NOTES for Joe 1:1-9

The pictures of the devastated land make us wonder what is being described here: an actual invasion of locusts, or images of an enemy invasion passing before the prophet's eyes? Famine and devastation can equally result from either disaster.

But if the locusts can be an image of an enemy invasion, and the invasion an image of retribution for sins and lawlessness, could the picture of physical hunger be an expression of spiritual hunger, and the very description of the consequences of the locust invasion a spiritual portrait of a considerable part of the people? And if offerings in the Temple have ceased, is it only because the fruit of the earth has run out? Is it not to an even greater extent because the resources of the soul have run dry and people have turned away from God?

We are accustomed to the enemy coming from outside, but how often do we ourselves become enemies both to God and to ourselves; how often do the depths of our own hearts prove to be the source of hostile actions.

One of the last writing prophets, Joel most probably lived around the turn of the fifth and fourth centuries BC. We know virtually nothing about the prophet as a person; we may suppose that he was a Temple prophet whose entire ministry was devoted to proclaiming God's word. His short but very important book contains only a reference to an invasion of locusts, the event that prompted him to speak. This event cannot, however, be dated precisely. At the same time, certain details of his prophecy allow it to be placed in the period after the Jews' return from Babylonian captivity, the era of the Second Temple.

In the first part of chapter 1, the prophet speaks with fear and sorrow of the disaster that has struck the country. The insects have destroyed everything living on the land of Israel, turning it into a desert. Lament over disaster is a common genre of biblical poetry and of ancient Near Eastern poetry generally; following its conventions, the prophet tells how all-encompassing this affliction has proved. The land and its inhabitants have been deprived of everything: grain and grapes, oil and every other kind of food. Weep, lament, inhabitants of the land: this is the prophet's main call in this part of the book. He calls everyone who hears or reads his words to feel the spectre of famine and death looming over his country.

How fragile the people's prosperity has proved, with what astonishing ease and speed ruin spreads everywhere! Recognising this matters to the prophet, because he will go on to speak of life's true foundations. For him, grief over suffering and loss is inseparable from reflection on why this disaster has befallen people. Beyond all this, however, the description of this suffering matters within the wider biblical context. One of the Old Testament's central revelations is that God hears His people's cry, and the tragedy Joel describes becomes the place of God's saving intervention in people's lives.

What is historical memory? And what does it have to do with Tradition? At first sight, the prophet's call to his listeners to remember what they see and hear seems to appeal precisely to historical memory, without which there can be no remembering of events as they happen and no passing on to descendants of what has been heard.

But is it really so simple? What should those who see and hear the prophet remember? Judging by the fact that the Book of Joel is among the Bible's prophetic books, we can say that his contemporaries saw, heard and remembered exactly what was needed. But who precisely remembered it? And who, in the first place, was supposed to see, hear and remember?

Joel addresses the elders and the whole people. In the age of clan and tribal organization, the elders were effectively the only holders of authority in Hebrew society. In Joel's time, however, we should speak rather of the council of elders that existed in Jerusalem throughout its ancient history, until its destruction in AD 70. Evidently, the prophet is addressing a representative governing body and public opinion, as we would call it today.

Yet we have the Book of Joel today thanks neither to the council of elders nor to public opinion, but to the Synagogue, which in the post-exilic period systematized the records of Joel's preaching, as it did those of the other prophets, and to the circle of followers of the pre-exilic prophets about which we know little, but which may also have constituted a kind of community movement in pre-exilic Judah. It follows that Tradition is born not in society as a whole, but in a community of the faithful, ready to listen to the prophets and remember their words, understanding that they are receiving revelation given by God.

But for the prophets themselves, including Joel, what mattered was precisely the whole people of God. Not because this was more convenient for the witnesses themselves—they would have been far happier preaching to a small circle of like-minded people who understood and sympathized with them—but because everyone had to have the opportunity to hear the word of God. God wanted everyone belonging to His people to be among His faithful, so everyone had to be given a chance. And that chance could only be the word of Revelation spoken publicly.