Joel 2:18 - Meaning and Application

See how ready God is to help and relieve his people. He waits to show mercy, and as soon as they humble themselves under his hand, pray, and seek his face, he meets them at once with his favor. They had prayed that God would spare them, and here he answers them with kind and comforting words. God’s promises are real answers to the prayers of faith, because with him, speaking and acting are never two separate things.

Notice first where this promised mercy begins (Joel 2:18): God will be jealous for his land and have pity on his people. He will pay attention to his own honor and to the good name of his covenant with Israel, by which he had given them that good land and valued it highly. Now he will not let it be treated with contempt or shame. He will also look on their trouble and pity his people. In that pity, he will give back the comforts they had lost. God’s compassion is a great encouragement to those who come to him humbly as sinners who repent and as people who ask for help.

Next, notice what his mercy will include in several ways. The destroying army will be scattered and defeated (Joel 2:20). God says, “I will move the northern army far from you,” meaning the swarm of locusts and caterpillars that had come from the north, driven in by a north wind, an army no one could stop. When they have made peace with God, he will free them from these invaders and drive them into a dry and empty land, that wide wilderness where Israel once wandered. There, after enjoying the plenty of Canaan, they will die for lack of food. Those who face the eastern sea, the Dead Sea east of Judea, will perish there, and the rear of the army will be lost in the Great Sea, the Mediterranean. They had made the land dry and empty, and now God will cast them into a dry and empty place. Those whom God uses to correct his people are later dealt with himself, and the rod is thrown into the fire.

Nothing will remain of these swarms except their foul smell. When Egypt was relieved of the plague of locusts, they were carried into the Red Sea (Exodus 10:19). So when an affliction has done its work, it is removed in mercy, as the locusts were removed from a repentant people. It is not removed in wrath, as it was from Pharaoh, who would not repent, only to make room for another plague. Many interpreters think this northern army refers to Sennacherib’s army, which was scattered after God had finished his work on Mount Zion and Jerusalem (Isaiah 10:12). This enemy will be driven away because he “has done great things,” meaning he has done great harm and has boasted about it in pride. Then follows (Joel 2:21), “The Lord will do great things” for his people, just as the enemy had done great things against them. This shows them that whenever they act proudly, God is above them and will remain above them. Whatever great things they did, they only did what God allowed. As he said to them, “Go,” and they went, and as he said, “Come,” and they came, so they were soldiers under his command.

The ruined land will also be watered and made fruitful. When the army is gone, the people may still ask what will become of the damage it left behind. So it is promised (Joel 2:22) that the pastures of the wilderness, the pastures left bare by the locusts, will again grow green, and the trees will bear fruit again, especially the fig tree and the vine. Looking at the waste, we are tempted to ask, “Can these dry bones live?” If the Lord were to open the windows of heaven, it still seems impossible. But it will happen, because (Joel 2:23) the Lord will give the former rain and the latter rain. If he gives them in mercy, he will give them in measure, so the rain will not become a judgment. He will also give it in the right season, the latter rain in the first month, when it was needed and expected. It would comfort them to see it coming from God’s hand and ordered by his wisdom, because then they could be sure it was well ordered.

He has given you a teacher of righteousness, as the margin reads, because the same Hebrew word can mean both rain and teacher, and the phrase translated “moderately” can mean “according to righteousness.” Some rabbis said this teacher of righteousness was the Messiah, and many others have understood it that way, because he is a teacher come from God and shows us the way of righteousness. Others take it to mean any prophet who teaches righteousness, and some think of Hezekiah, while others think of Isaiah. It is a good sign that God has mercy ready for a people when he sends them teachers of righteousness, pastors who are after his own heart.

All their losses will be restored (Joel 2:25). God says, “I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten.” He will comfort them in the same measure as they were afflicted and give them years of plenty to balance the years of famine. In this way the Lord shows regret, so to speak, for the trouble he brought on his servants when they repent. To show how fully he is reconciled to them, he makes good the damage caused by his judgments. Like the jailer washing their wounds, he heals what was hurt. Though he rightly took from them, and did them no wrong, yet in compassion he gives it back. Like the father of the prodigal son, when the son returned, he makes up for all that was lost through sin and folly and receives him again into his family as before. The locusts and caterpillars are called God’s great army, which he sent among them, and he will repair what they destroyed because they were his army.

They will also have great abundance of every good thing. The land will yield its crops, and they will enjoy them. Look at their storerooms, and you will find the threshing floors full of grain and the vats overflowing with wine and oil (Joel 2:24), where earlier the wine and oil were failing and the barns were broken down (Joel 1:10, 17). Look at their tables, where they set out what they have stored, and you will find that they eat plenty and are satisfied (Joel 2:26). They do not eat to excess or become overfull. We hope the drunkards were cured by the recent trouble over their wrong love of wine and strong drink, for though they had cried out in hunger before (Joel 1:5), they now return singing because of abundance. Still, everyone will have enough, and they will know when they have enough, because God will make their food nourishing and give them contentment. These are the mercies promised, and in them God does great things (Joel 2:21). He deals wonderfully with his people (Joel 2:26).

Here God shows his power by proving he can help his people, even when their trouble is very great. He also shows his goodness, because he will do it when they repent, even after they have greatly provoked him. When God treats poor sinners graciously as they turn back to him, we must admit that he is doing wonderful things.

Some interpreters take these promises in a symbolic way and see them as pointing to gospel grace, that is, the saving kindness God gives in Christ. They think the promises are fulfilled in the rich comfort stored up for believers in the covenant of grace, the agreement by which God saves his people. If God sends us his promises to comfort us, his grace to support us, and his Spirit to give us peace, then we may rightly say that he has given us, according to his promise here, corn, wine, and oil (Joel 2:19), or something far better. In that, we have every reason to be content.

What should come from these acts of mercy, and what good will they do? First, God should receive the glory. They will rejoice in the Lord their God (Joel 2:23), and the very thing that brings joy will also bring thanksgiving. They will praise the name of the Lord their God (Joel 2:26), and not praise their idols, or say that their grain and wine came as rewards from false lovers. Plenty in earthly things is truly a blessing only when it enlarges our hearts in love and thanks to God, who gives us all things richly to enjoy, even though we serve him poorly.

When God restores abundance after a time of lack, it is doubly sweet to us, and it should make us even more thankful. When Israel comes out of the wilderness into Canaan, the promised land, and eats and is full, then he should bless the Lord for that good land he has given him (Deuteronomy 8:10). God’s kindness in giving back provision should lead us to praise him all the more.

Second, they will receive the benefit, comfort, and spiritual good of these gifts. When God gives them plenty again and lets them enjoy it, their shame will be removed. He and they will no longer be mocked as though they had been unfaithful to one another. The Lord says, “I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations” (Joel 2:19), meaning among the heathen who had laughed at their suffering and insulted them. He also says, “My people shall never again be put to shame” (Joel 2:26, Joel 2:27), because they will again have reason to boast in the good land God has given them.

This shows great honor to God, because he does what restores the honor of his people. Those who truly belong to him will not always be a reproach among the nations. If we are rightly ashamed of our sins against God, then we will never be ashamed to glory in him. Their joy will also return. The Lord says, “Be glad and rejoice, O land, and all its inhabitants” (Joel 2:23). Times of plenty are usually times of joy, yet God’s favor brings a deeper gladness than grain, wine, and oil ever can.

Above all, “you children of Zion,” that is, the people of Jerusalem and God’s worshiping people, are told to rejoice in the Lord your God (Joel 2:23). They had mourned in Zion (Joel 2:15), and there they would especially rejoice. Those who sow in tears of repentance will surely reap in thankful joy. The children of Zion, who led the others in fasting, should also lead them in rejoicing. Still, their joy is to be in the Lord their God, not mainly in the gifts themselves, but in the good hand that gives them. The harvest and the feast should both end in God, whose love we should taste in all his gifts, so that he becomes our chief joy, as he is our chief good.

Their faith in God will also be strengthened. When God uses earthly blessings to help the soul, then those blessings are truly good for us. When plenty for the body becomes a help, and not a danger, to the soul, then it is a real mercy. The promise here is, “You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel” (Joel 2:27), that is, the Holy One among you (Hosea 11:9), and that I am the Lord your God, and no other.

It proves that the Lord is God, and there is no other, because he wounds and heals, and brings both trouble and peace (Isaiah 45:7; Deuteronomy 32:39). It also proves that he is the God of Israel, the God who is bound to his people in covenant and acts as a father to them. As a father both corrects and comforts his children, so God disciplines his people when they sin and comforts them when they repent. In Ezekiel’s prophecy, the repeated message was, “Then you shall know that I am the Lord,” spoken over judgments. Here the same thought becomes part of the promise: “You shall eat, and be satisfied, and rejoice, and then you shall know that I am the Lord.”

We should seek to grow in our knowledge of God through every providence, whether merciful or painful. When God gives his people plenty, peace, and joy after they return to him, he is showing that he accepts their repentance, has forgiven their sins, and remains theirs as fully as ever. They are taken again into the same covenant with him, for he is the Lord their God, and into the same fellowship, for he is in their midst. He is near to them whenever they call on him, and like the sun at the center of the world, he spreads his gracious influence through all the parts of his land.

Even the lower creatures will share in this mercy and find relief through it. “Fear not, O land” (Joel 2:21). “Do not be afraid, you beasts of the field” (Joel 2:22). They had suffered because of human sin and because of God’s dispute with man, but now they will benefit from man’s repentance and God’s reconciliation. The beasts had even been said to cry out to God (Joel 1:20), and now that cry is answered. They are told not to fear, because they will have plenty of what their nature needs.

When God spared Nineveh, he even had the cattle in view (Jonah 4:11), because the cattle had fasted too (Jonah 3:8). This may lead us to think about the final restoration of all things, when creation itself, now made subject to futility and groaning under it, will be brought, if not into the full joy, yet into the glorious freedom of the children of God (Romans 8:21).