Joel

The Holy Prophet Joel is the second of the twelve minor prophets of the Old Testament and the author of the book that bears his name. The Church honours him for his promise of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all flesh, which the Holy Apostle Peter showed fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. He is commemorated on 19 October.

His name and time

Joel is named in Scripture only once, at the start of the book, as the son of Pethuel (Joel 1:1). His Hebrew name, Yoel, joins the name of the God Yahweh with El and is interpreted the Lord is God. According to the Orthodox synaxarion he was of the tribe of Reuben, from the village of Metomor. The time in which he lived is uncertain: some commentators place him in the ninth century before Christ, others in the fifth or fourth. The book names no kings who could help with dating. By an old tradition, Joel was buried at Gush Halav, in Galilee.

His prophecy

The book of Joel has three chapters in the Septuagint. He foretold the desolation of Jerusalem and the end of the sacrifices of the Old Law. In the first part the prophet describes a terrible invasion of locusts and a drought that lays waste the land, seen as a sign of the day of the Lord. The prophet calls the priests and the people to fasting, weeping and prayer, as the only means by which God shows mercy. The prominent place of Jerusalem, the temple and the service there in the book suggests that Joel was perhaps close to the ministry of the temple.

His words to the people are heard in the Church during the fast: Return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your garments, and return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful (Joel 2:12 and 13).

The prophet of Pentecost

Joel announced that a time would come when the Spirit of God would be poured out on all flesh: I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions (Joel 2:28). In his sermon on the day of Pentecost the Holy Apostle Peter quoted these words, showing that they are fulfilled in the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles (Acts 2:16 to 21). At Vespers of Pentecost the Orthodox Church reads the passage Joel 2:23 to 32. The troparion of the day calls the prophet one who foresaw the coming of God in the flesh, the descent of the Holy Spirit and the Judgment to come.

The hymnographer Anatolius also linked Joel's prophecy to the Nativity of the Lord. In the stichera at Lauds on the Sunday after the Nativity he interprets the word of Joel 2:30: the blood means the Incarnation, the fire the Divinity, and the pillars of smoke the Holy Spirit.

Veneration

The memory of the Holy Prophet Joel is kept on 19 October. The Roman Catholic Church remembers him on 13 July, and the Armenian Church on 31 July, with the other minor prophets.