JOEL, BOOK OF. The book of Joel deals with " the great and terrible day of the Lord." The immediate occasion for the prophecy was a plague of drought and locusts. " Recent writers have vividly described the appalling nature of this calamity. In great swarms which obscure the sky these ravenous insects sweep over large areas, destroying all vegetation, and leaving the land as barren as a desert " (C. F. Kent). There are no indications of the date of the book in the opening verse. It has therefore to be inferred from internal evidence. The period with which the prophet is familiar is one In which " comparative peace prevailed in Palest ine, although the memories of past invasions and wrongs are still fresh in the mind of the prophet " (C. F. Kent). The prophet does not allude to a king or to princes; the elders and the priests are the prominent officials (i. 14; i. 9, 13, il. 17). Jehovah's heritage has already been scattered among the nations (iii. 2-3). The Greeks are represented simply as slave-traders (iii. 6). The services of the Temple are properly maintained. The interruption of the regular sacrifices is regarded as a great misfor tune (I. 9, 13, it. 14). In fact, the writer seems to assume the existence and the Services of the Second Temple. " With this agree the features that the whole people can, and is called upon to, assemble in the Temple (1. 14: ii. 16), that the trumpet blown upon Mount Zion is heard throughout the whole land (ii. 1), because it consists only of Jerusalem and its immediate environs " (Cornill). It used to be thought that on the whole the criteria suit a date in the early part of the reagn of Joash, king of Judah (837-S01 B.C.). But the force of the evidence against an early date and in favour of a very late one has accumulated in recent research. Vera (quoted by
Cornill) seems to be correct in saying that the diction of Joel " is the flowing diction of the scholar who is deeply i read in the ancient literature, not the spontaneous beauty which marks the creations of genius." And Cornill thinks that Holzinger has demonstrated convincingly that Joel's language exhibits the character of the latest period of Hebrew literature. The mention of Jerusalem's " walls " (ii. 9) implies a period subsequent to Nehemiah; and it is thought that there are clear indications of the in fluence of the great priestly reformation of about 400 B.C. Prof. Whitehouse finds in •iii. 19 (• Egypt shall become a desolation, because of the violence done to the men of Judith, because they shed innocent blood in their land ") a reference to the destruction of the Jewish temple in Elephantiue about 409 B.C., " of which we are informed in the Aramaic papyri recently discovered in that spot." Prof. Cornill would assign the book to about 400 B.C.
In the Book of Joel we possess a compendium of late Jewish eschatology written about the year 400—if any thing rather later than earlier—as developed from later prophecy, with its tendency to flow over into apocalypse : in its whole tone and spirit Joel belongs altogether to apocalyptic, although in outward form it has preserved more of the character of older prophecy than Zechariah and Daniel." See S. R. Driver, Joel and Amos, 1897; in " Cambridge Bible "; C. Conlin, Intr.; 0. C. White house; C. F. Kent, The Sermons, Epistles and Apoca lypses of Israel's Prophets. 1910.