NOTES for Joe 3:1-11
1 For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, |
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land. |
3 And they have cast lots for my people; and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink. |
4 Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompence me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompence upon your own head; |
5 Because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly pleasant things: |
6 The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border. |
7 Behold, I will raise them out of the place whither ye have sold them, and will return your recompence upon your own head: |
8 And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off: for the LORD hath spoken it. |
9 Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: |
10 Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. |
11 Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O LORD. |
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The prophet speaks of the recompense for sin that awaits the Gentiles, and it seems that his prophetic words apply not only to the cities of Tyre and Sidon, where the cults denounced on the pages of the Bible flourished, but also to everyone willing to lead a pagan way of life. This is easily possible: it is not even necessary to worship idols; one may formally acknowledge that the biblical faith is right. But deeds incompatible with the principles we proclaim will expose us. Whenever we place at the center of our concerns something that should have its own proper place—whether material cares or our own person—or whenever we begin to see people solely as a means of achieving something, we immediately become like the pagans of slaveholding antiquity. Our familiar, “normal” aspirations thereby turn out to be rebellion against God and a trampling of His commandments. But “God is not mocked” (Gal 6:7).
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