Divine Judgment.
Is a California earthquake a judgment from God? Is AIDS a divine warning? When something bad happens to you, is God shouting in your ear?
A terrible cloud of locusts destroyed all the vegetation in Israel. Animals and people were threatened with starvation. Joel saw this as a divine judgment. In the second half of his little book, Joel predicts that at history’s end God will send a human army just as great to swarm into Israel and punish his sinning people. God does punish sin. But in the end God saves.
The Buzz on God’s Warning System
• Disaster message, according to Joel 1
“Day of the LORD” Means Disaster!
• See descriptions in Joel 2:1–11
Good News “Afterward”
• Promises reported in Joel 2:28–32
Preview
• Joel preaches in Judah. His prophecies are undated.
• Locusts travel in great swarms, some covering 2,000 square miles. They eat every green plant, leaving empty, munched-down land when they move on.
• Deuteronomy 28:42 identifies locusts as a divine judgment.
• “The day of the LORD” in Old Testament prophecies usually refers to terrible judgments to come at history’s end (Joel 1:15; 2:1, 11, 31; 3:14).
When Joel described a locust swarm as a warning from God, leather scrolls were replacing clay tablets, Hesiod was penning wild stories about the creation of the world, and Etruscan city-states were emerging in Italy.