3 And have cast lots for my people, And have given a boy for a prostitute, And sold a girl for wine, that they may drink.
Thus says Yahweh: "For three transgressions of Israel, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; Because they have sold the righteous for silver, And the needy for a pair of shoes;
In the day that you stood on the other side, in the day that strangers carried away his substance, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots for Jerusalem, even you were like one of them.
The children of Israel carried away captive of their brothers two hundred thousand, women, sons, and daughters, and took also away much spoil from them, and brought the spoil to Samaria. But a prophet of Yahweh was there, whose name was Oded: and he went out to meet the host that came to Samaria, and said to them, Behold, because Yahweh, the God of your fathers, was angry with Judah, he has delivered them into your hand, and you have slain them in a rage which has reached up to heaven.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Joel 3
Commentary on Joel 3 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 3
In the close of the foregoing chapter we had a gracious promise of deliverance in Mount Zion and Jerusalem; now this whole chapter is a comment upon that promise, showing what that deliverance shall be, how it shall be wrought by the destruction of the church's enemies, and how it shall be perfected in the everlasting rest and joy of the church. This was in part accomplished in the deliverance of Jerusalem from the attempt that Sennacherib made upon it in Hezekiah's time, and afterwards in the return of the Jews out of their captivity in Babylon, and other deliverances wrought for the Jewish church between that and Christ's coming. But it has a further reference, to the great redemption wrought out for us by Jesus Christ, and the destruction of our spiritual enemies and all their agents, and will have its full accomplishment in the judgment of the great day. Here is a prediction,
These promises were not of private interpretation only, but were written for our learning, "that we, through patience and comfort of this scripture, might have hope.'
Joe 3:1-8
We have often heard of the year of the redeemed, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion; now here we have a description of the transactions of that year, and a prophecy of what shall be done when it comes, whenever it comes, for it comes often, and at the end of time it will come once for all.
Joe 3:9-17
What the psalmist had long before ordered to be said among the heathen (Ps. 96:10) the prophet here will have in like manner to be published to all nations, That the Lord reigns, and that he comes, he comes to judge the earth, as he had long been judging in the earth. The notice here given of God's judging the nations may have reference to the destruction of Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus, and to the Antichrist especially, and all the proud enemies of the Christian church; but some of the best interpreters, ancient and modern (particularly the learned Dr. Polock), think the scope of these verses is to set forth the day of the last judgment under the similitude of God's making war upon the enemies of his kingdom, and his gathering in the harvest of the earth, both which similitudes we find used in the Revelation, ch. 19:11; 14:18. Here we have,
Joe 3:18-21
These promises with which this prophecy concludes have their accomplishments in part in the kingdom of grace, and the comforts and graces of all the faithful subjects of that kingdom, but will have their full accomplishment in the kingdom of glory; for, as to the Jewish church, we know not of any event concerning that which answers to the extent of these promises, and what instances of peace and prosperity they were blessed with, which they may be supposed to be a hyperbolical description of, they were but figures of better things reserved for us, that they in their best estate without us might not be made perfect.