_The Day of Jehovah is great and very awful, and who may abide it?_
_But now the oracle of Jehovah—Turn ye to Me with all your heart, and with fasting and with weeping and with mourning. And rend your hearts and not your garments, and turn to Jehovah your God, for gracious and merciful is He, long-suffering and abounding in love._
In the criticism of the Book of Joel there exist differences of opinion—upon its date, the exact reference of its statements and its relation to parallel passages in other prophets—as wide as even those by which the Book of Obadiah has been assigned to every century between the tenth and the fourth before Christ.[1068] As in the case of Obadiah, the problem is not entangled with any doctrinal issue or question of accuracy; but while we saw that Obadiah was not involved in the central controversy of the Old Testament, the date of the Law, not a little in Joel turns upon the latter. And, besides, certain descriptions raise the large question between a literal and an allegorical interpretation. Thus the Book of Joel carries the student further into the problems of Old Testament Criticism, and forms an even more excellent introduction to the latter, than does the Book of Obadiah.
In the history of prophecy the Book of Joel must be either very early or very late, and with few exceptions the leading critics place it either before 800 B.C. or after 500. So great a difference is due to most substantial reasons. Unlike every other prophet, except Haggai, “Malachi” and “Zechariah” ix.—xiv., Joel mentions neither Assyria, which emerged upon the prophetic horizon about 760,[1069] nor the Babylonian Empire, which had fallen by 537. The presumption is that he wrote before 760 or after 537. Unlike all the prophets, too,[1070] Joel does not charge his people with civic or national sins; nor does his book bear any trace of the struggle between the righteous and unrighteous in Israel, nor of that between the spiritual worshippers of Jehovah and the idolaters. The book addresses an undivided nation, who know no God but Jehovah; and again the presumption is that Joel wrote before Amos and his successors had started the spiritual antagonisms which rent Israel in twain, or after the Law had been accepted by the whole people under Nehemiah.[1071] The same wide alternative is suggested by the style and phraseology. Joel’s Hebrew is simple and direct. Either he is an early writer, or imitates early writers. His book contains a number of phrases and verses identical, or nearly identical, with those of prophets from Amos to “Malachi.” Either they all borrowed from Joel, or he borrowed from them.[1072]
Of this alternative modern criticism at first preferred the earlier solution, and dated Joel before Amos. So Credner in his Commentary in 1831, and following him Hitzig, Bleek, Ewald, Delitzsch, Keil, Kuenen (up to 1864),[1073] Pusey and others. So, too, at first some living critics of the first rank, who, like Kuenen, have since changed their opinion. And so, even still, Kirkpatrick (on the whole), Von Orelli, Robertson,[1074] Stanley Leathes and Sinker.[1075] The reasons which these scholars have given for the early date of Joel are roughly as follows.[1076] His book occurs among the earliest of the Twelve: while it is recognised that the order of these is not strictly chronological, it is alleged that there is a division between the pre-exilic and post-exilic prophets, and that Joel is found among the former. The vagueness of his representations in general, and of his pictures of the Day of Jehovah in particular, is attributed to the simplicity of the earlier religion of Israel, and to the want of that analysis of its leading conceptions which was the work of later prophets.[1077] His horror of the interruption of the daily offerings in the Temple, caused by the plague of locusts,[1078] is ascribed to a fear which pervaded the primitive ages of all peoples.[1079] In Joel’s attitude towards other nations, whom he condemns to judgment, Ewald saw “the old unsubdued warlike spirit of the times of Deborah and David.” The prophet’s absorption in the ravages of the locusts is held to reflect the feeling of a purely agricultural community, such as Israel was before the eighth century. The absence of the name of Assyria from the book is assigned to the same unwillingness to give the name as we see in Amos and the earlier prophecies of Isaiah, and it is thought by some that, though not named, the Assyrians are symbolised by the locusts. The absence of all mention of the Law is also held by some to prove an early date: though other critics, who believe that the Levitical legislation was extant in Israel from the earliest times, find proof of this in Joel’s insistence upon the daily offering. The absence of all mention of a king and the prominence given to the priests are explained by assigning the prophecy to the minority of King Joash of Judah, when Jehoyada the priest was regent;[1080] the charge against Egypt and Edom of spilling innocent blood by Shishak’s invasion of Judah,[1081] and by the revolt of the Edomites under Jehoram;[1082] the charge against the Philistines and Phœnicians by the Chronicler’s account of Philistine raids[1083] in the reign of Jehoram of Judah, and by the oracles of Amos against both nations;[1084] and the mention of the Vale of Jehoshaphat by that king’s defeat of Moab, Ammon and Edom in the Vale of Berakhah.[1085] These allusions being recognised, it was deduced from them that the parallels between Joel and Amos were due to Amos having quoted from Joel.[1086]