Joel was one of the prophets. The time of his ministry was about 800 B.C., probably after the prophet Elisha and during the early reign of King Joash. The book of Joel contains prophecies related mainly to the kingdom of Judah. The scope covered in these prophecies is very broad—from the time of Joel the prophet to the end of the age. Most of these prophecies have an initial and partial fulfillment as well as a further and complete fulfillment.
Joel 1:2-3 shows the seriousness of Joel’s prophecies. God asked the elders among the people of Israel to hear this message, and He asked all the inhabitants of the land to give heed to it. They were to tell their children about it, their children were to tell their children, and those children were to tell the next generation. The message was that “what the cutting locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; / And what the swarming locust has left, the licking locust has eaten; / And what the licking locust has left, the consuming locust has eaten” (v. 4). God caused an unprecedented plague of locusts to come to the land of Judah. The suffering of God’s children from the plague of locusts was God’s chastising them. Both Moses and Solomon had prophesied concerning this (Deut. 28:38; 1 Kings 8:37), but the people of Israel did not pay attention to these prophecies. Therefore, God prophesied once again through Joel the prophet concerning what was about to take place. God had caused a plague of locusts to come upon the land of Egypt because of its transgressions. That story was told among God’s people through the generations. Now, because of Israel’s transgressions, God caused a plague of locusts to come upon the good land. Hence, He charged the people to recount this story to their children so that they would fear God and keep themselves away from evil matters throughout their generations.
The plague of locusts in the book of Joel also indicates that God would cause countless Gentile invaders to swarm into the land of Israel group by group like locusts. In Joel 1:4 four words are used to describe the locust, probably referring to one kind of locust in various stages of growth. The four stages of this one kind of locust refer to the four consecutive empires that devastated Israel: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. These four empires correspond to the four sections of the great human image in Daniel 2:31-33, to the four beasts in Daniel 7:2-8 (cf. Rev. 13:2a), and to the four horns in Zechariah 1:18-21. Throughout the entire human history, these four empires have always been the center in God’s dealing with Israel. Joel prophesied that a nation would come up against the land of Jehovah, devour the people, and make the land a desolation (Joel 1:6-7; 2:2-3). The four empires that destroyed the land of Jehovah encompass the period from Nebuchadnezzar, the first king of the Babylonian Empire who began to devastate the children of Israel, to the last Caesar (Antichrist) of the Roman Empire (Dan. 8:3-14; 11:2-45; Rev. 13:1-18; 17:11-14; 19:19-21). Until today, this devastating from the nations is still happening to God’s chosen people, the nation of Israel.
Joel, on one hand, declared and prophesied the judgment of God and, on the other hand, declared that if Israel would turn to Jehovah with all her heart and have a thorough confession, God would send forth His blessings and would bless His land with rich produce, recovering the rains, the early rain and the late rain at the beginning of the season. He would also cause the wine vats and the oil vats to overflow with new wine and fresh oil and would restore to them what the locusts have eaten. Finally, God would remove far from them the great army sent among them, that is, the cutting locust, the swarming locust, the licking locust, and the consuming locust (Joel 2:19-27).
On the spiritual side, Joel prophesied that God would pour out His Spirit upon Israel (vv. 28-29). This prophecy was fulfilled as a foretaste on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4, 16-21), and it will be fulfilled as a full taste before the great tribulation at the sounding of the fifth trumpet, for the salvation and regeneration of many of the returned Israelites (Joel 2:30-32; Rev. 8:13—9:11). At the end of the great tribulation, the Spirit will be poured out again for the salvation of the remnant of the Jews who will be under Antichrist’s besieging (Zech. 12:10). These three outpourings of the Spirit work together for God’s salvation of Israel.