Joel

My big question coming into books like Joel is this: how is this little 3 or 4 chapter text going to give me anything that the bigger prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah didn't already give me? You know? It's like, why did these minnows make the Canon? Must be something helpful, fresh and, obviously, inspired in here!

Some observations about Joel:

1. Joel (for me) gets off to a rough start. No bio info, no call narrative, no indication even of Joel's audience! Is this to the North? The South? Pre-exilic? Mid? Post? What? Throw me a bone here!

2. Joel is the prophet of the metaphors. I mean in chapter 1 he's trotting out all available metaphors to describe the devastation to come: the locusts, the drunkards, the lion, the vines, the sackcloth, the virgins...all of it. Then there's the summation in 1:12: "surely the joy of mankind is withered away." Yep.

3. We get introduced to the "day of the Lord." We may have seen this in passing before Joel, but we'll certainly see it in the books to come. And there it is in 2:1. Clearly, it's a day no one wants to see!

4. "Rend your heart." I was helped by the brief passage in 2:13. What does that mean to rend your heart?!? Dictionary.com tells me that to rend something is to "separate into parts with force or violence." In Joel, it's stated in the context of returning to the Lord. Evidently, for Joel there's a self destruction that we do to our own hearts in the process of repentance. Interesting, and something to mull on the walk home today...