LOGOS Bible Study: Joel and conflict in the Holy Land

 

Tags: Leave blank...

 

Revd Dr Beth Keith

Last week our LOGOS Bible Study explored the Book of the Prophet Joel. The book explores the themes of war and covenant. Whilst we had been due to look at this book anyway, the news of the atrocities currently happening in Israel and Gaza, changed the nature of our discussion. Below are some of the thoughts that came from our study, not to give easy answers or false hope, and certainly not to sanitise the horrific violence, but to help us to pray. 
 
Just over a week ago, Hammas fighters began their offensive, and over the course of the week we have heard about the atrocities they committed. Atrocities for which there can be no justification. Israel have responded, not just targeting Hammas, but all those in Gaza, many of whom are children. Evil begets evil, and we are now also seeing incidents beginning to occur around the world. 
 
But the story did not start last week. This is a conflict that has been there as long as we can remember, as Jews and Palestinians work, protest, and fight to live in their homeland without fear of displacement or occupation.  And the story did not start in their lifetime. The family histories, of both Jews and Palestinians speak of this struggle. This week’s events, replaying the events of the past, with families torn apart by unspeakable grief. 
 
We find the history of these stories in our own sacred texts. The Old Testament tells the stories of occupation, of promised lands, and covenant homecoming. The writers pointed to the hand of Yahweh in carving out a land, a home, for his people, won through battle and miracle. The prophetic books warned the people, that their place in the land should not be taken for granted, that their treatment of their own people, and the treatment of their neighbours, could break the covenant promises, and break Yahweh’s blessing.  The horror we have seen on our screens over the last week, mirrors the texts of terror we can read in our bibles. 
 
The book of Joel was most likely written somewhere between 500 and 350 BCE, when the Jews had returned from exile, were under Persian rule, but experiencing a relatively peaceful time. Normal life had resumed, growing, harvesting, living. Into this normality we read of swarms of locusts destroying the harvest and laying waste to the land. These swarms may be descriptions of crop failures but are also written as metaphors for a day of judgement. 
 
In the second half of the book the writing switches as the prophet looks forward to a future Day of the Lord. This day of judgement includes some of the imagery of war and exile that we see in other prophetic books. However, Joel also stretches the imagery of covenant pointing to a day when God’s Spirit will be poured out on all flesh. This is the same passage that is taken up by Luke and Paul to describe the Day of Pentecost and the opening up of the gospel of Christ, beyond the Jews and to all people. In this way it is a book which stands firmly within the Old Testament, with its understanding of covenant, but points forward to the work of Christ. 
 
In the passage we are given an image of the Valley of Jehoshaphat. This may geographically refer to the Valley of Kidron, which is to the east of Jerusalem now part of the West Bank. But the phrase Valley of Jehoshaphat means the valley of God’s judgement or the valley of God’s decision. So, in the book you will find it referred to in these three ways. This valley of judgement is set up as though it is the court room of God’s judgement, and this is the place which God calls the surrounding nations into. In the third chapter of the book, Yahweh calls the nations into the valley. As they clash in the valley, the seemingly inevitable threat of war mounts, and we hear these familiar verses;

Beat your ploughshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. (3.10)

Except they are not the familiar words from Isaiah, they’ve been turned around. Now the tools for growing and harvesting are being turned into weapons for war. In the growing tension and war cries, a cry goes up to heaven. Bring down your warriors O Lord. Lord, bring your angelic warriors down into this valley of judgement that they can join the battle. 
 
Given the writing of the other Old Testament texts, you would expect at this point, that a battle rages, and that the most innocent, take the brunt of the worst atrocities. But instead of fighting, the warriors of Yahweh take the tools of harvest, which had been turned into weapons for war, and use them for their intended use. We don’t read of people being cut down, but the harvest is brought in. In the valley of God’s judgement, instead of slaughter, there is a harvest of grain and grapes,  a harvest of bread and wine.  In this prophetic vision of the future, God’s warriors switch the battle to harvest. 
 
Then the writing turns again, and the vision, which earlier on, seemed to stretch out beyond the covenantal borders of Israel, and which seems to open up the possibility for peace and flourishing, retracts and returns to battle, occupation, and avenging for the deaths of those who have been murdered.
 
When I read this text, I want it to end at chapter 3 verse16. I want it to stop here, to stop where the vision opens up the possibility of something beyond war, to stop at harvest instead of battle. But it doesn’t. I want the possibility of peace to be louder than the cries for vengeance. I want to believe there might be other outcomes than what today seems inevitable. 
 
When I read this text, I see in Joel’s words one sent by God. God’s warrior, who on the day of judgement gathered his friends together over a meal. How his friends longed for him to be a messiah who would be victorious in battle. But instead, he offered himself to them in the image of bread and wine; the fruits of harvest, instead of a call to fight. He called them to remember this, and he calls us to that too. 
 
Below is a statement from the  Most Reverend Hosam E Naoum, Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem, calling for peace, and encouraging a day of prayer and fasting on Tuesday October 17th. Followed by a statement from the Archbishop of Canterbury. 

‘Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee’ (Psalm 122) 

 

Author/copyright permissions Beth Keith Photo by Timon Studler on Unsplash

 

Resource Type Article