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Judgment Day Joel 3
Standard of Judgment • See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Deuteronomy 30.15-20).
Judah’s/God’s Enemies • Egypt, and its ally Edom • “But Egypt will be desolate, Edom a desert waste, because of violence done to the people of Judah, in whose land they shed innocent blood” (3.19; cf. Joel 2).
Judah’s/God’s Enemies • Tyre and Sidon and all the regions of Philistia • “‘…I will return on your own heads what you have done. I will sell your sons and daughters to the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far away.’ The LORD has spoken” (3.7b-8). • ““Sabeans, the great traders of Sheba in Southwest Arabia who controlled the eastern trade routes by their caravan routes in North Arabia” (Allen 1976: 113).
The Day of the Lord • “The Day of Yahweh is best understood as having its origin in Israelite Holy War…and particularly in the cultural expectation that a true sovereign could complete a war of conquest in a single day…Holy war in the Old Testament (Deut 20) was a total war of annihilation against God’s enemies. The implication is clear: the nations must fight, but they cannot win. Their defeat and destruction are assured because their adversary is Yahweh” (Stuart 1987: 231, 268; cf. Joel 3.9-12).
The Valley of Jehoshaphat • Jehoshaphat = “Yahweh Judges” • “I will gather all nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will enter into judgment against them…the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will sit to judge all the nations on every side” (3.2bα, 12aβ-c).
Projecting into the New Testament
Global Judgment • Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, ‘Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.’ So he who was seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested. Another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, ‘Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth’s vine, because its grapes are ripe.’ The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath (Revelation 14.15-19).
Global Judgment • When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.’ … Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’ (Matthew 25.31-34, 41).
