The third chapter of Joel condemns the nations for their practice of unchecked slavery. While slavery is a biblical manner of paying off debt, God makes it clear that this does not give the slave owner the right to mistreat his slaves. He must recognize that all slaves are actually owned by the God who created them. He owns what He creates, and so slave-owners are mere stewards.

Slavery throughout history has failed to recognize this, and so the laws of nations usually give slave-owners sexual rights over their slaves. But God’s law does not give anyone the right to sin. Neither does the law give slave-owners the right of life and death over their slaves.

Biblical slaves also retain the right to rest on the seventh day (Exodus 23:12). A slave also has the right to be free during a Sabbath year (Exodus 21:2). Of course, if he still owes debt that is to be paid, he must return the next year to continue working off that debt. He is only completely free if he either pays off the debt or if the Year of Jubilee occurs.

The Judgment of God

Joel condemns the nations for their ungodly practice of unlimited slavery. Hence, Joel 3:7, 8 says,

⁷ Behold, I am going to arouse them from the place where you have sold them, and return your recompense on your head. ⁸ Also I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the sons of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, to a distant nation, for I the Lord has spoken.

The judgment thus fits the crime. It is hard to know if this was actually fulfilled in Old Covenant times or if we must interpret it only in a New Covenant manner. But the basic principle is evident.

Under the New Covenant, Judah does not include those Jews who reject Jesus as the Messiah. Physical circumcision is no longer the mark of a genuine Jew (Judahite). Paul says in Rom. 2:28 says,

²⁸ For he is NOT a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh.

To be a member of the tribe or nation of Judah requires being in unity with the rightful King of Judah (Jesus). Those who rebel against Him are cut off from the root of the national tree. God will recognize them as Jews if they believe that Jesus is the Christ and submit to His authority.

Therefore, Joel’s end-time prophecy is to be interpreted in this light, even if men disagree. Joel thus prophesies of the day when unbelievers will be sold to the overcomers, who will “reign with Him for a thousand years” (Rev. 20:6).

The beast empires which have had dominion for a long time, and which have enslaved the world through unjust laws, will in turn be sold to the overcomers. This will not merely be a shift in oppressive masters. To be a slave to an overcomer will mean that the biblical laws of slavery will be in force. Oppression of slaves will not be tolerated.

The ultimate purpose of slavery is not to be served but to serve the best interests of the slaves. The reason for slavery is due to unpaid sin-debt. Slavery puts a master in a position of authority to show the slaves by example how to live a godly life. When a slave-master earns the respect of his slave, he will learn righteousness.

So Isaiah 26:9 says,

⁹ … For when the earth experiences Your judgments, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

An abused slave may be forced to submit to an unjust slave-owner’s religion, but his heart remains unchanged. It is only by the practice of lawful slavery that respect can be earned and, through the work of the Holy Spirit, hearts can be changed.

The Proclamation to the Nations

Joel 3:9 says,

⁹ Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare a war, rouse the mighty men! Let all the soldiers draw near, let them come up!

In other words, gather representatives of all nations to receive this proclamation from God. This is a spiritual proclamation, which the nations will obey ignorantly, thinking that it is their own idea and plan. God calls them into battle, not so that they may win the war but so that they may be judged.

Joel 3:10, 11 continues,

¹⁰ Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, “I am a mighty man.” ¹¹ Hasten and come, all you surrounding nations, and gather yourselves there. Bring down, O Lord, Your mighty ones.

We might recall a similar but opposite prophecy in Isaiah 2:4, which says,

⁴ And He will judge between the nations and will render decisions for many peoples; and they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war.

Whereas Joel calls the nations to judgment, Isaiah tells us the judgment itself—God’s intended goal. If Joel’s prophecy were to be read by itself, one would think only in terms of destruction and bloodshed. But Isaiah gives us the second half of the prophecy.

Isaiah 2:2, 3 tells us more:

² Now it will come about that in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills, and all the nations will stream to it. ³ And many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that He may teach us concerning His ways and that we may walk in His paths.” For the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from [New] Jerusalem.

Although the prophecy is couched in Old Covenant language, the positive result is clearly seen. These nations are not coming to be destroyed but to learn the ways of God. In their blindness, the nations believe that they are making war, not realizing that they are actually fighting God. Yet once they meet God face to face and are enlightened by the truth of His word and His nature, they will all want to know the laws of God, which are “holy and righteous and good” (Rom. 7:12). God’s law is an expression of His righteous nature, and creation itself is destined to conform to that standard of righteousness.

But how? By punishing them? By killing them? No, by opening their eyes to the truth of who God is and to see Jesus as “the radiation of His glory and the exact representation of His nature” (Heb. 1:3).

How often I have heard Christians complain that the law of God is oppressive and burdensome. While many rituals and cleansing ceremonies are indeed burdensome, these were but teaching tools to teach us about true cleansing and the true Sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Nonetheless, theft is still sin, murder is still sin, and covetousness is still idolatry.

Furthermore, the entire law hangs on the two great Commandments to love God and one’s neighbor. Every law of God is rooted in love. This includes all the judgments of God, which are designed not to destroy but to teach His ways.

1 John 5:3 says,

³ For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.

Jesus’ commandments are not different from the law of God. He emphasized love because God is love and His law, when understood properly, is an expression of love. If we love God, we will not worship false gods. If we love our neighbor as ourselves, we will not steal, murder, or covet.

Even the death penalty itself will be reversed by the resurrection of the dead so that each case can be adjudicated by the Judge who is capable of handling it with love. It is not that judgment will be set aside but that judgment will be remedial and corrective. At the White Throne judgment, every knee will bow, and every tongue will profess Christ. That will be a new beginning for most of humanity, and this will be followed by an age during which those new believers will grow spiritually and come to know God fully.

These are the ones who will benefit from the Jubilee that will be proclaimed at the end of time. By this time, all will have justifying faith, and the Holy Spirit will have had time to instill righteousness in their hearts.

The Divine Sickle

Joel 3:12, 13 says,

¹² Let the nations be aroused and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations. ¹³ Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, tread, for the wine press is full; the vats overflow, for their wickedness is great.

Just as there is a time to plant and a time to harvest, so also are there spiritual seasons. We may “sow” the word of God in fields that are either fertile or not, and likewise there is a time of “harvest” when the results of the growing season are brought into the storehouse.

This farming metaphor is often used in Scripture, where the “harvest” is pictured in terms of the final judgment. In this case Joel prophesies of the judgment of nations after God summons them to the divine court.

From other Bible passages, we see that there is a judgment at the end of the present age, wherein the living are judged by war; and there is a greater judgment at the end of the thousand years, wherein the dead are judged as well (Rev. 20:11, 12). The “harvest” principle remains the same in either case, but the scope of judgment differs. Joel seems to focus upon the lesser of the two judgments described in Rev. 14:14-20,

¹⁴ Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and sitting on the cloud was one like a son of man, having a golden crown on His head and a sharp sickle in His hand. ¹⁵ And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him that sat on the cloud, “Put in your sickle and reap, for the hour to reap has come, because the harvest of the earth is ripe.” ¹⁶ Then he who sat on the cloud swung His sickle over the earth, and the earth was reaped.

God’s judgments are inevitable, but not immediate. There is a principle of waiting until the cup of iniquity is full (Gen. 15:16 KJV). Our merciful God gives men and nations time to repent, even when it is clear that they will not do so. We see this, for example, in the case of Cursed Time, cycles of 414 years in history, which give nations time to repent and thereby avoid judgment. (See Secrets of Time.)

414 years is a long time to wait. For this reason many become impatient and wonder why God does not put a stop to such “iniquity” sooner. Yet it is not for us to judge the ways of God, for the whole earth is subject to His plan.

Joel’s prophecy is about events at the end of the age, when Jerusalem will be destroyed “even as one breaks a potter’s vessel which cannot again be repaired” (Jer. 19:11). Yet at the same time, surrounding nations too will be judged, as Joel tells us. Joel’s information is far from complete, but other prophets like Jeremiah fill in the gaps to give us a more complete picture.

John gives even greater details in Rev. 14:17-20,

¹⁷ And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, and he also had a sharp sickle. ¹⁸ Then another angel, the one who has power over fire, came out from the altar, and he called with a loud voice to them who had the sharp sickle, saying, “Put in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, because her grapes are ripe. ¹⁹ So the angel swung his sickle to the earth and gathered the clusters from the vine of the earth and threw them into the wine press of the wrath of God. ²⁰ And the wine press was trodden outside the city, and blood came out from the wine press, up to the horses’ bridles, for a distance of two hundred miles.

It appears that there are three angels involved in this harvest, two of them bearing sickles. Does this indicate more than one battle or war? Each seems to have a different calling and purpose. One is the angel of “fire,” which, in the modern context, may indicate nuclear fire.

John’s metaphor was probably drawn from the book of Joel. But who harvests grapes with a sickle?? Perhaps this suggests that these grapes are too sour to be of use. We see this in Isaiah 5:2 in the Song of the Vineyard, “then he expected it to produce good grapes, but it produced only worthless ones.”

Because the earthly Jerusalem produced only sour grapes, God’s verdict was given in Isaiah 5:6, “I will lay it waste.” Jesus alluded to Isaiah’s Song of the Vineyard in His condemnation of the earthly Jerusalem (Luke 20:9-16). Hence, John speaks of the wine press as being located “outside the city” of Jerusalem. Joel suggests that God’s court is set up in the valley of Jehoshaphat, because the name means “Jehovah has judged.”

Many believe that there will be a final battle in the literal valley of Jehoshaphat. I think they take this too literally, but the point is that God will judge the nations on account of the dispute over the earthly Jerusalem. That dispute today is reaching a crescendo and, I believe, will be judged by God. Isaiah 29:5, 6 indicates that no one will get the land, probably due to nuclear fallout described in the earlier verses. This will mark the point where the bondwoman in Gal. 4:25 will be “cast out” (Gal. 4:30) so that the true inheritors of the Kingdom may enter their calling.

The Valley of Decision

Joel 3:14 says,

¹⁴ Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.

The Hebrew word translated “decision” is khawroots, “threshing.” The word is used again in Isaiah 41:15, where it is translated “threshing sledge” in the NASB. To thresh is to judge. Hence, it is the same as Jehoshaphat.

Joel 3:15-17 continues,

¹⁵ The sun and moon grow dark and the stars lose their brightness. ¹⁶ The Lord roars from Zion and utters His voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth tremble. But the Lord is a refuge for His people and a stronghold to the sons of Israel. ¹⁷ Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Zion, My holy mountain. So Jerusalem will be holy, and strangers will pass through it no more.

As with all other OT prophets, Joel does not distinguish between the two Jerusalems. In that He is judging the nations, including the earthly Jerusalem, He roars from the New Jerusalem.

Zion was the seat of government in the earthly Jerusalem, but after Jesus was transfigured on Mount Sion (or Hermon, Deut. 4:48), Sion became the new seat of government for transfigured overcomers at the end of the age. Heb. 12:22 KJV says that we gather to rally around Christ at Mount Sion, not at Jerusalem which is Mount Sinai in Arabia (Gal. 4:24, 25).

This is one of the changes that God made as we moved from the Old Covenant to the New. It is for this reason also that Heb. 13:12-14 concludes with an instruction to leave the old city in favor of a better altar and covenant.

¹² Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate; ¹³ So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. ¹⁴ For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.

Believers in Christ seek the same city that Abraham sought, a “city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10).

Judah Blessed

Joel 3:18 says,

¹⁸ And in that day the mountains will drip with sweet wine, and the hills will flow with milk, and all the brooks of Judah will flow with water; and a spring will go out from the house of the Lord to water the valley of Shittim.

This is a poetic way of saying that Judah will be blessed with prosperity and an abundance of rain. The “sweet wine” contrasts with the sour grapes that were cast into the wine press of divine judgment. The hills will not literally flow with milk, but this pictures an abundance of wealth.

The lean years caused by the spiritual locusts will be replaced, as it were, by green hills supporting many flocks and herds. The rain and brooks are metaphors for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Joel 2:28, 29).

We must also note that Judah refers to those who praise God, because Judah means praise. Paul tells us in Rom. 2:28, 29 that those who truly praise God are not those who are circumcised outwardly (or physically), but those whose heart is circumcised. Circumcision is an Old Covenant sign. Heart circumcision, prophesied by Moses himself, is the sign of the New Covenant.

Therefore, Joel’s prophecy of blessings on Judah must be interpreted in the light of the New Covenant.

Egypt and Edom

Joel 3:19 says,

¹⁹ Egypt will become a waste, and Edom will become a desolate wilderness, because of the violence done to the sons of Judah, in whose land they have shed innocent blood.

“Egypt” here is a metaphor for slavery. The actual land of Egypt will be blessed, along with Syria, as we read in Isaiah 19:24, 25,

²⁴ In that day Israel will be the third party with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, ²⁵ whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed is Egypt, My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance.”

Israelites do not hold a monopoly on being God’s people. Egypt, too, will be God’s people, as well as all those who turn to Him.

As for Edom, other prophecies show that Edom will be judged for its bloodthirsty nature and for mistreating the true Judahites who praise God through the New Covenant. Joel 3:20, 21 concludes the prophecies in this book:

²⁰ But Judah [land of praisers] will be inhabited forever, and [New] Jerusalem for all generations. ²¹ And I will avenge their blood which I have not avenged, for the Lord dwells in Zion [now Sion].