om of
God. The defenders of such a view have altogether misunderstood the
structure of the prophecy of Joel; for, otherwise, they would have seen
that that event belongs to the threatening of judgment in chap. i. and
ii., where the judgment upon the house of God is described; while,
here, there is a description of the judgment upon those who are
without.

The same argument seems, at first sight, to apply also to the
destruction by the Romans. But on a closer examination, there appears
to be a difference betwixt these two events, and one which brings the
latter far more within the scope of the prophecy. The destruction by
the Romans was much more intimately connected with a total apostasy and
rejection, than was that by the Chaldeans. Even before the former
destruction, and immediately after the death of Christ, the former
Covenant-people had sunk down to the rank of the Gentiles. They were no
more apostate children, who were, by means of punishment, to be brought
to reformation, but enemies, who were judged on account of their
hostile disposition towards the kingdom of God. Malachi, in chap. iii.
23 (iv. 5), shows that such a time would come when that, which they
imagined to be intended only for the heathen by descent, should be
realized upon Israel after the flesh. The verbal repetition of the
words, "Before there [Pg 347] cometh the great and dreadful day of the
Lord," and their application to the judgment upon Israel, can be
accounted for only by his intention to oppose the prevailing carnal
interpretation of the prophecy under consideration.

It will now be seen also, what the relation is which the phenomena at
the death of Christ, the darkening of the sun, the quaking of the
earth, the rending of the rocks (compare Matt. xxvii. 45, 51; Luke
xxiii. 44), occupy to the passage before us. They were like the
[Hebrew: mvptiM] here, actual declarations of the divine wrath, and
forerunners of the approaching judgment; and they were recognised as
such by the guilty, to whom this symbolical language was interpreted by
their consciences; compare Luke xxiii. 48: [Greek: Kai pantes hoi
sumparagenomenoi ochloi epi ten theorian tauten, theorountes ta
genomena, tuptontes heauton ta stethe, hupestrephon.]

But we must not limit ourselves to the obduracy of the Covenant-people.
This we are taught, not only by the relation of chap. i. and ii. to iv.
2, but, with especial distinctness, by the renewal of this threatening
in Rev. xi