Joel 3:18-21

18-21. After the judgment upon the nations, Judah, under the care and protection of Jehovah, will enjoy the fullness of the divine blessing. The seat of the former world powers will become a barren waste, while in Judah there will be fertility and peace. 18.

In that day The day of judgment upon the enemies and of deliverance for the Jews, and so the beginning of the Messianic age. Now follows a hyperbolical description of extreme fertility.

Mountains… hills The territory of Judah was “strewn with limestone rocks. The little soil between yielded only a meager subsistence in return for the most wearisome labor.” But the fertility in the new age will be so great that it will seem as if the mountains and hills themselves were giving forth the wine and milk.

New [“sweet”] wine See on Joel 1:5 (compare Amos 9:13).

Milk Canaan is called a “land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8). The prophet, on the whole adopting the language of Amos, takes the liberty to make the change in accord with the rest of the description.

Rivers (Joel 1:20) shall flow with waters Water was doled out but sparingly in Judah, most of the brooks dried up entirely during the dry season. That will happen no more; water will be plentiful for man and beast.

A fountain… of the house of Jehovah There are two other passages speaking of a fountain that shall come forth from Jerusalem or from the temple of Jehovah (Zechariah 14:8; Ezekiel 47:1-12). All three passages may have been suggested by the fact that there was a spring which came forth from beneath the temple in a perennial stream (Isaiah 8:6; compare Psalms 46:4; John 9:7). “The idea which the three prophets share in common is that these waters should be increased in volume to such an extent as to be capable of fertilizing effectually the barren parts of Judah.”

Valley of Shittim R.V. margin, “That is, the valley of acacias.”

Valley Hebrews nahal. Not the same word as in Joel 3:12; Joel 3:14; it corresponds to the Arabic wady, a gorge between hills, through which runs a water course which in the rainy season becomes a rushing torrent, while in the dry season it dries up partly or entirely.

Shittim Literally, acacias The name of the last encampment of the Israelites before their entrance into Canaan (Numbers 25:1; Joshua 3:1); but this does not seem to be the place in the mind of Joel, for “it is hardly likely that the prophet would picture the stream as crossing the Jordan and fertilizing the opposite side.” There is to-day a depression southwest of Jerusalem, Wady-es-Sunt ( Sant), probably identical with the vale of Elah (1 Samuel 17:2), through which runs the road to Ashkelon. Sunt, the modern name of this wady, is identical with Shittim, and a few scholars (Wellhausen, Nowack) identify the valley mentioned by Joel with this depression. The great majority of scholars, however, think that the prophet uses the name to designate the Kidron valley, or at least a part of the same, now called Wady-en-Nar. It begins northwest of Jerusalem, runs along the east side of the city, separating it from the Mount of Olives, then continues in a southeasterly direction, and finally reaches the Dead Sea about ten miles from its northern end. Acacias still grow on the west shore of the Dead Sea (Tristram, Land of Israel, 280, 295). That Ezekiel has this depression in mind is beyond doubt. Whether it or the Wady-es-Sunt is referred to here cannot be determined. Wherever located, the term was chosen to designate a barren valley, as the acacia grows in dry soil; even the dry, barren soil will, in the new age, become fertile and productive. That fertility and material prosperity are an essential element of the divine blessing in the Messianic age is frequently taught by the prophets (Hosea 2:21-22; Amos 9:13; Isaiah 4:2).