JOED Oared), (Heb. yo-ade', Jehovah his witness), a Benjamite, son of Pedaiah (Nell. xi:7) and grandson of Sallu, which last was a Benjamite living at Jerusalem after the captivity (B. C. be fore 536).
JOEL (Wel), (Heb. yo-ale', Jehovah his God).
1. The Son of Pethuel, a person otherwise unknown to us, prophesied in Judah, probably in Jerusalem (see Joel, Hebrew Version, i:i4 11:1, 15; English Version, ii :32 ; :1, 2, 6, 7, 16, 17, 20, 2I—to some of which texts Bleek, p. 525, adds i:9, 13, 16; ii :9, 17). 'Nothing is known of the circumstances of his life. There is a controversy even as to the age in which he lived. But in any case he belonged to the most ancient of the minor prophets, not to the later portion of them. Now, as Amos not only opens his prophecy with an utterance of Joel's (comp. Amos i :2 with Joel iii: 16), but also concludes with promises similar to those in Joel (comp. Amos ix:13 with Joel iii :18), Joel must have prophesied before Amos; that is, before the twenty-seven years during which Uz ziah and Jeroboam II reigned contemporaneously (apparently a slip of the pen, for the "the twenty seventh year of Jeroboam, in which Azariah or Uzziah began to reign," 2 Kings xv:1). We are led to assign a still higher antiquity to the proph ecies of Joel by the political relations which come into view in them; since neither the Syrians nor the Assyrians had shown themselves hostile to the theocracy, but only the Phcenicians and the Philistines (iii :4), the Egyptians and the Edomites (iii:t9). On the one hand. again. there is no mention of the attack upon Jerusalem by the Syrians under Hazael of Damascus, which cost Joash not only the treasures of the palace and of the temple, but also his life (2 Kings xii :18, sq.; 2 Chron. xxiv :23, sq. • yet for this Amos (i:3-5) prophesies the ruin o'f the Syrian kingdom, and the carrying away of the people to Assyria. On the other hand, there are the two circumstances, that the Edomites were already punished and brought anew into subjection by Amaziah (2 Kings xiv :7), on account of their revolt from Joram, and that the Philistines had to endure the same at the hands of Uzziah (2 Chron. xxvi:
6, ;), on account of what they had done in the sa.ne reign, plundering Jerusalem and carrying away the captive Jews (2 Chron. xxi 17; comp. with Jocl iii :4-6). For these two reasons we are justified in concluding that Joel prophesied between Joram's reign and the last years of King Joash. Credner and Winer place him in the time of Joash; Bertholdt, in that of Heze kiah ; Cramer and Eckevniaun. in Josiah's reign; Jahn, in NIanasseh's, and Schr8der still later.
2. The Doe< of Joel. (1) Occasion. The occasion of the prophecy of Joel was an entire desolation of Judah by an unheard-of plague of locusts, accompanied by a burning drought, which lasted for several years (ii :25). A calamity of this kind was not uncommon in Palestine, and, in ordinary circumstances, would not be made a subject of prophetic discourse. But the visitation described by Joel was exceptionally severe. Suc cessive swarms of locusts swept over the country (i:4), and their devastations went on for years (ii :25). The produce of the fields, vineyards and orchards was destroyed (i ito-i2). Food failed for man and beast (i :io-i2, 16, 17, 18-2o). The daily offering to Jehovah was suspended from lack of the necessary materials (i :9, 13 ; 11:14)• This was equivalent to an interruption of the covenant relation between Jehovah and his peo ple. A calamity which led to such a result was a very serious one. No prophet would have been faithful to his mission as watchman of Israel if he had failed to warn the people of the danger with which such a visitation threatened them. Joel saw in the locust invasion a special judgment from Jehovah, and used it as a text for one of the most interesting and instructive discourses contained in the prophetical books of the Old Testament.