Joel 2:12 - Meaning and Application

Here is a strong call to repentance, drawn from the ruin and judgment described before: “So now, turn back to the Lord.” God had sent this judgment for a purpose, to expose sin, humble the people, and bring them back to himself. He uses hard things to wake us up, so he can restore us to himself.

This call also gives hope that repentance may slow or even stop the judgment from getting worse. The people are told to respond personally, with each family and each person taking part in the sorrow and prayer. Since all had shared in the guilt, each person must also share in the turning back to God. If each one mends his own ways and grieves for his own sin, then the whole community may be helped.

The first thing this teaches us about repentance is that we must be truly humbled over our sins. We should be sorry that we have offended God, and ashamed that we have harmed ourselves by sin, both in our thinking and in our best interests. There should be outward signs of grief, such as fasting, weeping, and mourning, but those signs mean little if the heart is unchanged.

That is why the command follows, “Rend your heart and not your garments.” In that time, tearing clothes was a common sign of deep sorrow, and that could be fitting. But the point is that outward display is not enough. God wants the inward change, a broken and humble heart, and that is what he will not despise (Psalm 51:17). When sin cuts us to the heart, makes us hate it, and stirs us to turn from it for good, then we are truly repenting.

Repentance also means turning back to God himself. “Turn even to me,” the Lord says, and again, “Turn to the Lord your God.” Our fasting and tears mean nothing if they do not lead us back to him. We must come to see that it is both our duty and our good to stay near to him, and then, with firm purpose, make his glory our aim, his will our rule, and his favor our greatest joy.

The people are urged to do this by thinking about what kind of God he is. He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and full of great kindness. He does not take pleasure in sinners dying, but wants them to turn and live. These words echo God’s own name revealed to Moses, when he showed his goodness and glory (Exodus 34:6-7). When the sinner’s heart changes, God’s dealings with that sinner change too, and the sentence of judgment is lifted.

This is true, sincere repentance, the kind that comes from trusting God’s mercy even after we have sinned. We have not reached real repentance if we think God’s goodness gives us permission to keep sinning. In truth, his goodness should move us most strongly to turn back. The hope of mercy is what draws sinners home, while a threat alone only drives them away.

There is also reason to hope that God will return and show mercy after repentance. The people had lost the good they should have had because of sin, but they are encouraged to seek it again through turning back to the Lord. The question, “Who knows if he will?” is meant to humble them and stir them to earnest repentance. It fits a request for relief from a temporary judgment, since we cannot be as certain about removing such trouble as we can be about God’s general mercy.

Still, there is every reason to repent. If we truly turn from our sins, God will forgive us and be reconciled to us. Whether he will also remove a particular hardship is in his hands, but his mercy gives us real hope. That is why the Ninevites repented when they heard a similar hope of mercy (Jonah 3:9).

They hope that God will return, turn from his judgment, and leave a blessing behind him. This does not mean they are content with any gift in place of his presence. It means, “After he has ended his dispute with us, he will give us blessing.” And what blessing do they mean? They mean grain offerings and drink offerings to the Lord our God.

The fruits of the earth are called a blessing (Isaiah 45:8) because they depend on God’s blessing and are needed blessings for us. They had been deprived of these gifts, and what grieved them most was that God’s altar had no offerings and God’s priests had no support. So the comfort they look for in the return of plenty is not mainly full tables at home. It is the sight of grain offerings and drink offerings brought in abundance to God’s altar.

They value that more than they value ordinary abundance for themselves. In the same way, when Hezekiah hoped to recover from his sickness, he asked for the sign that he would go up, not to a throne of judgment or to the council chamber, but to the house of the Lord (Isaiah 38:22). The best sign of a nation’s prosperity is the full and right use of God’s ordinances, that is, his appointed acts of worship, in their power and purity. If God gives the blessing of grain and drink offerings, he will also bring other blessings with them, and he will make those blessings useful, sweet, and safe.

They are also called here to a public, national repentance, carried out in a solemn assembly. It is to be a national act, for God’s glory, for stirring one another up, and so that the surrounding nations may see what has made them fit for God’s merciful return. We can see here how the people were to be gathered.

The trumpet had been blown before to sound an alarm of war (Joel 2:1). Now it must be blown to call for peace. God is willing to show mercy to his people if he finds them ready to receive it. So they are told, gather them together and set apart a fast. Under the law, many yearly feasts were appointed, but only one day each year was set apart as a fast, the Day of Atonement, a day to humble the soul. If they had stayed close to God and their duty, no more would have been needed. But now that their sins have brought God’s judgments on them, they are often called to fast.

What was said in Joel 1:14 is repeated here. They must call a solemn assembly and gather the people, pressing them to come together for this purpose. They must set apart the congregation, appoint a time for careful preparation ahead of time, and remind the people to prepare themselves. The greatest must not be excused, so the elders, judges, and magistrates must be assembled. The smallest must not be left out, so the children, even those still nursing, must be gathered too.

It is good to bring little children, as soon as they can understand anything, to religious meetings, so they can be trained early in the right way. But here even nursing infants were brought and kept fasting, so that their cries for milk might move the parents to repent. God could justly bring such trouble on their children, so that the tongue of the nursing child would stick to the roof of its mouth (Lamentations 4:4). Yet God might also have compassion on them, as he had on the infants of Nineveh (Jonah 4:11).

Even newly married people were not to be excused. “Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber.” They were not to act with their usual ease, put on their ornaments, or enjoy themselves in their normal way. Instead, they were to join the public fast with as much seriousness and sorrow as anyone else. Private joy must always give way to public sorrow, whether the sorrow is because of trouble or because of sin.

We also see how the day’s work was to be carried out (Joel 2:17). The priests, the Lord’s ministers, were to lead the assembly. They were to speak for God to the people and for the people to God. Who better to stand in the gap and turn away God’s wrath than those whose regular work was to plead for others?

They were to minister between the porch and the altar. That was where they normally attended to the sacrifices. Now, since they had no sacrifices, or almost none, to offer, they were to offer spiritual sacrifices there. The people were to see them weeping and wrestling in prayer, like Jacob their ancestor, and so be helped into the same prayerful spirit. Ministers must themselves feel deeply the things they want to move others with. It was between the porch and the altar that Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, was killed because he was faithful. God would require that precious blood from them, and so they must weep there to turn away the threatened judgment.

They must also pray. The words are given to them here, though they could enlarge on them in their own prayers. Their request must be, “Spare your people, Lord.” When God’s people are in distress, they can hope for relief from God’s mercy, not from any claim against his justice. They cannot properly say, “Lord, give us what we deserve,” but rather, “Lord, spare us.” We deserve the correction, and we need it, but we ask him to make it lighter. The sinner’s prayer is, “Spare us, good Lord.”

Their appeal must rest on the relation they have to God. “They are your people and your heritage, so have compassion on them.” But it must rest especially on God’s honor in their trouble. “Lord, do not give your heritage over to shame, to the shame of famine. Do not let the land of Canaan, long known as the glory of all lands, become the scorn of all lands. Do not let the heathen rule over them, as they easily will if your heritage is too poor to survive. Do not let the heathen make them a saying or a taunt.” It is a blessing, and one worth praying for, that a nation keeps its good name among its neighbors.

But the shame that falls on the church is most serious when it reflects on God himself. “Do not let them say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’” That is the God who promised to help them, the God they have boasted in and trusted so much. If God’s heritage is destroyed, the neighbors will say either that God was too weak to help them or that he was unwilling. This is like the taunt in Deuteronomy 32:37, “Where are their gods now?” Sennacherib also mocked them in this way, saying, “Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad?” But it must never be allowed that they say of Israel, “Where is their God?” For we are sure that our God is in the heavens (Psalm 115:2, Psalm 115:3), and in his temple (Psalm 11:4).