The great variety of these references has arisen solely from the circumstance, that the prophecy has not been reduced to its fundamental idea. This fundamental idea is:—The manifestation of God's punitive justice upon all which is hostile to His kingdom, which runs parallel with the manifestation of His grace towards the subjects of His kingdom. This idea appears here, in all its generality, without any temporal limitation whatsoever. Not one of these interpretations, therefore, can be absolutely right. They differ only in this, that some of them are altogether false, inasmuch as they assume a reference to events which do not at all fall under the fundamental idea; while others are only limited and partial views of the truth.
To the first of these classes belong evidently the references to the resurrection, and to the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. It is only by detaching these verses from the following chapter that such a view could arise. These events stand in no relation whatsoever to the animating thought of the passage. There is a certain relation to that thought in the reference to the destruction by the Chaldeans, in so far as this was really a manifestation of divine punitive justice. But the reference to this event would be admissible here, only if the prophet were describing the manifestation of divine punitive justice in general. But such is not the case. The comparison of chap. i. and ii. shows that the subject of the prophecy is rather the manifestation of divine justice in reference to those who are enemies to the kingdom 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 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 מופתים 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: Καὶ πάντες οἱ συμπαραγενόμενοι ὄχλοι; ἐπὶ τὴν θεωρίαν ταύτην, θεωροῦντες τὰ γενόμενα, τύπτοντες ἑαυτῶν τὰ στήθη, ὑπέστρεφον.
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. xiv. 14-20, where the image of the vintage and winepress, in particular, is borrowed from Joel; see iv. 12, 13. The objects of judgment are there the heathen nations on account of their hostility to the people of God, who, by Christ, and by the outpouring of the Spirit procured by Him, have fully attained to that dignity. Nor is the judgment there an isolated one. On the contrary, all which, in history, is realized in an entire series of judicial acts, to be at last consummated in the final judgment, is there comprehended in one great harvest—in one great vintage.
We have still to make a few remarks upon the quotation in Acts ii. 16 ff. Nothing but narrow-mindedness and prejudice could deny that Peter found, in the miracle of Pentecost, an actual fulfilment of the promise in vers. 1 and 2. This becomes probable, not only from the circumstance, that the reference of this prophecy to the Messianic time was the prevailing one among the Jews (compare the passages in Schöttgen, S. 413), but also from the translation of אחרי־כן by ἐν ταῖς ἐσχάταις ἡμέραις, by which, in the New Testament, the Messianic time is always designated. To this must also be added the express declaration in ver. 39, that the promise was unto the generation then present. How could Peter have uttered such a declaration, if his view had been that the promise had found its fulfilment in a time long gone past? At the same time, it is equally certain, that Peter was so far from considering all the riches of the promise to be completely exhausted by that Pentecostal miracle, that he rather considered it to be only a beginning of the fulfilment,—a beginning, indeed, which implies the consummation, as the germ contains the tree. This is quite obvious from ver. 38: μετανοήσατε καὶ βαπτισθήτω ἕκαστοσ ὑμῶν.... καὶ λήψεσθε τὴν δωρεὰν τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος. How could Peter, referring to the prophecy, promise the gift of the Holy Spirit, promised in the prophecy to those who should be converted, if the prophecy was already completely fulfilled? But it is still more apparent from ver. 39: Ὑμῖν γάρ ἐστιν ἡ ἐπαγγελία καὶ τοῖς τέκνοις ὑμῶν, καὶ πᾶσι τοῖς εἰς μακρὰν, ὄσους ἂν προσκαλέσηται Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς ἡμῶν. The question is, who are to be understood by those εἰς μακρὰν? No one could have doubted that the Gentiles are thereby to be understood, unless two things altogether heterogeneous had been confounded, viz., the uncertainty of Peter concerning the fact of the reception of the Gentiles into the kingdom of God, and his uncertainty concerning the mode of their reception. Considering the condition of the Old Testament prophecy, the latter is easily accounted for; but the former cannot. To state only one from among the mass of arguments which prove that Peter could not be ignorant of the fact, we observe that the very manner in which, in Acts iii. 25, he quotes the promise given to Abraham, that by his seed the nations should be blessed, proves that he regarded the Gentiles as partakers of the kingdom of Christ. This is rendered still more incontrovertible by the πρῶτον in ver. 26. To understand, by εἰς μακρὰν, foreign Jews, is inadmissible, for the single reason that these were present in great numbers, and hence, were included in the term ὑμῖν. Now Peter, throughout, addresses all those who were present. How then could he have here confined himself, all at once, to a portion of these I There is, moreover, a plain allusion to the close of Joel iii. 5, which the LXX. translate οὓς Κύριος προσκέκληται. This allusion contains, at the same time, a proof of the concurrent reference to the Gentiles, which is not in express words contained in the prophecy, provided we do not put an arbitrary interpretation upon בשר. Attention is thereby directed to the fact, that, In that passage, salvation, which requires, as its condition, a participation in the outpouring of the Spirit, does not depend upon any human cause, but solely upon the call of God—upon His free grace. In a manner entirely similar, does St Paul, in Rom. x. 12, 13, prove, from the beginning of Joel iii. 5, the participation of the Gentiles in the Messianic kingdom: Οὐ γάρ ἐστι διαστολὴ Ἰουδαίου τε καὶ Ἕλληνος· ὁ γὰρ αὐτὸς Κύριος πάντων, πλουτῶν εἰς πάντας τοὺς ἐπικαλουμένους αὐτόν. Πᾶς γὰρ ὃς ἂν ἐπικαλέσηται τὸ ὄνομα Κυρίου, σωθήσεται. If the calling on God were the condition of salvation, access to it was as free to the Gentiles as to the Jews. But if the prophecy has a distinct reference to the still unconverted Jews, their children and the Gentiles, it is then evident, that, according to the view of the Apostle, it did not terminate in that one instance of Its fulfilment, but that, on the contrary, it extends just as far as the thing promised—as the outpouring itself of the Holy Spirit. This clearly appears, also, from the allusions to the passage under consideration. In the accounts of later outpourings of the Spirit; compare, e.g., Acts x. 45, xi. 15, xv. 8. How, then, was it even possible that Peter should have limited to the few who had already, at that time, received the Spirit, a prophecy, in which the idea of generality is, intentionally, made so prominent? But, even if the universal character of the prophecy had been less distinct, Peter would certainly not have thought of confining it in such a manner. Such a gross and superficial view of the prophecies was far from Peter, as well as from the other Apostles.
Another question remains to be answered. For what purpose does the Apostle quote verses 3-5 also, inasmuch as, apparently, verses 1 and 2 alone properly served his purpose; and what sense did he put upon them? The answer Is given In ver. 40: Ἑτέροις τε λόγοις πλείοσι διεμαρτύρετο, καὶ παρεκάλει, λέγων· Σώθητε ἀπὸ τῆς γενεᾶς τῆς σκολιᾶς ταύτης. Even in the few words In which Luke communicates to us the brief summary of what Peter spoke In this respect, a reference to the passage under consideration has been preserved to us. Peter made use of the threatening which was, in the first Instance, to be fulfilled upon the dark refuse of the Covenant-people, In order to Induce them, by terror, to seek a participation in the promise which alone could deliver them from the threatened judgment. That he succeeded in this, is shown by the words, Ἐγένετο δὲ πάσῃ φόβος, in ver. 43. Several interpreters have, by ver. 22, been led into a total misconception of the sense in which Peter quotes vers. 3-5. It is true, certainly, that the words τέρασι καὶ σημείοις are not used without reference to the passage in Joel. Peter directs attention to the circumstance, that they who, from their hardness of heart, do not acknowledge the τέρατα and σημεῖα with which God accompanied the manifestation of His grace, shall be visited by τέρατα and σημεῖα of a totally different nature, from the fearful impression of which they shall not be able to escape.
But let us now in addition consider some of the particulars. In substance, the quotation by Peter agrees with the LXX.; but deviations occur on particular points. At the very beginning, the LXX., adhering more closely to the Hebrew text, have: καὶ ἔσται μετὰ ταῦτα; whereas Peter says: καὶ ἔσται ἐν ταῖς ἐσχάταις ἡμέραις. The reason of this deviation is, that the Apostle intends to determine, by this deviation, the expression, which in itself is wider and more indefinite, in such a manner that the period to which the prophecy specially refers, and hence also its application to the case in question, should be rendered more obvious. In a case entirely similar, Jeremiah, in chap. xlix. 6, employs the wider term אחרי־כן, while in xlviii. 47 he makes use of the more definite באחרית הימים. By the latter term, Kimchi also explains the אחרי־כן in the passage before us; while Jarchi (compare Schöttgen, S. 210) explains it by the equivalent term לעתיד לבא. The words λέγει ὁ Θεός are wanting in the LXX., as well as in the original Hebrew text. They have been taken from ver. 5, and, contrasted with τὸ εἰρημένον διὰ τοῦ προφήτου Ἰωήλ, they direct attention to the divine source of prophecy, and hence to the necessity of its fulfilment. The two members, καὶ οἱ πρεσβύτεροι ὑμῶν ἐνύπνια ἐνυπνιασθήσονται, καὶ οἱ νεανίσκοι ὑμῶν ὀράσεις ὄψονται, Peter has reversed; probably in order to place the young men together with the sons and daughters, and to assign the place of honour to the old men. In the δούλους μου and δούλας μου, Peter follows the LXX., and that in a sense which only expressly makes prominent a point really contained in the prophecy, whether such was intended by the translators, or not; for the circumstance that the servants of men were, at the same time, servants of God, formed the ground of their participation in the promise. The same contrast is found, e.g., in 1 Cor. vii. 22, 23: Ὁ γὰρ ἐν Κυρίῳ κληθεὶς δοῦλος ἀπελεύθερος Κυρίου ἐστίν· ὁμοίως καὶ ὁ ἐλεύθερος κληθεὶς, δοῦλός ἐστι Χριστοῦ. Τιμῆς ἠγοράσθητε· μὴ γίνεσθε δοῦλοι ἀνθρώπων; compare Gal. iii. 28; Philem. 10. Hence it is equivalent to: Upon servants and handmaids of men who are, at the same time, my servants and handmaids, and, therefore, in spiritual things of equal rank with those who are free. To give prominence to this perfect equality, is also the design of the additional clause: καὶ προφητεύσουσι, subjoined after ἐκχεῶ ἀπὸ τοῦ πνεύματός μου. The circumstance that Peter thought it necessary to add this clause, which, as we have proved, quite harmonizes with the design of the prophet, seems to prove that, even at his time, interpretations were current, in which an attempt was made to diminish, or altogether to take away, in the case of servants and handmaids, their participation in those blessings;—interpretations similar to those of Abarbanel, and even of Grotius, who thus paraphrases the verse: "Even to those who seem to be lowest, I will certainly impart, although not prophesying and dreaming dreams, yet certain extraordinary and heavenly motions." The antiquity of this false interpretation is attested by Jerome also, who probably was, in this respect, altogether dependent upon his Jewish teachers. He interprets, indeed, the servants and handmaids spiritually, and of such as have not the spirit of freedom he says: "They shall neither have prophecies, nor dreams nor visions, but, satisfied with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, they shall possess only the grace of faith and salvation."—In ver. 3, Peter adds ἄνω to ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, and κάτω to ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, in order to make the contrast more obvious and striking. All the deviations from the LXX., and the original text, are thus of the same kind, and intended to bring out more distinctly what is implied in the passage itself. Not one of them need to be accounted for by the circumstance, that the Apostle quoted from memory.
[ [1]] He says: "The sense in which the universality must be understood is clearly indicated by what follows. For, it is first said, in general, 'All flesh,' and afterwards, a specification is added, by which the prophet intimates, that age or sex will not constitute any difference, but that God will bring them all, without any distinction, into the communion of His grace."