 12b).
In returning to their God, Jehovah’s elect should rend their hearts and not their garments (v. 13). They should do this so that God would turn, repent, and leave a blessing behind Him—a meal offering and a drink offering (v. 14).
The meal offering and the drink offering are blessings to Israel. When Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and the temple, Israel lost the place appointed by God where they could offer their offerings to God (Deut. 12:5-6). Also, God’s army of locusts destroyed the produce of the land, leaving no grain to make a meal offering and no grapes to make wine for the drink offering. Thus, Israel lost both the ground and the materials to offer the meal offering to feed God and the drink offering to cheer God. Today both God and Israel are still suffering the loss of this blessing.
In Joel 2:15a Jehovah says, “Blow a trumpet in Zion.” To blow a trumpet is to make a declaration in a triumphant spirit.
Verse 15b goes on to say, “Sanctify a fast.” This fast was not to be common; rather, it was to be sanctified, separated for God.
Jehovah also wanted His elect to call a solemn assembly: gathering the people, assembling the elders, and letting the bridegroom go forth from his chamber and the bride from her canopy (vv. 15c-16). Such an assembly is a great blessing, something that should not be missed.
Verse 17 says, “Let the priests, the ministers of Jehovah, / Weep between the porch and the altar, / And let them say, / Look with pity, O Jehovah, upon Your people; / And do not give Your inheritance over to reproach, / That the nations should rule over them. / Why should they say among the nations, / Where is their God?” The porch and the altar were outside the temple, and between the porch and the altar the priests were to weep for Israel’s having lost the blessing. Nevertheless, the people, having been brought back to God, had the ground to enjoy the blessing. They had the altar, ordained by God, where they could offer what God desired for His satisfaction.