What do you see in the picture above that prompts you to be glad and rejoice?
Perhaps the amazing beauty of a picture taken from a satellite prompts you to be glad and rejoice?
Does thinking about all the varied people, animals, and vegetation across the globe stir you to be glad and rejoice?
Maybe the fact that it is the beauty of a night view that influences you to be glad and rejoice?
Or does the sheer mass of land alone move you to be glad and rejoice?
Can land itself be glad and rejoice?
Read Joel 2:21
ESV Joel 2:21 “Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice, for the LORD has done great things!
- Joel 1:2 called all who live in the land to listen to the Lord’s message through Joel.
- Joel 1:4 described massive decimation of all edible vegetation produced in the land by a series of locust infestations.
- Joel 1:6 compares this devastation to a nation having invaded the Lord’s land.
- Joel 1:10-12 reports fields and ground are ruined and dried up to the point that mankind has lost all joy.
- Joel 1:14 summons all who live in the land to a holy fast and sacred assembly before the Lord.
- Joel 1:16-20 states again that food has been cut off along with joy and gladness obliterated from both mankind and animals.
- Joel 2:1-2 tells all who live in the land they should tremble because judgment from the Lord is coming.
- Joel 2:3 indicates that the land that once resembled the garden of Eden, implying lush provisions, has or will be turned to a desert wasteland because of the Lord coming in judgment.
- Joel 2:10 sees the earth shaking as the Lord draws near in judgment.
- Joel 2:12-17 suggests that if the people humble themselves before the Lord and return to worshipping and serving the Lord wholeheartedly that the Lord may instead have pity on His creation.
- Joel 2:18-19 declares the Lord became jealous for his land and promised to send grain wine and oil to fully satisfy His creation.
- Joel 2:20 further promises that the destructive forces that came in judgment to wake up the Lord’s people will be completely removed from the Lord’s land, specifically describing Israel from the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean.
- Joel 2:20 also ends with the phrase: surely, he has done great things.
Read Joel 2:21 again:
ESV Joel 2:21 “Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice, for the LORD has done great things!
Did you notice the land is being told not to fear?
The land that had been devastated by locusts and under threat of further devastation by a heavenly army was just promised that it has received a reprieve and will once again be fruitful.
The dire situation that has been described throughout chapter one and the first half of chapter two is not a permanent situation.
- Have you ever personally experienced an incredibly discouraging time?
- Perhaps you have had a series of business failures or disappointments that have left you in a financially precarious situation and disheartened?
- Perhaps you have lost loved ones in rapid succession through a series of expected and unexpected events?
- Perhaps you have been caring for someone close to you yet have not once ever received appreciation from that person or worse yet are repeatedly taken for granted and belittled?
- What circumstances shake you to your core like the land is described in Joel 2:10?
- Perhaps you are not the one struggling, but you know someone who is?
- What can possibly turn things around for you or someone you know?
The implication in Joel 2:21 is that the Lord has done even greater things than anything that has been allowed to cause great difficulties as described previously in Joel.
This is a wordplay with the same phrase at the end of Joel 2:20 that lacks a specific subject in the original language.
Having a specific subject in the matching phrase, Joel 2:21 is reminding the Judeans and us today that the Lord is greater than our circumstances.
Joel 2:21 is reminding the Judeans and us today that if we humble ourselves before the Lord, we have nothing to fear.
We can be glad and rejoice because the Lord is jealous for his land and takes pity on his people as stated in Joel 2:18.
This is important because humans and animals are dependent on the land which is dependent on the Lord enabling the land to produce the food we need to be sustained.
Have you ever thanked the Lord for the land around you?
Are you able to be glad and rejoice over what the Lord provides you from the land?
To be certain we are not to worship the land, but we are to tend for it wisely and be thankful for what it provides for us by the Lord’s design.
(See previous posts on Feeling Fruity and Pleasure for more about the value of the land and the vegetation that springs from it.)
How will you demonstrate to those around you and the Lord that you are able to be glad and rejoice today?
Blessings,
Barbara Lynn
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- It’s Coming! Joel 2:1
- Thunderstorms Joel 2:2
- Hard Times Joel 2:3
- Power Joel 2:4-5
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- Action Joel 2:7-9
- Earthquake and Eclipse Joel 2:10
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