INTRODUCTION TO JOEL.

As we best get an idea of some strange city by ascending a tower or hill, from whence the whole outline and arrangement may be seen lying beneath our feet, so the truest conception of the Prophet Joel will be formed by surveying his work as a whole. A plague of locusts, drought, and death; a day of public repentance and supplication; a happy change appearing as the answer of Jehovah to his people's prayers; followed by prophetic anticipation, first of spiritual renewal among the people, and lastly of a triumphant conflict of the nation with its spoilers, are the features which distribute the book natu rally into four parts, or still better, into five. A simpler division would regard the first part of the book as containing a description of the distress with its attendant invitation to prayer; and the latter part exultation in deliverance, passing into anticipations of a future correspondently rich in spiritual and natural blessings.

The Prophet begins with describing the season of gloom, which has already passed. The memory of the old is appealed to for recollection of a like scourge. The merry wine-drinker, the husbandman, shepherd, and solemn priest, all feel the desolation, with which swarms of locusts, like hordes of invaders, have darkened the land. "The locusts have no king," says the proverb (Proverbs xxx. 27), "yet go they forth all of them by bands." The spoiling of the locust and caterpillar appears in Isaiah as an image (xxxiii. 4), but in the Psalms, as a literal event (Ps. lxxviii. 46); and not only from the traditions of Egypt, but from the most ordinary belief of the East, would imply the

wrath of Heaven. The Prophet therefore sees in the successive swarms of old and young, locust-worm and locustfly, the army of Jehovah (ch. iv. 9). The day of gloom, like a lowering dawn upon the mountains, is a day of Jehovah. The wasting of the land comes of the Divine anger. Therefore the cry to repentance becomes the voice of the Eternal. Yet the element of human feeling is strikingly shewn in the doubt as to the efficacy of the means proposed for escape, "Who knoweth if he will return ?" (ch. ii. 14.) The instinct of repenting is divinely planted; the call to a day of solemnity has a divine sanction; yet the human messenger dare not promise that the general duty of repentance will in this case obtain a special blessing. Only the event shews, that the gathering of the people and weeping of the priests was followed by deliverance.

If we except only the light thrown upon Joel by a comprehensive survey of it as a whole, the greatest gain which a conscientious study of this book has added to our intelligence of it is the perception that a third chapter begins (ch. ii. 18, A. V.) with the announcement of Jehovah's relenting, and a deliverance already arrived. Seldom is the Anglican Version more culpable, than in turning the past tenses of the third chapter (ii. 21, 23, &c.) into futures, so as to create predictions. If the interchange of tenses, consequent on a Hebrew idiom (see Hurwitz, Hebr. Gr.* § 246. Lee, H. G. § 231-240), renders some of these doubtful, in others, and chiefly in those which furnish the governing key-note, there is hardly room for doubt that the Prophet is speaking of the past. He calls on the land to rejoice, and the people to eat in plenty, for Jehovah hath done great things. It might even be contended, that in iii. 7,

*Of the two Grammars, referred to by accident more than out of preference, the one by Hurwitz is far simpler for a learner; the second, confused, if not erroneous, is likely to retard, if not to mislead.

(ii. 23, A. V.) this restoration of the early and latter rain is represented as following the teacher to righteousness, whom Jehovah had given in the Prophet's person: but in a matter so disputable, I have suffered myself to be guided by the weight of authorities, as well as by a feeling of poetry.

But if Jehovah has given temporal blessings, will he not add those of a better kind? The Prophet forebodes that He will. Even on the servants and maids, not merely on the ministers of the altar, the Eternal will breathe visions of truth, dreams of things far away. If a day of gloom is yet in store, it shall be gloomy to the spoilers of Judah. The stars in their courses, and the meteor flags of the sky, sympathising with earthly change, will fight against those who have carried off the young for slaves, and sold them to sin.

The Prophet's spirit then goes forward, as in a song of rhythmical prose, in which indignation at the wrongs of his people, and a trust in the Lord God of justice and vengeance awaken the inward movement, and transactions already witnessed supply the images. Let the nations come, Tyrian, Sidonian, borderer of Philistia, and Ionian merchant. That valley of Blessing, in which Jehoshaphat spoiled the hostile confederates, or the valley of Salt, in which Amaziah smote Edom (2 Chron. xx. 25; 2 Kings xiv. 7), suggests a scene for fresh conflict and decision. The darkening of the locusts becomes a darkness in a day of judgment on Judah's enemies. No more Shishac, nor Arab or Philistian host, plundering the temple; no more slave driver; the enslavers rather shall be enslaved. Jehovah will purge, or be innocent of, the blood of his people, which is not yet atoned. To such days of the future belongs plenty, and to Jerusalem peace.

So simple, fervent, sacerdotal, sternly. patriotic, yet gifted with a sense of the righteousness of God, and with

wrath of Heaven. The Prophet therefore sees in the successive swarms of old and young, locust-worm and locustfly, the army of Jehovah (ch. iv. 9). The day of gloom, like a lowering dawn upon the mountains, is a day of Jehovah. The wasting of the land comes of the Divine anger. Therefore the cry to repentance becomes the voice of the Eternal. Yet the element of human feeling is strikingly shewn in the doubt as to the efficacy of the means proposed for escape, "Who knoweth if he will return?" (ch. ii. 14.) The instinct of repenting is divinely planted; the call to a day of solemnity has a divine sanction; yet the human messenger dare not promise that the general duty of repentance will in this case obtain a special blessing. Only the event shews, that the gathering of the people and weeping of the priests was followed by deliverance.

If we except only the light thrown upon Joel by a comprehensive survey of it as a whole, the greatest gain which a conscientious study of this book has added to our intelligence of it is the perception that a third chapter begins (ch. ii. 18, A. V.) with the announcement of Jehovah's relenting, and a deliverance already arrived. Seldom is the Anglican Version more culpable, than in turning the past tenses of the third chapter (ii. 21, 23, &c.) into futures, so as to create predictions. If the interchange of tenses, consequent on a Hebrew idiom (see Hurwitz, Hebr. Gr.* § 246. Lee, H. G. § 231-240), renders some of these doubtful, in others, and chiefly in those which furnish the governing key-note, there is hardly room for doubt that the Prophet is speaking of the past. He calls on the land to rejoice, and the people to cat in plenty, for Jehovah hath done great things. It might even be contended, that in iii. 7,

* Of the two Grammars, referred to by accident more than out of preference, the one by Hurwitz is far simpler for a learner; the second, confused, if not erroneous, is likely to retard, if not to mislead,

(ii. 23, A. V.) this restoration of the early and latter rain is represented as following the teacher to righteousness, whom Jehovah had given in the Prophet's person: but in a matter so disputable, I have suffered myself to be guided by the weight of authorities, as well as by a feeling of poetry.

But if Jehovah has given temporal blessings, will he not add those of a better kind? The Prophet forebodes that He will. Even on the servants and maids, not merely on the ministers of the altar, the Eternal will breathe visions of truth, dreams of things far away. If a day of gloom is yet in store, it shall be gloomy to the spoilers of Judah. The stars in their courses, and the meteor flags of the sky, sympathising with earthly change, will fight against those who have carried off the young for slaves, and sold them to sin.

The Prophet's spirit then goes forward, as in a song of rhythmical prose, in which indignation at the wrongs of his people, and a trust in the Lord God of justice and vengeance awaken the inward movement, and transactions already witnessed supply the images. Let the nations come, Tyrian, Sidonian, borderer of Philistia, and Ionian merchant. That valley of Blessing, in which Jehoshaphat spoiled the hostile confederates, or the valley of Salt, in which Amaziah smote Edom (2 Chron. xx. 25; 2 Kings xiv. 7), suggests a scene for fresh conflict and decision. The darkening of the locusts becomes a darkness in a day of judgment on Judah's enemies. No more Shishac, nor Arab or Philistian host, plundering the temple; no more slave driver; the enslavers rather shall be enslaved. Jehovah will purge, or be innocent of, the blood of his people, which is not yet atoned. To such days of the future belongs plenty, and to Jerusalem peace.

So simple, fervent, sacerdotal, sternly patriotic, yet gifted with a sense of the righteousness of God, and with