The Expositor's Bible: The Book of the Twelve Prophets,...

[1114] Ezekiel (xxvii. 13, 19) is the first to give the name Javan, i.e. ΙαϜων, or Ionian (earlier writers name Egypt, Edom, Arabia and Phœnicia as the great slave-markets: Amos i.; Isa. xi. 11; Deut. xxviii. 68); and Greeks are also mentioned in Isa. lxvi. 19 (a post-exilic passage); Zech. ix. 13; Dan. viii. 21, x. 20, xi. 2; 1 Chron. i. 5, 7, and Gen. x. 2. See below, Chap. XXXI.

[1117] With these might be taken the use of קהל (ii. 16) in its sense of a gathering for public worship. The word itself was old in Hebrew, but as time went on it came more and more to mean the convocation of the nation for worship or deliberation. Holzinger, pp. 105 f.

[1118] Cf. Neh. x. 33; Dan. viii. 11, xi. 31, xii. 11. Also Acts xxvi. 7: τὸ δωδεκάφυλον ἡμῶν ἐν ἐκτενεία νύκτα καὶ ἡμέραν λατρεύον. Also the passages in Jos., XIV. Ant. iv. 3, xvi. 2, in which Josephus mentions the horror caused by the interruption of the daily sacrifice by famine in the last siege of Jerusalem, and adds that it had happened in no previous siege of the city.

[1120] The gathering of the Gentiles to judgment, Zeph. iii. 8 (see above, p. 69) and Ezek. xxxviii. 22; the stream issuing from the Temple to fill the Wady ha-Shittim, Ezek. xlvii. 1 ff., cf. Zech. xiv. 8; the outpouring of the Spirit, Ezek. xxxix. 29.

[1122] For an exhaustive list the reader must be referred to Holzinger’s article (cf. Driver, Introd., sixth edition; Joel and Amos, p. 24; G. B. Gray, Expositor, September 1893, p. 212). But the following (a few of which are not given by Holzinger) are sufficient to prove the conclusion come to above: i. 2, iv. 4, וְאִם … הֲ—this is the form of the disjunctive interrogative in later O. T. writings, replacing the earlier אִם … הֲ; i. 8, אלי only here in O. T., but frequent in Aram.; 13, נמנע in Ni. only from Jeremiah onwards, Qal only in two passages before Jeremiah and in a number after him; 18, נאנחה, if the correct reading, occurs only in the latest O. T. writings, the Qal only in these and Aram.; ii. 2, iv. (Heb.; iii. Eng.) 20, דור ודור first in Deut. xxxii. 7, and then exilic and post-exilic frequently; 8, שלח, a late word, only in Job xxxiii. 18, xxxvi. 12, 2 Chron. xxiii. 10, xxxii. 5, Neh. iii. 15, iv. 11, 17; 20, סוֹף, end, only in 2 Chron. xx. 16 and Eccles., Aram. of Daniel, and post Bibl. Aram. and Heb.; iv. (Heb.; iii. Eng.) 4, נמל על, cf. 2 Chron. xx. 11; 10, רמח, see below on this verse; 11, הנחת, Aram.; 13, בשׁל, in Hebrew to cook (cf. Ezek. xxiv. 5), and in other forms always with that meaning down to the Priestly Writing and “Zech.” ix.—xiv., is used here in the sense of ripen, which is frequent in Aram., but does not occur elsewhere in O. T.

[1130] Perhaps this is the most convenient place to refer to König’s proposal to place Joel in the last years of Josiah. Some of his arguments (e.g. that Joel is placed among the first of the Twelve) we have already answered. He thinks that i. 17–20 suit the great drought in Josiah’s reign (Jer. xiv. 2–6), that the name given to the locusts, הצפוני, ii. 20, is due to Jeremiah’s enemy from the north, and that the phrases return with all your heart, ii. 12, and return to Jehovah your God, 13, imply a period of apostasy. None of these conclusions is necessary. The absence of reference to the high places finds an analogy in Isa. i. 13; the מנחה is mentioned in Isa. i. 13: if Amos viii. 5 testifies to observance of the Sabbath, and Nahum ii. 1 to other festivals, who can say a pre-exilic prophet would not be interested in the meal and drink offerings? But surely no pre-exilic prophet would have so emphasised these as Joel has done. Nor is König’s explanation of iv. 2 as of the Assyrian and Egyptian invasion of Judah so probable as that which refers the verse to the Babylonian exile. Nor are König’s objections to a date after “Malachi” convincing. They are that a prophet near “Malachi’s” time must have specified as “Malachi” did the reasons for the repentance to which he summoned the people, while Joel gives none, but is quite general (ii. 13a). But the change of attitude may be accounted for by the covenant and Law of 444. “Malachi” i. 11 speaks of the Gentiles worshipping Jehovah, but not even in Jonah iii. 5 is any relation of the Gentiles to Jehovah predicated.

Again, the greater exclusiveness of Ezra and his Law may be the cause. Joel, it is true, as König says, does not mention the Law, while “Malachi” does (ii. 8, etc.); but this was not necessary if the people had accepted it in 444. Professor Ryle (Canon of O.T., 106 n.) leaves the question of Joel’s date open.

[1132] Vernes, Histoire des Idées Messianiques depuis Alexandre, pp. 13 ff., had already asserted that chaps. i. and ii. must be by a different author from chaps. iii. and iv., because the former has to do wholly with the writer’s present, with which the latter has no connection whatever, but it is entirely eschatological. But in his Mélanges de Crit. Relig., pp. 218 ff., Vernes allows that his arguments are not conclusive, and that all four chapters may have come from the same hand.

[1137] In Germany, among other representatives of this opinion, are Bertholdt (Einl.) and Hengstenberg (Christol., III. 352 ff.), the latter of whom saw in the four kinds of locusts the Assyrian-Babylonian, the Persian, the Greek and the Roman tyrants of Israel.