[1242] I am unable to feel Driver’s and Nowack’s arguments for a connection conclusive. The only reason Davidson gives is (p. 204) that the judgment of the heathen is an essential element in the Day of Jehovah, a reason which does not make Joel’s authorship of the last chapter certain, but only possible.
[1243] The phrase of ver. 1, _when I turn again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem_, may be rendered _when I restore the fortunes of Israel_.
[1244] See above, p. 386, especially n. 1130.
[1245] xxxviii.
[1246] Some have unnecessarily thought of the Vale of Berakhah, in which Jehoshaphat defeated Moab, Ammon and Edom (2 Chron. xx.).
[1247] See above, p. 381, nn. 1114, 1115.
[1248] Ver. 6_b_.
[1249] Or _turn again the fortunes_.
[1250] _Jehovah-judges._ See above, p. 432.
[1251] See above, Obadiah 11 and Nahum iii. 10.
[1252] בזונה. Oort suggests במזון, _for food_.
[1253] Gelilôth, the plural feminine of Galilee—the _circuit_ (of the Gentiles). _Hist. Geog._, p. 413.
[1254] Scil. _that I must repay_.
[1255] LXX. _they shall give them into captivity_.
[1256] Technical use of עלה, _to go up to war_.
[1257] עושו, not found elsewhere, but supposed to mean _gather_. Cf. Zeph. ii. 1. Others read חושו, _hasten_ (Driver); Wellhausen עורו.
[1258] מגּל, only here and in Jer. l. 16: other Heb. word for sickle ḥermesh (Deut. xvi. 9, xxiii. 26).
[1259] Driver, future.
[1260] Not the well-known scene of early Israel’s camp across Jordan, but it must be some dry and desert valley near Jerusalem (so most comm.). Nowack thinks of the Wadi el Sant on the way to Askalon, but this did not need watering and is called the Vale of Elah.
[1261] Merx applies this to the Jews of the Messianic era. LXX. read ἐκζητήσω = ונקמתי. So Syr. Cf. 2 Kings ix. 7.
Steiner: _Shall I leave their blood unpunished? I will not leave it unpunished._ Nowack deems this to be unlikely, and suggests, _I will avenge their blood; I will not leave unpunished_ the shedders of it.
[1262] Heb. construction is found also in Hosea xii. 5.