Do not fear, My
land! Rejoice and be glad, because the Lord has accomplished great
things! – Joel 2:21 (NET)
A few verses after
this, what is perhaps the most famous and well-known statement from the book of
Joel can be found. That statement is
“After all of this I will pour out My Spirit on all kinds of people. Your
sons and daughters will prophesy. Your elderly will have revelatory
dreams; your young men will see prophetic visions. Even on male and
female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days” (2:28-29).
This is quoted by
Peter, as reported in the second chapter of Acts, doing so in his address to
the people of Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost. For Peter, it seems that
this vision of Joel that has now been realized, is couched in the necessity of
the Resurrection of Jesus. Based upon what would have been Peter’s
worldview concerning the resurrection of the righteous and the end of the
covenant people, this pouring out of the Spirit can only have taken and be
taking place because the Christ had been resurrected from the grave. Accompanying that, an entirely new age had
begun.
Along with this, one must
remember, as a basic rule of exegesis, that when New Testament writers or
speakers make reference to isolated passages from the Hebrew Scriptures, doing
so is not an indication that they are merely looking for proof-texts for their
opinions. Rather, it is that they have
entire narratives, entire sections of texts, and entire patterns of thought in mind,
all couched within a comprehensive worldview that is shaped by an understanding
of their God and His covenant with them.
In many, if not most cases,
when passages from the prophets or wisdom literature are quoted, or when a New
Testament character or author alludes to a single verse, it is because the Christ-event,
in some way and in accordance with the unified Scriptural narrative, has served
to make additional or new sense of that passage. So even though Peter quotes a selection from
Joel (2:28-32), it must be presumed that his hearers would have in mind the
entirety of the context from which that selection is lifted. Again, this is a basic rule of exegesis, and
all conclusions that can be derived from isolated verses must be weighed
against this consideration.
So looking back to
Joel, which is entirely appropriate when hearing Peter make reference to the
work, one must take notice that the twenty-eighth verse begins with “After all
of this.” Such a statement begs the question, “After all of what?”
Because what follows is clearly connected with thoughts about what the Creator God
is going to do among and through His covenant people, what precedes must speak
to the world in which these things will be done.
For the prophet Joel,
the indication it will be as if a new age has dawned. It is an age in which he grips the promise of
God that “I will make up for the years that the arbeh-locust consumed your
crops---the yeleq-locust, the hasil-locust, and the gazam-locust---My great army
that I sent against you” (2:25). Here, much like Peter is calling the
whole of Joel to mind, Joel calls to mind the Deuteronomic and Levitical curses
that would accompany Israel’s failure to live up to the terms of their covenant
with their God, which naturally calls to mind the exodus (the seminal and
defining event in the history of Israel), which is set against the background
of the call of Abraham, which ultimately had to take place because of the fall
of Adam (thereby calling to mind the Adam story).
Yes, because the
Bible essentially presents one continuous narrative of creation, fall, cursing,
God’s-single-plan-of-salvation-for-the-world, redemption, and restoration
(never lose sight of this idea), one is more than justified in thinking about
the curse that came upon the ground (the world/creation) because of the fall of
Adam (as well as the Torah curses of Deuteronomy and Leviticus) when stories
about locusts consuming crops are encountered.
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