Exposition on Joel -39- 2:20-25

The beasts of the field are told no longer to fear, why? Because God has returned to them the green pastures and the fruit of the fig and the vine are to produce plenty. So if the beasts are provided for then how much more diligently will God provide for the people? This is a reversal of the curse we observed back in 1:17-19. Not only the beasts, but the Children of Zion are to be glad and rejoice. That Holy Mountain to which Joel referred in v. 1, is here used to identify the true, spiritual remnant of God, for they were not to fear but those wicked among them still, even then had no cause to rejoice. But this is to the remnant, the promises being fulfilled to that group who God would lead back into the Land. And their rejoicing too is anchored to the hope of the return of their earthly things. How can we describe Heaven and God’s eternal blessing except in terms we understand…”Heaven is like the abundant rain and fruitful harvest. The Kingdom of God is like grain and wine and oil overflowing.”? And thus the Land was a picture of the New Heavens and New Earth that are to come, and the Children of Zion were an illustration of the redeemed community that will one day worship at the very throne of God in that restored Realm. In the judgment of God the people experienced the curse of drought and famine, invasion and exile. Here Joel described the reversal of those curses from 1:4,7,9,10 and 12. And in verse 25 we see again this image of an army of locusts, God’s army of locusts who had ravaged the land for years. So God is essentially saying that He will move this army, which in reality is the army of Babylon, out of the Land so He can restore His remnant there—He would restore to them all the 70 years of harvest they had missed from the Land He had given them—that is true bounty, providing true temporal satisfaction. And like that bounty and satisfaction, the remnant of all the elect people of God, all those who would ever believe, from Adam to the last, will receive over-abounding Spiritual and physical satisfaction in the bounty of All Mighty God for eternity when His ushers in that New Land, that “Platonic Land” if you will, the New Jerusalem, the New heavens and the New Earth.