The principal crops are millets and pulses, but wheat and barley are largely produced in the fertile tract watered by the Lūni river. The manufactures comprise leather boxes and brass utensils; and turbans and scarfs and a description of embroidered silk knotted thread are specialities of the country.
The Mahārājā belongs to the Rathor clan of Rājputs. The family chronicles relate that after the downfall of the Rathor dynasty of Kanauj in 1194, Sivajī, the grandson of Jāi Chānd, the last king of Kanauj, entered Mārwār on a pilgrimage to Dwarka, and on halting at the town of Pāli he and his followers settled there to protect the Brāhman community from the constant raids of marauding bands. The Rathor chief thus laid the foundation of the state, but it was not till the time of Rāo Chānda, the tenth in succession from Sivajī, that Mārwār was actually conquered. His grandson Jodha founded the city of Jodhpur, which he made his capital. In 1561 the country was invaded by Akbar, and the chief was forced to submit, and to send his son as a mark of homage to take service under the Mogul emperor. When this son Udāi Singh succeeded to the chiefship, he gave his sister Jodhbāi in marriage to Akbar, and was rewarded by the restoration of most of his former possessions. Udāi Singh’s son, Gaj Singh, held high service under Akbar, and conducted successful expeditions in Gujarat and the Deccan. The bigoted and intolerant Aurangzeb invaded Mārwār in 1679, plundered Jodhpur, sacked all the large towns, and commanded the conversion of the Rathors to Mahommedanism. This cemented all the Rājput clans into a bond of union, and a triple alliance was formed by the three states of Jodhpur, Udāipur and Jaipur, to throw off the Mahommedan yoke. One of the conditions of this alliance was that the chiefs of Jodhpur and Jaipur should regain the privilege of marriage with the Udāipur family, which they had forfeited by contracting alliances with the Mogul emperors, on the understanding that the offspring of Udāipur princesses should succeed to the state in preference to all other children. The quarrels arising from this stipulation lasted through many generations, and led to the invitation of Mahratta help from the rival aspirants to power, and finally to the subjection of all the Rājput states to the Mahrattās. Jodhpur was conquered by Sindhia, who levied a tribute of £60,000, and took from it the fort and town of Ajmere. Internecine disputes and succession wars disturbed the peace of the early years of the century, until in January 1818 Jodhpur was taken under British protection. In 1839 the misgovernment of the rājā led to an insurrection which compelled the interference of the British. In 1843, the chief having died without a son, and without having adopted an heir, the nobles and state officials were left to select a successor from the nearest of kin. Their choice fell upon Rājā Takht Sinh, chief of Ahmednagar. This chief, who did good service during the Mutiny, died in 1873. Mahārajā Jaswant Singh, who died in 1896, was a very enlightened ruler. His brother, Sir Pertab Singh (q.v.), conducted the administration until his nephew, Sardar Singh, came of age in 1898. The imperial service cavalry formed part of the reserve brigade during the Tirah campaign.
The state maintains a railway running to Bikanir, and there is also a branch railway into Sind. Gold, silver and copper money is coined. The state emblems are a jhar or sprig of seven branches and a khanda or sword. Jodhpur practically escaped the plague, but it suffered more severely than any other part of Rajputana from the famine of 1899-1900. In February 1900 more than 110,000 persons were in receipt of famine relief.
The city of Jodhpur is 64 m. by rail N.W. of Mārwār junction, on the Rajputana railway. Pop. (1901), 60,437. It was built by Rāo Jodha in 1459, and from that time has been the seat of government. It is surrounded by a strong wall nearly 6 m. in extent, with seventy gates. The fort, which stands on an isolated rock, contains the mahārājā’s palace, a large and handsome building, completely covering the crest of the hill on which it stands, and overlooking the city, which lies several hundred feet below. The city contains palaces of the mahārājā, and town residences of the thākurs or nobles, besides numerous fine temples and tanks. Building stone is plentiful and close at hand, and the architecture is solid and handsome. Three miles north of Jodhpur are the ruins of Mandor, the site of the ancient capital of the Parihar princes of Mārwār, before its conquest by the Rathors. Mills for grinding flour and crushing grain have been constructed for the imperial service troops. The Jaswant college is affiliated to the B.A. standard of the Allahabad university. To the Hewson hospital a wing for eye diseases was added in 1898, and the Jaswant hospital for women is under an English lady doctor.
JOEL. The second book among the minor prophets in the Bible is entitled The word of Yahweh that came to Joel the son of Pethuel, or, as the Septuagint, Latin, Syriac and other versions read, Bethuel. Nothing is recorded as to the date or occasion of the prophecy. Most Hebrew prophecies contain pointed references to the foreign politics and social relations of the nation at the time. In the book of Joel there are only scanty allusions to Phoenicians, Philistines, Egypt and Edom, couched in terms applicable to very different ages, while the prophet’s own people are exhorted to repentance without specific reference to any of those national sins of which other prophets speak. The occasion of the prophecy, described with great force of rhetoric, is no known historical event, but a plague of locusts, perhaps repeated in successive seasons; and even here there are features in the description which have led many expositors to seek an allegorical interpretation. The most remarkable part of the book is the eschatological picture with which it closes; and the way in which the plague of locusts appears to be taken as foreshadowing the final judgment—the great day or assize of Yahweh, in which Israel’s enemies are destroyed—is so unique as greatly to complicate the exegetical problem. It is not therefore surprising that the most various views are still held as to the date and meaning of the book. Allegorists and literalists still contend over the first and still more over the second chapter, and, while the largest number of recent interpreters accept Credner’s view that the prophecy was written in the reign of Joash of Judah (835-796 B.C.?), a powerful school of critics (including A. B. Davidson) follow the view suggested by Vatke (Bib. Theol. p. 462 seq.), and reckon Joel among the post-exile prophets. Other scholars give yet other dates: see the particulars in the elaborate work of Merx. The followers of Credner are literalists; the opposite school of moderns includes some literalists (as Duhm), while others (like Hilgenfeld, and in a modified sense Merx) adopt the old allegorical interpretation which treats the locusts as a figure for the enemies of Jerusalem.
There are cogent reasons for placing Joel either earlier or later than the great series of prophets extending from the time when Amos first proclaimed the approach of the Assyrian down to the Babylonian exile. In Joel the enemies of Israel are the nations collectively, and among those specified by name neither Assyria nor Chaldaea finds a place. This circumstance might, if it stood alone, be explained by placing Joel with Zephaniah in the brief interval between the decline of the empire of Nineveh and the advance of the Babylonians. But it is further obvious that Joel has no part in the internal struggle between spiritual Yahweh-worship and idolatry which occupied all the prophets from Amos to the captivity. He presupposes a nation of Yahweh-worshippers, whose religion has its centre in the temple and priesthood of Zion, which is indeed conscious of sin, and needs forgiveness and an outpouring of the Spirit, but is not visibly divided, as the kingdom of Judah was between the adherents of spiritual prophecy and a party whose national worship of Yahweh involved for them no fundamental separation from the surrounding nations. The book, therefore, must have been written before the ethico-spiritual and the popular conceptions of Yahweh came into conscious antagonism, or else after the fall of the state and the restoration of the community of Jerusalem to religious rather than political existence had decided the contest in favour of the prophets, and of the Law in which their teaching was ultimately crystallized.
The considerations which have given currency to an early date for Joel are of various kinds. The absence of all mention of one great oppressing world-power seems most natural before the westward march of Assyria involved Israel in the general politics of Asia. The purity of the style is also urged, and a comparison of Amos i. 2, Joel iii. 16 (Heb. iv. 16), and Amos ix. 13, Joel iii. 18 (iv. 18), has been taken as proving that Amos knew our book. The last argument might be inverted with much greater probability, and numerous points of contact between Joel and other parts of the Old Testament (e.g. Joel ii. 2, Exod. x. 14; Joel ii. 3, Ezek. xxxvi. 35; Joel iii. 10, Mic. iv. 3) make it not incredible that the purity of his style—which is rather elegant than original and strongly marked—is in large measure the fruit of literary culture. The absence of allusion to a hostile or oppressing empire may be fairly taken in connexion with the fact that the prophecy gives no indication of political life at Jerusalem. When the whole people is mustered in ch. i., the elders or sheikhs of the municipality and the priests of the temple are the most prominent figures. The king is not mentioned—which on Credner’s view is explained by assuming that the plague fell in the minority of Joash, when the priest Jehoiada held the reins of power—and the princes, councillors and warriors necessary to an independent state, and so often referred to by the prophets before the exile, are altogether lacking. The nation has only a municipal organization with a priestly aristocracy, precisely the state of things that prevailed under the Persian empire. That the Persians do not appear as enemies of Yahweh and his people is perfectly natural. They were hard masters but not invaders, and under them the enemies of the Jews were their neighbours, just as appears in Joel.[1] Those, however, who place our prophet in the minority of King Joash draw a special argument from the mention of Phoenicians, Philistines and Edomites (iii. 4 seq., 19), pointing to the revolt of Edom under Joram (2 Kings viii. 20) and the incursion of the Philistines in the same reign (2 Chron. xxi. 16, xxii. 1). These were recent events in the time of Joash, and in like manner the Phoenician slave trade in Jewish children is carried back to an early date by the reference in Amos i. 9. This argument is rather specious than sound. Edom’s hostility to Judah was incessant, but the feud reached its full intensity only after the time of Deuteronomy (xxiii. 7), when the Edomites joined the Chaldaeans, drew profit from the overthrow of the Jews, whose land they partly occupied, and exercised barbarous cruelty towards the fugitives of Jerusalem (Obad. passim; Mal. i. 2 seq.; Isa. lxiii.). The offence of shedding innocent blood charged on them by Joel is natural after these events, but hardly so in connexion with the revolt against Joram.
As regards the Philistines, it is impossible to lay much weight on the statement of Chronicles, unsupported as it is by the older history, and in Joel the Philistines plainly stand in one category with the Phoenicians, as slave dealers, not as armed foes. Gaza in fact was a slave emporium as early as the time of Amos (i. 6), and continued so till Roman times.
Thus, if any inference as to date can be drawn from ch. iii., it must rest on special features of the trade in slaves, which was always an important part of the commerce of the Levant. In the time of Amos the slaves collected by Philistines and Tyrians were sold en masse to Edom, and presumably went to Egypt or Arabia. Joel complains that they were sold to the Grecians (Javan, Ionians).[2] It is probable that some Hebrew and Syrian slaves were exported to the Mediterranean coasts from a very early date, and Isa. xi. 11 already speaks of Israelites captive in these districts as well as in Egypt, Ethiopia and the East. But the traffic in this direction hardly became extensive till a later date. In Deut. xxviii. 68, Egypt is still the chief goal of the maritime slave trade, and in Ezek. xxvii. 13 Javan exports slaves to Tyre, not conversely. Thus the allusion to Javan in Joel better suits a later date, when Syrian slaves were in special request in Greece.[3] And the name of Javan is not found in any part of the Old Testament certainly older than Ezekiel. In Joel it seems to stand as a general representative of the distant countries reached by the Mediterranean (in contrast with the southern Arabians, Sabaeans, ch. iii. 8), the farthest nation reached by the fleets of the Red Sea. This is precisely the geographical standpoint of the post-exile author of Gen. x. 4, where (assuming that Elishah = Carthage and Tarshish = Tartessus) Javan includes Carthage and Tartessus.