Prophetic Perspective

Joel 3

            As Joel wraps up his prophecy, he looks forward to a day of judgment on Israel’s enemies and a day of restoration. This makes a good time to comment on what is called prophetic perspective. Joel is seeing a locust infestation, but he can see indistinctly meaning beyond that initial crisis. He likens those locusts to an invading army—whether that’s the Assyrians or the Babylonians or some other army, who knows. But the locusts are clearly a foreshadowing of something greater, which Joel summarizes as the day of the Lord. And as we read on, we see that the day of the Lord is greater than even the defeat of Israel’s enemies. He talks of multitudes gathered for judgment and the darkening of the skies. We can see in that a foreshadowing of the last day. Joel probably doesn’t see all of that, but the words which the Lord inspires him to utter contain all of that.