The Locusts’ Devastation, 1-11

The relationship between chapter 1 and chapter 2 is unclear. Ch. 2 may portray the same devastation by locusts as ch. 1.  Or it might be using the locust metaphor to describe a human invasion.  Or, again, it may be predicting some future ‘day of the Lord’.

2:1 Blow the trumpet in Zion;
sound the alarm signal on my holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land shake with fear,
for the day of the LORD is about to come.
Indeed, it is near!
2:2 It will be a day of dreadful darkness,
a day of foreboding storm clouds,
like blackness spread over the mountains.
It is a huge and powerful army—
there has never been anything like it ever before,
and there will not be anything like it for many generations to come!

A huge and powerful army – References to invasion by an ‘army’ occur five times in this chapter, suggesting that the plague of locusts might be a metaphor for a military invasion.

2:3 Like fire they devour everything in their path;
a flame blazes behind them.
The land looks like the Garden of Eden before them,
but behind them there is only a desolate wilderness—
for nothing escapes them!
2:4 They look like horses;
they charge ahead like war horses.
2:5 They sound like chariots rumbling over mountain tops,
like the crackling of blazing fire consuming stubble,
like the noise of a mighty army being drawn up for battle.
2:6 People writhe in fear when they see them.
All of their faces turn pale with fright.
2:7 They charge like warriors;
they scale walls like soldiers.
Each one proceeds on his course;
they do not alter their path.
2:8 They do not jostle one another;
each of them marches straight ahead.
They burst through the city defenses
and do not break ranks.
2:9 They rush into the city;
they scale its walls.
They climb up into the houses;
they go in through the windows like a thief.
2:10 The earth quakes before them;
the sky reverberates.
The sun and the moon grow dark;
the stars refuse to shine.
2:11 The voice of the LORD thunders as he leads his army.
Indeed, his warriors are innumerable;
Surely his command is carried out!
Yes, the day of the LORD is awesome
and very terrifying—who can survive it?

The day of the LORD is about to come – For Joel, the day of the Lord is both a day of salvation and a day of judgment.

An Appeal for Repentance, 12-17

2:12 “Yet even now,” the LORD says,
“return to me with all your heart—
with fasting, weeping, and mourning.
Tear your hearts,
not just your garments!”

“Return to me with all your hear…tear your hearts” – Their return is to be heart-felt, and heart-broken.

2:13 Return to the LORD your God,
for he is merciful and compassionate,
slow to anger and boundless in loyal love—often relenting from calamitous punishment.
2:14 Who knows?
Perhaps he will be compassionate and grant a reprieve,
and leave blessing in his wake—
a meal offering and a drink offering for you to offer to the LORD your God!

Who knows? – An expression, not so much of doubt, as of humility.  We dare not presume upon God’s mercy.

2:15 Blow the trumpet in Zion.
Announce a holy fast;
proclaim a sacred assembly!
2:16 Gather the people;
sanctify an assembly!
Gather the elders;
gather the children and the nursing infants.
Let the bridegroom come out from his bedroom
and the bride from her private quarters.
2:17 Let the priests, those who serve the LORD, weep
from the vestibule all the way back to the altar.
Let them say, “Have pity, O LORD, on your people;
please do not turn over your inheritance to be mocked,
to become a proverb among the nations.
Why should it be said among the peoples,
“Where is their God?”

The LORD’s Response, 18-27

2:18 Then the LORD became zealous for his land;
he had compassion on his people.

Here is the pivot on which the entire book turns.  (It also marks, apparently, the centrepoint of the book, according to word count).  The problem has been stated, and a response called for.  Now God himself responds.

Then… – Reading between the line that separates v17 from v18, we may assume that God’s people have done what they have been urged to do – to cry out (ch. 1, and to return to him (2:1-17).

He had compassion on his people – Answering in the affirmative the question posed in v14.

Everything has changed.  But why? –

‘Upon repentance, all is changed. Before, God seemed set upon their destruction. It was His great army which was ready to destroy them; He was at its head, giving the word. Now He is full of tender love for them, which resents injury done to them, as done to Himself.’ (Pusey, The Minor Prophets)

2:19 The LORD responded to his people,
“Look! I am about to restore your grain
as well as fresh wine and olive oil.
You will be fully satisfied.
I will never again make you an object of mockery among the nations.

The Lord responded to his people – to their pleas, v18, and to their penitence.  Of the latter, Pusey comments:

‘David thou leadest by the hand and reconcilest; Peter thou restorest; Paul thou enlightenest; the Publican, taken from the receipt of custom, thou boldly insertest in the choir of the Apostles; Mary, from a harlot, thou bearest aloft and joinest to Christ; the robber nailed to the cross, yet fresh from blood, thou introducest into Paradise.’

2:20 I will remove the one from the north far from you.
I will drive him out to a dry and desolate place.
Those in front will be driven eastward into the Dead Sea,
and those in back westward into the Mediterranean Sea.
His stench will rise up as a foul smell.”
Indeed, the LORD has accomplished great things.

The one from the north – Pusey argues that this can scarcely refer to actual locusts, for they would come from the south, not from the north.  Baker agrees, clarifying that locusts would usually swarm from the east and south (citing Ex 10:13,19).  Human armies, however, would often come from the north (e.g. Syrians, Assyrians, and Babylonians).  Jeremiah 1:13–15; 4:6; 6:1, 22; 10:22; 25:9 and Ezekiel 1:4; 38:6, 15; 39:2 envision armies invading from the north.

The LORD has accomplished great things – The Heb. is obscure, apparently.  NET follows the majority reading.  Some, however link it with the locusts’ destruction.  So NRSV: ‘Because he has done monstrous things’.

2:21 Do not fear, my land!
Rejoice and be glad,
because the LORD has accomplished great things!
2:22 Do not fear, wild animals!
For the pastures of the wilderness are again green with grass.
Indeed, the trees bear their fruit;
the fig tree and the vine yield to their fullest.
2:23 Citizens of Zion, rejoice!
Be glad because of what the LORD your God has done!
For he has given to you the early rains as vindication.
He has sent to you the rains—
both the early and the late rains as formerly.
2:24 The threshing floors are full of grain;
the vats overflow with fresh wine and olive oil.
2:25 I will make up for the years
that the ‘arbeh-locust consumed your crops—
the yeleq-locust, the hasil-locust, and the gazam-locust—
my great army that I sent against you.
2:26 You will have plenty to eat,
and your hunger will be fully satisfied;
you will praise the name of the LORD your God,
who has acted wondrously in your behalf.
My people will never again be put to shame.
2:27 You will be convinced that I am in the midst of Israel.
I am the LORD your God; there is no other.
My people will never again be put to shame.

The LORD has accomplished great things! – Verses 21-24 are in the past tense.  However, it is possible that the prophet is speaking of a situation that has only occurred (so far) in vision.

“Your God…my people” – Expressive of the covenantal relationship between God and his people.

An Outpouring of the Spirit, 28-32

This section is a separate chapter in the Hebrew text.

The Lord, in his response, moves beyond restoration of what had been lost (v19).  He will do a new thing.

Prior: If Isa 53 is the key to our understanding of the cross of Christ, then this passage is essential for our understanding of the coming of the Holy Spirit.

2:28 (3:1) After all of this
I will pour out my Spirit on all kinds of people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
Your elderly will have revelatory dreams;
your young men will see prophetic visions.
2:29 Even on male and female servants
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.

After all of this – or, ‘afterward’, suggesting an indefinite link with the preceding.  For Peter, this expression referred to ‘the last days’ (Acts 2:17; cf. Heb 1:2).

Cf. v29f – ‘in those days’, which Baker understands to have an eschatological implication, pointing to Pentecost (Acts 2) and beyond (Rev 8:7).

Prior: Whatever the date of Joel’s prophecy (and there is no scholarly consensus about this) there was no immediate fulfilment of this prediction of the outpouring of the Spirit on ‘all flesh’.  Pentecost would happen centuries later.  We are often impatient with God; but he is never in a hurry!  But, eventually, at 9 o’clock in the morning, on the third day of the third month in the year, seven weeks after Jesus’ crucifixion he came in a rush!

I will pour out my Spirit on all kinds of people – lit. ‘on all flesh’.  Allen (NBC): ‘everyone in Israel’.

Prior: Hitherto, the Spirit had been given primarily to empower leaders (e.g. Bezalel, Ex 35:30–31, Jephthah, Jdg. 11:29, Samson, Jdg. 14:6, 19; 15:14).  Now, what is portrayed is ‘lavish, exuberant, almost wasteful…not a drizzle, but a downpour’.

Acts 2:38f extends this to “you and your children, and for all who are far away, as many as the Lord our God will call to himself.”

In other words:

‘The Acts 2 account of the first Christian Pentecost takes the gift limited by Joel to Judah and extends it to all nations in a universal offering that is one of the glories of the Christian gospel.’ (Achtemeier)

Baker: In its metaphorical use, the word for ‘pour’ may be used of God’s anger, (Ezek. 7:8; Hos. 5:10), of blood in saccrifice for the sin offering (Lev. 4:7, 12, 18, 25, 30; cf. Ex. 29:12) or of other kinds of liquid for the drink offering (Isa. 57:6).  Here, it is God’s Spirit that is poured (cf. Isa. 44:3).

Stuart: This verse speaks both of the fulness of the Spirit (‘pour out’) and the democratisation of the Spirit (‘all flesh’).  The first is addressed by the verbs (‘prophesy…have revelatory dreams…see prophetic visions’) and the second by the subject nouns (‘your sons and daughters…your elderly…your young men…male and female servants’).

Achtemeier: whereas Scripture teaches generally that the Holy Spirit is given to enable people to accomplish a God-given task (especially the proclamation of the gospel), here it signifies a new and intimate relationship with God.  And this will be experienced by the inhabitants of Judah generally, including servants.  There is no mention here of priesthood or sacrifices.

In the expression “I will pour out…” we should not miss an allusion to the promise of rain in v23.

He does not give his Spirit by measure:

‘We often read in the Old Testament of the Spirit of the Lord coming by drops, as it were, upon the judges and prophets whom God raised up for extraordinary services; but now the Spirit shall be poured out plentifully in a full stream, as was promised with an eye to gospel-times, Isa. 44:3. ‘ (MHC)

To the Jew first, and also to the Gentile:

‘The Jews understand it of all flesh in the land of Israel, and Peter himself did not fully understand it as speaking of the Gentiles till he saw it accomplished in the descent of the Holy Ghost upon Cornelius and his friends, who were Gentiles (Acts 10:44, 45), which was but a continuation of the same gift which was bestowed on the day of Pentecost.’ (MHC)

In context, according to EBC:

‘Hosea prophesied that the Lord must pour out his fury on an idolatrous Israel (5:10); Joel sees beyond this chastisement to the distant future (cf. Eze 36:16–38), when in a measure far more abundant than the promised rain (cf. 2:22–26) God would pour out his Holy Spirit in power.’

These manifestations of God’s Spirit will be experienced by your sons and daughters…your elderly…your young men…Even on male and female servants.

Goldingay: Mothers and fathers are not necessarily excluded, but the emphasis is on those who are of a lower social status.  This fits with God’s habit of using, for example, younger brothers such as Jacob and David, rather than the older.

Matthew Henry:

• Your daughters – Acts 21:9 records that in one family there were four daughters who prophesied.
• Your elderly…your young men – Neither old age nor youth are barriers to the reception of the Holy Spirit.  How very aged (I sometimes wonder) was the Apostle John when he wrote his Gospel and Epistles?
• Male and female servants – In Christ Jesus there is neither slave nor free, Gal 3:28.  Being a slave was no obstacle either to conversion nor to receiving God’s Spirit, 1 Cor 7:21.

They ‘will prophesy’.  Matthew Henry articulates a cessationist approach:

‘They shall receive new discoveries of divine things, and that not for their own use only, but for the benefit of the church. They shall interpret scripture, and speak of things secret, distant, and future, which by the utmost sagacities of reason, and their natural powers, they could not have any insight into nor foresight of. By these extraordinary gifts the Christian church was first founded and set up, and the scriptures were written, and the ministry settled, by which, with the ordinary operations and influences of the Spirit, it was to be afterwards maintained and kept up.’

But, in his last sentence this esteemed commentator goes beyond anything that is said, either by Joel or by Peter (in his sermon on Acts 2).

Garrett: The major social distinctions of the ancient world are erased, including gender, age and economic status:

‘In an era in which men (not women), the old (not the young), and the landowners (not slaves) ruled society, Joel explicitly rejected all such distinctions as criteria for receiving the Holy Spirit. For Paul the fulfillment of this text is that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female, and neither slave nor free (Gal 3:28).’

Dillard: Joel announces a ‘sociological overhaul’.  This is in contrast with the daily prayer of the Jewish male: “I thank you, God, that I was not born a Gentile, a slave or a woman.”

Garrett: ‘Your sons and daughters…your elderly…your young men’ indicates that the Spirit is given to all Israel, rather than to all humanity.  From a NT perspective, believing Gentiles are by no means excluded, but constitute, along with believing Jews, the new Israel.  The promise is not invalidated, but extended:

Acts 10:45 – ‘The circumcised believers who had accompanied Peter were greatly astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles,’

The implication is that spiritual manifestations had been rare in the time leading up to this outpouring.

In Num 11:24-30 it is recorded that the Spirit of God came upon seventy elders of Israel, and they all prophesied.  Two of them, however, prophesied in the middle of the camp.  This alarmed Joshua, but Moses replied:

Num 11:29 “I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets, that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!”

Joel here records the fulfilment of Moses’ prayer.

All kinds of people will prophesy…have revelatory dreams…see prophetic visions – And these will be true, in contrast to the lying dreams and visions of some (Deut 13:1–5; Jer 14:14; 23:25).

Garrett: These phenomena confirm the presence of the Holy Spirit and draw people into an intimate relationship with God.  The mark the end of an old order and the beginning of a new one.

According to Allen (NBC), the new era which is spoken of here had been described by Jeremiah in terms of God’s law being written on his people’s hearts (Jer 31:31-34), and by Ezekiel in terms of the gift of new hearts (Eze 36:26f).

It was fulfilled at Pentecost and thereafter:

‘A blessed promise of which our Lord gave an earnest on the day of Pentecost when he sent a glorious shower on his little vineyard, a pledge of the might rivers of righteousness which will by and by cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.’ (John Fletcher, in Wood, Baptised With Fire, 13)

Inaugurated at Pentecost, but applicable to the entire church age:

‘This was in part fulfilled according to the letter in the first days of the gospel, but this promise is rather of a comparative meaning: By pouring out of the Holy Spirit on your sons and your daughters, they shall have as clear and full knowledge of the deep mysteries of God’s law as prophets beforetime had. The law and prophets were till John the Baptist, and during this time the gifts of the Spirit were given in lesser measures, and of all men the prophets had greatest measures of the Spirit; but in these days the least in the kingdom of God is greater than John.

(Matthew Poole, Commentary on the Holy Bible)

Goldingay: Pentecost was a fulfilment of Joel’s promise, but the Christian church has often found itself in the same situation that Joel presupposes, and so it is right for us to repent, and pray afresh for the blessing.

Achtemeier on the fulfilment of this Scripture in Acts 2:

‘Acts 2 understands that with the gift of the Spirit to the disciples, the day has begun; the new age of the kingdom has broken into human history and will now exercise its influence until the kingdom comes in its fulness. According to the gospels, the kingdom was already present in the person of Jesus of Nazareth (cf. Mark 1:15; Luke 11:20). Participation in its power is now offered to all who repent and are baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. When that takes place, the gift of the Holy Spirit, promised here in Joel, will be given (Acts 2:38–39).’

2:30 I will produce portents both in the sky and on the earth—
blood, fire, and columns of smoke.
2:31 The sunlight will be turned to darkness
and the moon to the color of blood,
before the day of the LORD comes—
that great and terrible day!

These verses reflect an apocalyptic style that was just emerging (EBC).  This suggests that we might interpret these phenomena as convulsions, not of nature, but of history.

The day of the Lord will be marked, not only by a great outpouring, but a great upheaval.

Baker: The sun and moon were revered as deities among the Egyptians, Babylonians and Canaanites.  In biblical thought, they have no indepedent power, but are under the control of their Creator.

Garrett: The day of the Lord is judgment as well as salvation.  When God comes with power this will mean life for some; for others it will mean death:

2 Corinthians 2:16 ‘…to the latter an odor from death to death, but to the former a fragrance from life to life.’

For Joel the day of the Lord was not exclusively judgment or salvation; it was simply the coming of God to deal with people. For some this means life; for others it means death (2 Cor 2:16).

As Joel 3:2 clarifies, this describes the judgment of the nations.  Israel had first experienced ‘the day of the Lord’, but had (barely, Joel 2:11) survived it.  Now it is visited on the world outside.

This ‘theophany of judgment’ (Allen, NBC) is also described by Isaiah:

‘Look, the LORD’s day of judgment is coming; it is a day of cruelty and savage, raging anger, destroying the earth and annihilating its sinners. Indeed the stars in the sky and their constellations no longer give out their light; the sun is darkened as soon as it rises, and the moon does not shine. I will punish the world for its evil, and wicked people for their sin. I will put an end to the pride of the insolent, I will bring down the arrogance of tyrants. I will make human beings more scarce than pure gold, and people more scarce than gold from Ophir. So I will shake the heavens, and the earth will shake loose from its foundation, because of the fury of the LORD who commands armies, in the day he vents his raging anger.’

Matthew Henry: This was accomplished in part in the death of Christ, Jn 12:31, which was accompanied by the quaking of the earth and the darkening of the sky.  Then again, with the destruction of Jerusalem, Mt 24:6f.  It will have its full accomplishment in the final day of judgment, and the dissolution of both heaven and earth.

Fire – refers not to salvation (cp. Acts 2:3), but to judgment:

Matthew 3:12 “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clean out his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the storehouse, but the chaff he will burn up with inextinguishable fire.” (Emphasis added.  Also Lk 3:17)

Columns of smoke – Signifying, perhaps, the destruction of cities and their inhabitants.

The sunlight will be turned to darkness and the moon to the color of blood –

As to the significance of these phenomena:

‘[They] are no doubt principally concerned with the sociopolitical upheaval in that day: the blood and fire referring to warfare (cf. Num 21:28; Ps 78:63; Isa 10:16; Zec 11:1; Rev 8:8–9; 14:14–20; et al.) and the rising smoke to gutted cities (cf. Jdg 20:38–40)—though God’s activity in the natural world may also play a part (cf. Ex 19:9, 16–18; Rev 6:12, 17). These are to be recognized as well-known signs of the presence of a holy God (for blood, cf. Ex 7:17; 12:22–23; for fire, cf. Ex 3:2–3; 13:21–22; Eze 1:27; Ac 2:3; Heb 12:18; Rev 1:14; for smoke, cf. Ex 19:16–18; Isa 4:4–5; 6:4; Rev 15:8).’ (EBC)

Further:

‘There will be a full eclipse of the sun by day (cf. Joel 3:15; Am 5:18–20; 8:9; Zep 1:15); by night the moon will appear to be blood red, perhaps due to conditions caused by an accompanying earthquake (cf. Jer 4:23–24; Rev 6:12–13). All these will signal the advent of that great and terrible Day of the Lord.’ (EBC)

The day of the Lord – A day of judgment, which could be

1. in the present (Joel 1:15),
2. in the the near future (Isa 2:12, 22; Jer 46:10; Eze 13:5; Am 5:18–20),
3. in the more distant future (Isa 13:6, 9; Eze 30:2–3; Ob 15; et al.),
4. at the end of the present age  (Joel 3:14–15; Zec 14:1–21; 1Th 5:1–11; 2 Th 2:2; 2 Pe 3:10–13).

But the day of the Lord also signals the deliverance of ‘a regathered, repentant Israel’ (Joel 3:16–21; Zec 14:3; Mal 4:5–6).

It closes with the glorious return of the Lord (Rev 19:11–16), and culminates in the eternal state (2 Pe 3:10–13; Rev 21–22).

(See EBC)

The day of the Lord is both a day of blessing and a day of condemnation.

Wiersbe, a premillenialist, identifies ‘the Day of the Lord’ as:

‘That period of worldwide judgment that is also called “the Tribulation” (Matt. 24:21, 29) and “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jer. 30:7). Many students of prophecy think that this special time is detailed in Revelation 6–19, climaxing with the return of Christ to earth to deliver Israel and establish His kingdom (Isa 2:2–5; Zech 12–14; Rev 19:11–20:6).’

I think that this entails a number of interpretative mis-steps.

2:32 It will so happen that
everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be delivered.
For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who survive,
just as the LORD has promised;
the remnant will be those whom the LORD will call.

Everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be delivered – Quoted in Rom 10:13.

Salvation and the gift of the Spirit belong together:

Acts 2:38 ‘Peter said to them, “Repent, and each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’

Stott (oral ministry): The first settles our past; the second provides for our future.  Both gifts are for all of us (everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’; ‘I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh’).

Stuart: These are the ones who have survived the Lord’s judgment (exile).

Baker: Relief is not automatic; it must be requested.

Those who call on the name of the Lord will invoke him, pray for his help, and cleave to him.  To call on his name is to trust in him and his redemption.

Achtemeier, more fully:

‘To call on God’s name means to worship God (Gen. 12:8), to acknowledge that we belong to him alone (Isa. 12:2–4; 44:5; Ps. 105:1; Zech. 13:9), and to depend on him for all life and good (Prov. 18:10; Zech. 2:5). Thus, to call on the name of the Lord in the last judgment is not a desperate, last minute attempt to save one’s life from eternal destruction, but rather is the natural fruit of a heart-felt dependence on God that one has known throughout one’s life.’

[…]

‘To call on his name means to live by his will and not by our own, and to depend on his commandments for daily guidance (cf. John 14:15). “Apart from me you can do nothing,” he tells us (John 15:5); that is, we can do no good act that accords with the will of God except through Christ. And so we call on him constantly to guide and empower us, not only when we are in difficulty, but every day, consistently, in order that we may be obedient.’

…to call on the name of the Lord means, according to the Bible, to tell others what God has done (cf. Ps. 105:1; Isa. 12:4), to be witnesses to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). In that witness, we proclaim a total worldview that sees everything in terms of God’s working in this world; we announce that God’s alone are the kingdom and the power and the glory forever; we bear the glad news that out of free grace, God offers to all persons salvation in the day of the Lord. Paul uses Joel 2:32 in Romans 10:13. But then he goes on to ask how anyone can call on one in whom they have not believed. “And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” Faith comes from hearing the gospel message, says Paul, and that message is heard through our witness to and our preaching of what God has done in Jesus Christ. It is to these tasks that we are called by Joel’s Lord and our Lord.’

They will be delivered – ‘will escape’ (Goldingay).

On Mount Zion and in Jerusalem – In Acts 2:14 Peter had addressed “You men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem.”  But this phrase in Joel is omitted by Peter.  Instead, he universalises the promise, which is now:

Acts 2:39 – “for you and your children, and for all who are far away, as many as the Lord our God will call to himself.”

Peter himself would struggle with the implications of this.  When asked about its meaning:

‘The Peter of the day of Pentecost might have answered rather differently from the Peter who had met Cornelius, and even more differently from the Peter who had to face the opposition of Paul about full fellowship in Christ between Jewish and Gentile believers. Paul found it easier than did Peter to grasp who ‘those afar off’ were and what their inclusion among God’s people signified.’ (Prior)

But, as Prior notes, thirty or so years later, Peter would encapsulate the message beautifully when he wrote to Jewish and Gentile believers, scattered around the Middle East:

1 Pet 2:9f – ‘But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may proclaim the virtues of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. You once were not a people, but now you are God’s people. You were shown no mercy, but now you have received mercy.’

The remnant will be those whom the LORD will call – Emphasising God’s sovereignty in salvation, just as the expression ‘everyone who calls on the name of the LORD’ stresses human responsibility.

New Testament fulfilment

As Allen (NBC) comments, the NT shows an ‘intense’, if somewhat complex, interest in this passage:

But it is also interpreted in the light of the entire present age, which was inaugurated with the first coming of Christ:

Acts 2:16–21 — 16 But this is what was spoken about through the prophet Joel: 17 ‘And in the last days it will be,’ God says, ‘that I will pour out my Spirit on all people, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. 18 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. 19 And I will perform wonders in the sky above and miraculous signs on the earth below, blood and fire and clouds of smoke. 20 The sun will be changed to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and glorious day of the Lord comes. 21 And then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’…33 So then, exalted to the right hand of God, and having received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father, he has poured out what you both see and hear…38 Peter said to them, “Repent, and each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.39 For the promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far away, as many as the Lord our God will call to himself.” 40 With many other words he testified and exhorted them saying, “Save yourselves from this perverse generation!”

Joel’s reference to the people of God is retained in Peter’s speech, which he addresses to ‘men of Israel’, Acts 2:11,22.  But see v39, which universalises the promise.

Allen comments:

‘Peter was claiming that God’s final work had begun in the filling of the disciples with the Holy Spirit and in the opportunity of salvation for the penitent.’

It is clear that not everything in the Joel passage was fulfilled in a literal sense on the day of Pentecost.  For example, no darkening of the sun and moon is recorded:

(a) Some link these signs and wonders with the miracles associated with Jesus’ ministry, especially:

Luke 23:44–45 — ‘It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon,45 because the sun’s light failed. The temple curtain was torn in two.’

However, as Garrett remarks, it is not clear that Peter’s quotation of Joel was retrospective.

(b) ‘Classic’ dispensationalists understand the Joel passage (and Peter’s quotation of it) to refer to a pouring out of the Holy Spirit at the very end of the age.  In this case, the Pentecostal phenomena are seen as the guarantee of this end-time outpouring.

Wiersbe, for example, argues that:

(i) Peter does not say that Joel’s prophecy was being fulilled.  He says that ‘this’ Holy Spirit, who had now been outpoured, was ‘that’ Spirit of whom Joel had spoken.

(ii) There is no record in the Acts passage of ‘wonders in the heavens, and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.… The sun … turned into darkness, and the moon into blood’ (Joel 2:30–31).

(iii) Joel’s promise included a much wider group of people than the one addressed by Peter.   The Gentiles did not receive the Spirit until the time of the conversion of Cornelius and others in Acts 10-11.

But this interpretation does not do justice to Peter’s words: “this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:16).

Some dispensationalists also struggle to locate the fulfilment of Joel’s prophecy in either the Millenium (what to do with the darkening of the sky, etc.) or the Tribulation (what to do with the predicted outpouring of the Spirit).  Wiersbe suggests that ‘the last days’ will be characterised by both trouble and triumph for Israel and the church alike.

(c) Others see Peter’s words in Acts as referring to the Messianic age generally.  This is signalled by Peter’s alteration of  Joel’s ‘and afterward’ to ‘in the last days’.

See also:

‘1 Peter 1:20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was manifested in these last times for your sake.’ (Emphasis added)

Garrett (NAC) says that the disciples following John the Baptist in expecting the Messianic age to be characterised both by the gift of the Spirit and the great day of judgment:

Matthew 3:11 “I baptize you with water, for repentance, but the one coming after me is more powerful than I am—I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Also Lk 3:16)

(d) Still others understand these portents to describe upheaval in the political or spiritual realm, rather than in the cosmic and physical realm.

Pentecost should be seen, then, as the fulfilment (or, at least, as the inauguration) of the OT predictions of the Messianic age.  In that case, it does not matter that not all of the details of Joel’s prophecy were observed on the day of Pentecost itself.  The gift of tongues would happen there and then; dreams, visions, the darkening of the sun and moon, and so on, would happen throughout that age.

Garrett concludes:

‘As far as the early Christians were concerned, the pouring out of the Spirit established that the end of the ages had come. If the Spirit had come down, it was only a matter of time before the fire would come down too. The fact that neither Joel nor Peter knew how much time might elapse between the pouring out of the Spirit and the final judgment is irrelevant; the important point is that the gift of the Spirit inaugurated the “end of the age,” the messianic era.’ (Emphasis added)

Elsewhere in the NT

Motifs from the Joel passage are found elsewhere in the NT:

Mk 13:24 “But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.”

Lk 21:25 “And there will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and on the earth nations will be in distress, anxious over the roaring of the sea and the surging waves.”

Rev 6:12 Then I looked when the Lamb opened the sixth seal, and a huge earthquake took place; the sun became as black as sackcloth made of hair, and the full moon became blood red…17 because the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to withstand it?”

Rev 9:2 He opened the shaft of the abyss and smoke rose out of it like smoke from a giant furnace. The sun and the air were darkened with smoke from the shaft.

To many interpreters, these link with the return of Christ.

In Rom 10:12f, Paul reconfigures the ‘all flesh’ motif to embrace all Jewish and Gentile believers:

‘For there is no distinction between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, who richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’

The people of God do not comprise a single nation, but an international community, distinguished not by race, but by faith:

Eph. 2:11–22 ‘Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh—who are called “uncircumcision” by the so-called “circumcision” that is performed on the body by human hands—that you were at that time without the Messiah, alienated from the citizenship of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who used to be far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, the one who made both groups into one and who destroyed the middle wall of partition, the hostility, when he nullified in his flesh the law of commandments in decrees. He did this to create in himself one new man out of two, thus making peace, and to reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by which the hostility has been killed. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near, so that through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer foreigners and noncitizens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household, because you have been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.’