The LORD Plans to Judge the Nations, 1-8

3:1 (4:1) For look! In those days and at that time
I will return the exiles to Judah and Jerusalem.
3:2 Then I will gather all the nations,
and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat.
I will enter into judgment against them there
concerning my people Israel who are my inheritance,
whom they scattered among the nations.
They partitioned my land,
3:3 and they cast lots for my people.
They traded a boy for a prostitute;
they sold a little girl for wine so they could drink.
3:4 Why are you doing these things to me, Tyre and Sidon?
Are you trying to get even with me, land of Philistia?
I will very quickly repay you for what you have done!
3:5 For you took my silver and my gold
and brought my precious valuables to your own palaces.
3:6 You sold Judeans and Jerusalemites to the Greeks,
removing them far from their own country.
3:7 Look! I am rousing them from that place to which you sold them.
I will repay you for what you have done!
3:8 I will sell your sons and daughters to the people of Judah.
They will sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far away.
Indeed, the LORD has spoken!

‘The teaching about the end times in the Bible serves not to give information to the curious but the bring pastoral assurance to the suffering people of God. So it does here, as v 2 makes clear with its reference to Yahweh’s covenant care. The passage throbs with a sense of grievance and injustice that mirrors Judah’s own feelings. Its NT counterpart is 2 Thes. 1:5-10, which likewise mingles pastoral assurance, punishment for the persecutors of God’s people and the day of the Lord. The meting out of judgment is an adjusting of the balances of justice, to vindicate victims of oppression and violence, as in the parable of the persistent widow in Lk. 18:1-8.’ (NBC)

The Greeks – It might be supposed that this reference to ‘the Greeks’ might place the composition of this prophecy in the late 4th century BC at the earliest.

Gleason Archer:

‘The very wording of this verse precludes dating the composition of Joel at any time subsequent to the conquest of Asia by Alexander the Great. The Greeks are referred to here as a people living “far from the territory” of Judah, and probably also far from the territory of the Phoenician and Philistine slave-raiders themselves, who swooped down on defenseless Judean towns in order to sell the captives on slave markets very far from Canaanite territory. But after Alexander’s conquest the Greeks were very close at hand. In fact, they were in full control of the government of Phoenicia, Israel, and Philistia, and began to carry on all the administration in the Greek language. Therefore Joel must have been composed while the Greeks were still remote from the Near East.

‘The Greeks already came to public notice, of course, after the collapse of Xerxes’ attempted conquest of Greece in 480-479 B.C. But Greek coins are found in Palestinian hoards from as early as the late sixth-century issues of Peisistratus. Greek mercenaries or adventurers served in the court and army of the Babylonians as early as the Lesbian poet Alcaeus, who refers to his brother Antimenidas as engaged in such service. Alcaeus’s date was the seventh century B.C.’

(Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties)

Judgment in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, 9-16

3:9 Proclaim this among the nations:
“Prepare for a holy war!
Call out the warriors!
Let all these fighting men approach and attack!
3:10 Beat your plowshares into swords,
and your pruning hooks into spears!
Let the weak say, ‘I too am a warrior!’
3:11 Lend your aid and come,
all you surrounding nations,
and gather yourselves to that place.”
Bring down, O LORD, your warriors!
3:12 Let the nations be roused and let them go up
to the valley of Jehoshaphat,
for there I will sit in judgment on all the surrounding nations.
3:13 Rush forth with the sickle, for the harvest is ripe!
Come, stomp the grapes, for the winepress is full!
The vats overflow.
Indeed, their evil is great!
3:14 Crowds, great crowds are in the valley of decision,
for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision!
3:15 The sun and moon are darkened;
the stars withhold their brightness.
3:16 The LORD roars from Zion;
from Jerusalem his voice bellows out.
The heavens and the earth shake.
But the LORD is a refuge for his people;
he is a stronghold for the citizens of Israel.

The LORD’s Presence in Zion, 17-21

3:17 You will be convinced that I the LORD am your God,
dwelling on Zion, my holy mountain.
Jerusalem will be holy—
conquering armies will no longer pass through it.
3:18 On that day the mountains will drip with sweet wine,
and the hills will flow with milk.
All the dry stream beds of Judah will flow with water.
A spring will flow out from the temple of the LORD,
watering the Valley of Acacia Trees.
3:19 Egypt will be desolate
and Edom will be a desolate wilderness,
because of the violence they did to the people of Judah,
in whose land they shed innocent blood.
3:20 But Judah will reside securely forever,
and Jerusalem will be secure from one generation to the next.
3:21 I will avenge their blood which I had not previously acquitted.
It is the LORD who dwells in Zion!

‘Some consider that the national and material blessing for Judah in 3:17–21 will one day be enjoyed by the Jewish people. However, there is very little support in the NT for this claim (see Lk. 21:24). The general tenor of its teaching claims for the church, composed of Jews and Gentiles, a spiritualized version of OT promises. Yet there are clues that a renewed earth is part of God’s ultimate purposes (Rom. 8:21; 2 Pet. 3:13).’ (NBC)