everybody what is going on you know what time it is you're listening to join the journey podcast

with your host emma daughter thanks for joining today we're reading the book of joel and we're

answering the questions and jol one the locust plague is described in vivid poetic language

is this a metaphor for a future army or a literal natural disaster? Basically,

what's the deal with the locusts? And then our second question is, how does apocalyptic

imagery, meaning striking visual language about the end times, function in prophetic literature

like this? Two big questions, but I want to start by acknowledging the elephant in the room.

Joel can be somewhat challenging to understand, and a lot of it can seem kind of scary.

We read about fire devouring before and behind a powerful army, an attack where the attackers

leap upon the city, climb the walls, and then climb into people's houses, which is really giving

like zombie apocalypse vibes. And obviously it's not zombies, but you could take that description

and find it in the script of a horror movie. Or even like Lord of the Rings. This year, for the

first time ever, I watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the descriptions and Joel had me thinking about the orcs, which if you haven't seen the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the descriptions and Joel had me thinking about the

orcs, which if you haven't seen the Lord of the Rings, think scary looking monsters that attack the

good guys, the heroes, without mercy, and they literally scale walls. But while movies, like

Lord of the Rings, can be super fun to watch. It's not fun to be the one living the story

in real life, which raises a question. Is Joel talking about literal events or some sort of

metaphor for a future event or even a combination? The book of Joel is a prophetic book. We know

that it's Joel's prophecy, but we don't know much about him, and we don't know exactly when Joel gave this prophecy. Some people think he shared it with the Southern Kingdom of Judah before they were exiled, while others think he shared this prophecy after they'd return back home to Israel. Personally, I think it's more likely it was a pre-exilic prophecy,

meaning Joel said it before Judah was conquered by the Babylonians.

But one commentator points out, and I think rightly so,

that knowing the date has very little impact on interpretation or our understanding of this text.

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