1rnrceriling write1111. The idea of "fountain flowing from tho homm of t.ho Lo;-d hA.S been tak<m up and expanded by ZcchAriah (xiv. 8) and Ezekiel (xh-ii. 1, etc.); our blessed Lord himself usecl ,Toel's imagery to ad11mbr0.te the terrors of the last day; t.ho pouring forth of the Spirit is adopted by Ezekiel (xxxix. 29) &nd Peter ( Acts x. 45) and Paul (Rom. v. 5); the ~rmr of locusts is seen in the Revelation of St. John (ix. 2, 8); the ripen- ing of the harvest is found applied to Babylon by Jeremiah (Ii. 88); the wine-treading is used and amplified by Isaiah (lxiii. 1, eto.). To Joel firRt it was given to tell of that great day of the Lord which filled the thoughts of many, 11.'!! seen in after time; to him among the prophets belongs the first st.a.tement of the strange truth that, though salvation should oome to Zion and spread from thence to all the world, only a remnant of Israel should be 1-a ved ( eh. ii. 32). If, taming from the influence which Joel exeroised on his successors, we ask what he hail learned from his predecessors, we see at once that he has based himself on Moses. The plagues of locusts and drought, whose effects he so graphically depicts, are the very punishments which the Law denounced upon disobedience (Deut. xxviii. 23, 24, 38, 42); the scattering of Israel, and its captivity (eh.iii. 2, 3), are what Moses foretold in punish- ment of rebellion (Deut. xxviii. 49, 64, etc.). He too intimates the repent- ance and consequent restoration of the people (Deut. xxx. ), which Joel rejoices to contemplate. It was in development of Moses' idea of the retribution which awaited the enemies of Israel that Joel beheld the final judgment, with all its terribleness. To people conversant with the language of the Penta- teuch, and with the ideas contained therein, these and such like traits must have come home with startling applicability, and have proved that they were moving in the sphere of God's providence, and themselves bearing witneSB to the truths of inspiration.
§ IV. LITEBATUBE. The chief commentators on Joel are these: Hugo a St. Victore, 'Annotationes; ' G. Genebrard, with Chaldaic and Rabbinical annotations and versions (Paris: 1563); Tarnovius, •Commentarius' (Rost.: 1627); Pocock, 'Works,' i.(Orl.: 1691); Chandler, 'Paraphrase,' etc. (Lond.: 1735, 1741); Leusden, 'Joel explicatus' (Ultraj.: 1657); Baumgarten (Halle: 1756); Schurman, 'Scene pro)?hetique' (Wesel: 1700, 1703); Von der Hardt (Helmstadt: 1708, 1720); Bauer {Wittemberg: 1741); Sva.nborg, 'La.tine Versus' (Upsal: 1806); Holzhausen, 'Die Weissagung. d. Proph. Joel' (Got- tingen : 1829); Credner (Halle: 1831); Meier (Tubin~.: 1841); Wiinsche (Leipz.: 1874); Merx, • Die Prophetie des Joel' (Halle: 1879); Scholz, 'Commentar zum Buche des Pr, J.' (Wiirzburg: 1885), W. J. DEANE, M.A.. THE BOOK OF JOEL.
EXPOSITION.
CHAPTER L habitants of the land. He challenges the old men whose memory went furthest back, Ver. 1.-The word of the Lord that oame a.nd whose experience had been longest and to Joel the son of Pethuel. The name Joel la.rgest, to confirm his statements; he calls signifies "Jehovo.h is God," or" whose God is on the inhabitants of the land to consider an Jehovah." We read in Scripture of severe.I event in which they were all concerned, and of the same name, but the prophet is distin- to recognize the hand of God in a disaster guished e.s "the son of Pethuel," o. no.me sig- in which all would be involved. But, though nifying "the sincerity of God," or "godly the visitation with which they a.re threatened simplicity." We are not certain of the exact bad ha.d no precedent or parallel among the period o.t which Joel prophesied, but he is generation then present, or that which pre- generally believed to have been the earliest ceded it, or for many long years before, it prophetic writer of the southern kingdom, we.a not to remain without memorial or and one of the earliest of the twelve minor record in the time to come. To this end prophets, while Jona.h is generally thought the prophet commands his countrymen of to have been the earliest prophetic writer J ude.h to relate it to their children, to their whose book has found e. place in the sacred grandchildren, and even to their great-grand- canon. It is at lee.et certain that Joel pre- children. The expression reminds us of ceded Amos, who begins his prophecy with Virgil's- a passage from Joel (comp. eh. iii 16 with "Yea., sons of sons, and those who shall from Amos i. 2), e.nd borrows from Joel another them be born." towards the close (comp. eh. iii. 18 with Amos ix. 13). Besides, Joel speaks, in the It reads like a reminiscence of what is second che.pter, of the plague of locusts e.s recorded of one of the plagnes--the plague yP.t future; while Amos, in the fourth chapter of locusts--in Egypt, of which we read in of his prophecy, refers to it as past. He Exod. L 6, "Which neither thy fathers, likewise prophesied before Isaiah, who also nor thy fathers' fathers have seen, since the borrows, in lee.. xiii. 6, a sentence which de.y they were upon the earth unto this day;" occurs in eh. i. 15. while the direction to have it transmitted by tradition seems e.n echo of what we read Vera. 2-7.-These verses describe the in the second verse of the so.me chapter : invasion of the locusts, with an exhortation "That thou maye~-t tell in the ears of thy to reflect on and lament for the calamity. son, and of thy son's son, what things I have Ver. 2.-B:ear this, ye old men, and give wrought in Egypt." S:.m.ila.rly, it is written ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. llath in Pa. ln:viii. 5, 6, "He esta.blished o. testi- this been in your days, or even in the days mony in Jacob, o.nd appointed o. l<Lw in of your fathers 1 Israel, which he commanded our fathers, Ver. 8.--Tell ye your ohildren of it, and that they should make them known to the;r let your ohildren tell their ohildren, and children: that the generation to come might their ohildren another generation. The know them, even the children which should prophet thus draws o.tt.cntion to the event be born; who shonld arise and declare them which he is about to relate, or rather predict, to their children." The solemn manner in aa a calamity unknown in the memory of which the prophet draws attention to this living men, unheard of in the do.ye of their by "Hear,'' "Give ear," and the earncstnes8 fathers, unpo.re.lleled in the past experience with which he ineists on the r~cord of it of their nation, o.nd one affecting all the in- being handed on from generation to gencra- .JOEL. B 2 TJ1E DOOK OF JOl~L. [on. I. 1-20.