Joel Preacheth Repentance

FROM THE BIBLICAL SERIES BY B. PICART.

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'He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig-tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white."-Joel, 1, 7.

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F THE prophet Joel we know nothing, neither

of his life, nor of the period of his book. In it he mentions the Greek merchants as buying Hebrew slaves, a custom that suggests a late date for the writing. But this is indefinite; and, while recent scholars incline to think of Joel as the last of all the prophets, others have regarded him as among the earliest. His book speaks of a terrible plague of insects, which has reduced the land almost to starvation. What one visitation had spared, the next had taken. To "palmerworms" had succeeded locusts, to these "cankerworms," and to these caterpillars. This, cries Joel, is a fitting punishment for the sins of the people; and he urges them to repentance.

"Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the meat-offering and the drinkoffering is withholden from the house of your God.

"Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God, and cry unto the Lord."

HOSEA II-THE IDOLATRY OF ISRAEL

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11 I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.

12 And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.

13 And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the LORD.

14 ¶ Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.

15 And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

16 And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali.1

17 For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.

18 And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.

19 And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies.

20 I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD.

21 And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the LORD, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth;

22 And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel.

23 And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.

Chapter 3

1By the expiation of an adulteress, 4 is shewed the desolation of Israel before their restoration.

HEN said the LORD unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine.

2 So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley:

Ishi means my husband; Baali, my master, or my husband. The name Baali is here forbidden because of its heathen connotation.