Joel 3 explained: The Nations Put on Trial

A courtroom in the valley (vv. 1-3)

God promises to restore Judah and summon the nations for trial to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, a name meaning 'the LORD judges'; scholars are unsure if this was a real valley near Jerusalem or a symbolic one. The charges are that they scattered his people, carved up the land, divided captives among themselves by drawing lots, and valued them so cheaply that a boy paid for a prostitute and a girl was sold for a drink of wine.

Charges against the coastal cities (vv. 4-8)

Tyre and Sidon, port cities to the north, and the Philistine towns to the southwest are accused of carrying off treasures to their own temples and selling people of Judah to the Greeks, far from home. The punishment is blunt payback in kind: their own sons and daughters will be sold to the Sabeans of distant southern Arabia.

Summons to the battle (vv. 9-13)

In a reversal of the famous hope of beating swords into plows, the nations are mockingly told to turn farm tools into weapons and gather, because this battle will be their own defeat. The ripe harvest and overflowing winepress picture judgment coming once their wrongdoing has fully ripened, images the book of Revelation later reuses.

The day of the LORD (vv. 14-17)

The 'valley of decision' is the place where the verdict falls, with vast crowds gathered and sun, moon and stars going dark. God roars like a lion from Zion, the hill of Jerusalem's temple, and the world shakes, yet he is a shelter for his people and Jerusalem is never invaded again.

A land of plenty (vv. 18-21)

After the locusts and drought earlier in the book, the hills now flow with wine and milk, and a stream from the temple waters a dry valley of acacia trees whose location is uncertain. Egypt and Edom, blamed for killing innocent people in Judah, become wasteland, and the hard to translate final verse insists that this innocent blood will not be ignored.

Key verse: Joel 3:16

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on whether this chapter predicts a literal final battle near Jerusalem involving the nation of Israel, or uses picture language for God's final judgment of the world and the protection of his people more broadly.

Something to think about

When people who have been badly wronged long for justice, where do you think the line falls between justice and revenge?