A Stormy Brew
Joel 2: 1-11
Into Joel again, and he knows nothing of our chapter divisions. At least the chapter break occurs at the end of an obvious stanza. We are still within Ethics 3, so this is the Trumpets stanza of a Trumpets cycle (aren’t fractals fantastic?) It’s a bit like that movie Inception — as the prophecy moves forward, each step is expanded to further level of structure, a dream within a dream. In this case, it is a multi-level nightmare, a brewing, billowing thundercloud. [1]
Jerusalem had become a new Babel, so God raised up a real Babel in order to overrun the Land and swallow her up. Joel uses the Creation, Dominion and Feasts structures but applies them to the invading Babylonians in ironies that would go over our head — if we weren’t familiar with these literary devices!
This Trumpets cycle begins with a five-fold Covenant cycle, but one in which each point of the THEOS (Transcendence, Hierarchy, Ethics, Oath, Succession) must have a “Trumpets” theme. Each line is a Covenant point amplified into a warning. The Deuteronomic words of Moses sound in the shofar. Beyond that, each stanza must also carry a successive matrix theme (Creation, Division, etc.)
Creation – The warning Word
Blow the trumpet in Zion, (Initiation)
…..And sound an alarm in My holy mountain! (Delegation)
……….Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; (Purification)
…..Surely the day of the LORD is coming, (Vindication)
Surely it is at hand: (Ironic Restoration – not future but present!)
Division – A delegation of might men
…..A day of darkness and gloominess, (Light)
……….A day of clouds and thick darkness, (Firmament)
……………Like the dawn is spread over the mountains. (Land)
………………..A people great and mighty, (Rulers)
……………The like of whom has never been; (Multitudes)
……….Nor will there ever be any [such] after them, (Mediators)
…..Even for many successive generations. (Future)
Notice the Sanctions divide the past from the future. Judgment time is always an historical watershed.
Ascension – The Land overrun
A fire devours before them,
…..And behind them a flame burns;
……….The land [is] like the Garden of Eden before them,
……….And behind them a desolate wilderness;
……………Surely nothing shall escape them.
……….Their appearance is like the appearance of horses;
……….And like swift steeds, so they run.
…..With a noise like chariots over mountaintops they leap,
…..Like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble,
Like a strong people set in battle array.
Notice the double “before/behind” at the start. The fire of judgment is a flaming two-edged Covenant sword, and the Land is an Eden vomiting out the failed priesthood (Ascension is Levitical).
Also, Maturity often carries the symbols of donkeys (peacemakers) and horses (warmongers). Conquest here is also double-barreled. It has the smoking firepot (Body) and the blazing torch (Head). This is Israel’s invasion of Canaan replayed in a horrible parody.
Testing – Israel de-formed, and filled with soldiers
Before them (Light of exposure)
…..the people writhe in pain; (Veil of death)
……….All faces are drained of color. (Facebread)
……………They run like mighty men, (Ironic Pentecost)
……….They climb the wall like men of war; (Smoky swarms)
…..Every one marches in formation, (Conquest)
And they do not break ranks.
They do not push one another; (A Corporate Mediator!)
Maturity – The invaders are united in spirit as they enter and plunder
Every one marches in his own column.
…..Though they lunge between the weapons,
……….They are not cut down.
……………They run to and fro in the city,
……….They run on the wall;
……….They climb into the houses,
…..They enter at the windows like a thief.
Before them quakes the Land
It is interesting that “windows” appear in this stanza at Conquest. This ties the idea not only to the “windows of heaven” and window of Rahab, but also the “dark glass” of the crystal sea, and even the window of Eutychus. The open veil is a window into heaven.
Conquest – (Atonement) Israel is torn in two in the dark
The heavens tremble; (No Transcendence)
…..The sun and moon grow dark, (No Hierarchy)
……….And the stars lose their brightness. (Ethics 1)
……………The LORD gives voice before His army, (Ethics 2)
……….For His camp is very great; (Ethics 3)
…..For strong [is the One] who executes His word. (Sanctions/Oath)
For the day of the LORD [is] great and very terrible;
Who can endure it? (No Succession)
This ends the expanded Trumpets cycle. There is no final stanza, no rest, no glory. What follows is the beginning of a call to a true “Day of the Lord,” a day of coverings, a day of torn garments and a torn veil.
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[1] It is interesting that so-called random shapes like clouds can now be mapped and predicted with fractal technology, the same software that is used to create such random shapes as clouds and water splashes in CGI. Joel might sound like a formless storm, but there is nothing random about it whatsoever.
Art: Sunset on Babylon by Raphael Lacoste.
