priest wll.f! withdrawn; so that it is oonoludecl. thitt Joel'e propheoy mu11t be Aet in the earlier part of J oash's reign, when the young king was under tute- le.ge. This would e.ooount for his not being mentioned amongst the various classes whom the prophet summons to penitence, in eh. i. and ii, Plainly, also, the Assyrie.ns he.d not yet endangered the peace of Judah. From the enumeration of the enemies too an argument is drawn. The Philistines and Edomites attacked Judma in the days of Jehoram (2 Chron. xxi. 10, eto.), but they were not punished for their revolt till the times of Amaziah son of Joash, and Uzziah his successor (2 Chron. xxv. 11; xxvi. 6). Therefore J oel'i; mission falls between the sin and its chastisement; i.e. between the reigns of Jehoram and Ama.ziah. The above arguments have seemed to many critics sufficient to fix the date of Joel's prophecy. But they may be pressed too far. Little importance must be attached to the prophet's silence oonoerning the Assyrian&. He speaks ( eh. iii. 2) of all the nations who e.re hostile to Judah, e.nd, though he selects four for special mention, he does not by this exclude all others. And, in fact, it is certain that the Assyrians were e. peril to e.ll the dwellers in Palestine long before the period now under review. Ba.la.am had spoken (Numb. xxiv. 22) of captivity at their hands ; and the monuments show that Ahab had encountered them when he joined Benhadad of DamascUB in his confederaoy against Shalmaneser II., and was defeated with great loss on the Orontee. Jehu, too, who lived in the same time as Joe.eh, paid tribute to the Assyrians (see Schrader, 'Die Keilinschr. und Alt. Test.,' p. 199). And as to the three nations named by Joel-the Philistines, Edomites, and Phcenicia.ns -the same are denounced by Amos (i. 6-15), who lived later still; and therefore no definition of time can be derived from their mention by our prophet. They were at most only petty, vexatious enemies, whose plunder- ing raids were not to be compared with the onset of great nations, such as the .A.ssyrians and Chaldeans. Nothing certain can be inferred from the place of Joel in the Hebrew canon, which is not arranged in accurate chronological order. In the Septuagint, Joel stands fourth, being placed after Micah, who stands third; and, although the present order may be supported on traditional grounds, these will not bear the investigation of modem criticism. We have seen that, if it be conceded that Amos quotes Joel, a limitation as to the date of the latter is at once afforded. Some late writers, e.g. Scholz and Mer:x, have asi;igned him to post-exilian times, and one indeed relegates him to the Maccabee.n period. Their arguments may be seen in Knaben- l,auer, pp. 189-194; they are very far from convincing, and a.re shattered by the fact (if it be fact) that Isaiah quotes Joel, or has him in minu when l,e writes certain p!i.eeages. The paragraph in h1aiah (xiii. 6), "The day of 1l:w Lord is at baud; it shall come as a destrnction from the Almighty," ib cited verbatim from Joel, including the alliteration in the original, and
the remarkable use of the name Shaddai," Almighty." In the same chapter uf' l saiah there are other reminiscence!! ol' the earlier seer : u11 Is1. xiii. 10 c01upared with eh. ii. 10_, 31, whero the i;ubi;tance, if uot tho words, are 'l'fJP. TI00K OF ,JOEL. ill'
eimilrir; Illa. xiii. rn wit,h eh. iii. Hi, 16; Isa. xiii. 8 with eh. ii. 6. Othn prophet11 must have made use of ,Joel, unless we con~idcr him a. wholef!al,i plagiarist, who compoAed a, cento from ve,rious writers, and claimed inspi- ration for a mere collection of extracts-an idea dishonouring and inc,m- ceivable. 'l'hus Obadiah has many pointa of contact with ,Joel. Comp. Obad. 11, "cast lots upon Jerusalem," with eh. iii. 3; Obad. 10, "violence against thy brother Jacob," with eh. iii. 19; Obad. 15 with eh. i. 15, etc. So, again, Zachariah has many similarities of wording and meaning. This will appear at once on a comparison of eh. ii. 30-32 with Zech. xii. 2, 9 ; xiv. 1, 5-11. The internal indications of date being so far precarious, we must not omit anything that may help towards some conclusion. One such hint is found in the name, "the valley of Jehoshaphat" (eh. iii. 2), which is possibly a proof that Joel lived after that king, and, by the sym- bolical use of that locality, refers to some event that had happened there, and this can be nothing else than the defeat of the Moabites and their allies, narrated in 2 Chron. xx. 22, etc. This disposes of the theory of Bunsen (' Gott in der Gasch.,' i. 321), that Joel prophesied soon after the schism of the ten tribes, when Jerusalem had been plundered by Shishak, in the middle of the tenth century B.c. This critic supports his position by a reference to the statement in eh. iii. 19, that Egypt and Edam shall be chastised for their violence against the children of Judah, the violence being the capture of Jerusalem by Shishak, in which event be supposes that the Edomites took part. And he deems that the punishment of this onslaught was ·effected when Asa defeated Zerah the Ethiopian at Mareshah (2 Chron. xiv. 9, etc.), and that, as this judgment is repre- sented as future, Joel lived before Asa's time. But there is no proof whatever that the Edomites took part in Shishak's attack; nor were they punished at this time, as they ought to have been ; nor would the defeat of the Ethiopian have been in Joel's eyes a judgment on the Egyptians. The unfavourable mention of the Philistines and Phcenicians is accoanted for by their capture of Jerusalem in the reign of Jehoram (2 Chron. x:xi. 16, 17). It remains to notice the arguments of those critics who assign Joel to post-exilian times. They are thus summarized by a recent commentator (Knabenbauer). 1. The commonwealth is supposed to be so small that the sound of a trumpet blown in Zion would summon all the inhabitants to a. solemn assembly; and that one invasion of locusts produced a dearth of corn and wine; and the authority was vested in the elders and priests; which state of things could be found only after the return. 2. A strict observation of the Law and of ceremonies is taken for granted; there is no idolatry; the people's sins are not censured; and no sincere conversion to God is urged, as in earlier prophecies. Such a condition suits no age before the Captivity. 3. In plain contrast to the prophets of preceding times, Joel confines himself to enjoining external acts of penitence; be it; at one with the inost projndiced of Jews, and thinks that salvation belongs to X INTRODUCTION TO