5. The בראשון is also in favour of our explanation. It stands in close relation to אחרי־כן in chap. iii. 1, ii. 28. The sending of the Teacher of righteousness has two consequences;—first, the pouring out of the temporal rain—an individualizing designation of every kind of outward blessings, and chosen with a reference to the passage of the Pentateuch which we have just cited, but with special reference to the description of the calamity, under the figure of a devastation by locusts;—and, secondly, the outpouring of the spiritual rain—the sending of the Holy Ghost. It needs only the pointing out of this reference, which has been overlooked by interpreters,[2] to set aside the manifold and different explanations of בראשון which are, all of them, unphilological, or give an unsuitable sense.[3]
But if any doubt should still remain, it would be removed by a parallel passage in Isaiah, which depends upon the text under review, in a manner not to be mistaken, and which, therefore, must be regarded as the oldest commentary upon it. Isaiah is describing the condition of the people subsequent to their having obtained mercy, after a long time of deep misery, in chap. xxx 20: "And the Lord gives you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction; and then thy teacher (מוריך is singular) shall no longer hide himself, and thine eyes shall see thy teacher; Ver. 21: And thine ears hear a word behind thee, This is the way, walk ye in it; do not turn to the right hand, nor to the left." Accordingly, after they have put away what was evil, ver. 22: "The Lord giveth the rain of thy seed, with which thou sowest thy land," etc., ver. 23. The teacher is not a human teacher, but God. Human teachers had not concealed themselves; but that the Lord had concealed Himself, is affirmed in the preceding verses. The words, "Behind thee" (ver. 21), suggest the idea of a teacher of such a glory that they could not look in his face (compare Rev. i. 10); and the words, "Thine eyes see thy teacher," ver. 20, imply the idea of the high majesty of the teacher, and suggest the idea of a revelation of the glory of the Lord; compare Is. xl. 5, lii. 8. The Lord must first manifest Himself as a Teacher, before He appears as a Saviour. In Isaiah, the Lord Himself appears as the Teacher; as also in Hos. x. 12: "It is time to seek the Lord, till He come and teach you righteousness;" while in Joel, on the contrary, it is the Lord who giveth the Teacher. Both may be reconciled by the consideration, that in the Teacher whom the Lord gives, the glory of the Lord becomes manifest.
It now only remains to inquire who is to be understood by the Teacher of righteousness. (Teacher of righteousness is equivalent to: "Teaching them how they should fear the Lord," 2 Kings xvii. 28.) It is referred to the Messiah, not only by almost all those Christian interpreters who follow this explanation, with the exception of Grotius, who conjectures that Isaiah or some other prophet is to be thereby understood; but also, after the example of Jonathan, by several Jewish commentators; e.g., Abarbanel, who says: "This teacher of righteousness, however, is the King Messiah, who will show the way in which we must walk, and the works which we must do." Even on account of the article, it is not possible to refer it to a single human teacher; and this argument may, at the same time, be added to those which oppose the explanation of מורה by "an early rain." There can be only the choice betwixt the Messiah as the long promised Teacher κατ᾽ ἐξοχήν, and the ideal teacher,—the collective body of all divine teachers. But the latter view requires to be somewhat raised, before it can be allowed to enter into the competition. That we have not here before us an ordinary collective body, is shown by the parallel passage in Isaiah, according to which the glory of the Lord is to be manifested in the Teacher. And this is as little applicable to a plurality of human teachers, as to a single individual. It is further proved by the fundamental passage in Deut. xviii. 18, 19, where, indeed, the prophetic order is comprehended in an ideal person. This, however, has its reason only in the circumstance, that the idea of prophetism was, at some future time, to find its realization in a real person. It is further seen from the state of the Messianic hopes at the time of Joel, and from the exceeding greatness of what is here connected with the appearance of the Teacher of righteousness. In addition to the allusion in Gen. xlix. 10 and Deut. xviii., the Messiah appears as a Teacher in the Song of Solomon also, chap. viii. 2; and in Is. lv. 4: "Behold, I give Him for a witness to the people, for a prince and a lawgiver to the people;" as also in those passages of the second part of Isaiah, in which He is declared to be the Prophet κατ᾽ ἐξοχήν. When thus understood, the explanation of the ideal teacher may be preferable to the reference to Christ exclusively. In favour of such a reference, there is the comprehensive character and the ideal import which are, in general, peculiar to the prophecies of Joel. Such a reference is, moreover, favoured by the expression itself, which points out only that which Christ has in common with the former servants of God, viz., the teaching of righteousness, and especially by a comparison with the fundamental passages, Deut. xviii.
[ [1]] The English version has "a teacher of righteousness," as a marginal reading.—Tr.
[ [2]] Since the appearance of the first edition of this work, it has been acknowledged also by Ewald, Meier, and Umbreit.
[ [3]] Hitzig explains it: "In the first month." But altogether apart from the consideration that it is only in a chronological connection that "in the first" can stand for "in the first month," this explanation is objectionable on the ground that the early rain and the latter rain cannot, by any means, belong to the same month. There is the less difficulty in explaining it by "first," as בראשונה undeniably occurs, several times, in this signification; compare, e.g., Zech. xii. 7.
[EXPOSITION OF CHAP. III. (II. 28-32.)]
Ver. 1. "And it shall come to pass, afterwards, I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions."