Yahweh's Army of... Locusts?

Some portions of the Bible just get downright neglected. This is not a new or surprising statement, I don't think. All of us who have grown up with some kind of regular interaction with the Bible realize this. People just don't read Leviticus. People also tend to avoid the opening nine chapters of 1 Chronicles. And, generally speaking, no one seems to have any particular interest in the so-called Minor Prophets that, in our English Bibles at least, close out the Hebrew Scriptures. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't understand. Given my vocation and my particular academic interests, I enjoy reading and studying the entire Hebrew Bible--but I can relate to the common aversion most people have to these works. The cultural distance alone is enough to decimate the morale of a modern reader. And, for whatever reason, it sometimes seems to me that mainstream English translators do almost everything in their power to make certain texts more difficult to comprehend. They have their reasons--including ideological commitments and public opinion concerns (i.e., "Well the King James translated Psalm 23 like this, and that's how everyone remembers it now, so if we update it and make a better translation that is more accurate and helpful for modern readers, many people will reject our entire effort and not buy the Bible because we 'changed' the words of God!"). It is a very difficult spot that translators are placed in by publishers and marketing departments, for sure. All of that to say, I get it. But there are a great deal of insights that are contained in these neglected works--insights about who God is and what he expects from his people.

In the Book of Joel, the reader is confronted with a startling situation. Apparently, at some point in the southern kingdom of Judah's history, a great plague of locusts threatened to destroy the nation's resources. Scholars are greatly divided on when to date the contents of the book (so much so that Calvin famously advised his audience to stop even trying), and some scholars don't even take the plague of locusts literally; instead they suggest it is a metaphor for the invasion of Babylonian or possibly Assyrian forces (an unconvincing suggestion, in my humble opinion). Regardless of when Joel gave these oracles, his audience was probably very startled. This coming plague of locusts would apparently damage the land in a way they had never even seen before. So I'm sure their knee-jerk reaction was, "Oh man, I hope Yahweh will save us." But then came the really bad news. The really bad news was, Yahweh was actually sending the plague. After describing the plague of locusts figuratively, comparing them to an advancing horde of superhuman warriors whose sole focus is destruction, Joel tells his audience in 2:11 that Yahweh himself "thunders [lit. gives his voice] at the head of his army." Apparently, the plague of locusts is Yahweh's personal army! This would be discouraging, to say the least.

But the people are given a choice. The plague, unfortunately, was unstoppable. Yahweh had made up his mind about that. But what came after that plague was partially up to the response of God's people. If they would repent from their disobedience and return to him, God would restore their land, bringing them back everything they had lost to the locusts and then some. And Joel didn't stop there. One day, he said, God would bless them in ways they couldn't even imagine. He would restore their land and resources, he would avenge the wrongs and atrocities that were committed against them, and he would even place his own Spirit among them in a way that would be unprecedented. Such a suggestion leads me to believe the context of Joel should be dated sometime between 515-400 BC, when prophecy was not very common anymore and people were beginning to wonder if God would ever send his Spirit among them again. This prediction, of course, would be seized upon by Peter in Acts 2, during his famous sermon on the day of Pentecost--identifying the outpouring of the Spirit on that day as evidence of the fulfillment of God's promise in Joel's oracle hundreds of years prior.

Several things stand out to me after reading the Book of Joel. First, we see yet another example (the Minor Prophets are full of them) of God's willingness to do absolutely whatever it takes to get his people to return to him and find life. He does not, apparently, shy away from even the most extreme efforts to persuade his people to repent and find forgiveness and reconciliation with him. The announcement that God was behind the plague of locusts would have been shocking, for sure, and his commitment to actively pursuing his people is even more surprising. Second, we see another consistent aspect of the biblical message: the future is not set in stone. God gave his people a very clear choice. Their behavior and decisions would ultimately affect how the future would turn out for them. As Joel says (just as Jonah says, but in a very different context) in 2:13, Yahweh is a God who changes his mind about sending calamity when his people repent. This is the lesson Jonah learns begrudgingly when he delivers God's olive branch to the people of Nineveh, much to Jonah's chagrin. Finally, we clearly see that God avenges all wrongs and does not let injustices go unpunished. Sometimes it certainly seems to us, and seemed to the ancient Israelites, that God lets the crooked and the wicked get away with the most atrocious acts of evil--while the righteous go on suffering with no apparent recourse. But Joel fervently argues that, in the final analysis of things, this is not so. Yahweh does hold everyone accountable for their actions. In 3:16 Joel writes that Yahweh roars [Hebrew yish'ag--it is what lions do in the Hebrew Bible] from Zion as he judges every nation on earth in the so-called "Valley of Decision." God will ultimately, some day, right all wrongs.

There are many other insights about God that one can draw from the Book of Joel, and the same is true for all of the other generally neglected portions of the Hebrew Bible. Hopefully, pastors and congregants alike will realize this. As the apostle Paul reminds us in 2 Timothy 3:16-17: All Scripture has been inspired by God and is useful for teaching us how to live lives that are pleasing to him.