Chap. 3
Verse 1
Chapter 3 is Chapter 4 in the Hebrew Bible
Joe 3:1
Judgment upon the World of Nations, and Glorification of Zion- Joe 3:1, Joe 3:2. “For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall turn the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather together all nations, and bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will contend with them there concerning my people and my inheritance Israel, which they have scattered among the nations, and my land have they divided. Joe 3:3. And for my people they cast the lot; and gave the boy for a harlot, and the maiden they have sold for wine, and drunk (it).” The description of the judgment-day predicted in Joe 2:31 commences with an explanatory כּי. The train of thought is the following: When the day of the Lord comes, there will be deliverance upon Zion only for those who call upon the name of the Lord; for then will all the heathen nations that have displayed hostility to Jehovah's inheritance be judged in the valley of Jehoshaphat. By hinnēh, the fact to be announced is held up as something new and important. The notice as to the time points back to the “afterward” in Joe 2:28 : “in those days,” viz., the days of the outpouring of the Spirit of God. This time is still further described by the apposition, “at that time, when I shall turn the captivity of Judah,” as the time of the redemption of the people of God out of their prostrate condition, and out of every kind of distress. שׁוּב את שׁבוּת is not used here in the sense of “to bring back the prisoners,” but, as in Hos 6:11, in the more comprehensive sense of restitutio in integrum, which does indeed include the gathering together of those who were dispersed, and the return of the captives, as one element, though it is not exhausted by this one element, but also embraces their elevation into a new and higher state of glory, transcending their earlier state of grace. In וקבּצתּי the prediction of judgment is appended to the previous definition of the time in the form of an apodosis. The article in כּל־הגּוים (all the nations) does not refer to “all those nations which were spoken of in Hos 1:1-11 and 2 under the figure of the locusts” (Hengstenberg), but is used because the prophet had in his mind all those nations upon which hostility towards Israel, the people of God, is charged immediately afterwards as a crime: so that the article is used in much the same manner as in Jer 49:36, because the notion, though in itself an indefinite one, is more fully defined in what follows (cf. Ewald, §227,
