We are reading Joel out of historical context. It was written during the reign of Judah’s King Uzziah, and should have been read with II Chronicles 26 and about the same time as Hosea and Amos. In it God used a plague of locusts as a metaphor to describe the destruction that will happen on The Day of the Lord. That day is both a reference to destruction suffered in ancient history when Judah and other nations experienced God’s judgment, and also to a day in the future when God judges mankind with destruction at the end time. So the time referenced is fluid. But we shouldn’t get hung up on the time issue with Joel, for if we do we will miss the point of the book, which is about God’s judgment and His promise of hope beyond the judgment.
If ancient Hebrew poetry is difficult for us to understand, which it is, it won’t move us. Laura Ingalls Wilder did a wonderful job of describing a locust plague in her book On the Banks of Plum Creek. When my daughters and I read Joel for home school assignments, we also read those chapters in that book because they offer a moving description of a locust swarm. If you have a copy, I encourage you to read those chapters as well. If you don’t, here is a link to an article that describes that swarm in ways that speak to us more immediately than the ancient poetry does. It’s worth reading for the understanding that it gives us of how horrible God’s judgment is. Until it happens to them, mankind has the luxury of thinking it’s not so bad. But make no mistake: God will judge, and He knows how to make judgment miserable.
So in our home school, I taught my girls to associate Joel with a locust plague, which leads us to recall the Day of the Lord, which is a day of judgment. But recall that judgment is not God’s final word for His people; hope is. In contrast to the tumult and terror of judgment, God offers His people full satisfaction, abundance, righteousness, refreshment, plenty, fullness, praise to God – all in service to their knowing God. Do you want to know God – intimately know Him? Or are you content to take your chance with judgment? The choice confronting us in today’s reading is one or the other.