A Day of Retribution : Part 2

Missed Part 1? Catch it here! A Day of Retribution 2 Joel 3:1-8 Another ASPECT of judgment is, The Reasons for Judgment Let’s look at verse 3. “They have cast lots for My people, they have traded a boy for a prostitute, and sold a girl for wine, and have drunk it.” Place this in the context of what Jesus said in Matthew 25:40, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” Israel’s conquerors then, and in the future, place so little value on the lives of those they conquered. By the way, this callousness toward life wasn’t a one-off situation, it was more like standard procedure. Let me give you a few examples from history. After the collapse of the empire of Alexander the Great, around 300 BC, control of this area of the world seesawed back and forth between the Ptolemies and the Seleucids. Israel was often caught in the middle of this ongoing conflict. During this time, history records that 90 Jewish captives were sold for a talent. When Jerusalem fell to the Roman general Titus, in AD 70, huge numbers of young people were sold as slaves, 97,000 under the age of 17. During Hadrian’s War against Israel in AD 133, captives were so numerous that four were sold for a few bushels of barley at the slave market in Hebron. Later, during the various conquests of Islam, captives were so numerous that many were slaughtered on the spot. Verse 4 in Hebrew begins with the words “and also.” This alerts us to the fact that God took special note of the way the Phoenicians (Tyre and Sidon) and the Philistines had mistreated His people. He asks several times in this verse, “what are you repaying me for? What is the reason for so frequently invading and plundering my land and people?” In God’s view, the attacks of the Phoenicians and Philistines against Israel were unprovoked and unjustified. According to Genesis 15:18 and Joshua 1:4, the land God gave to Israel included: everything from the Nile River in Egypt to Lebanon (south to north) and everything from the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates River (west to east). Looking at the map of the area today, Jehovah gave Abraham and his descendants all of the land that the modern state of Israel currently possesses, all of the so-called West Bank and Gaza, all the land of Jordan, some of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. So, from God’s perspective, the Phoenicians and Philistines were seen as interlopers or “squatters” on His land. God asks rhetorically, “What do we have in common,” or “what do I have to do with you?” And then He promises to repay them quickly and hastily for the evil done to His people. He will overcome them easily in spite of their presumed fierceness! As neighbors to Israel, they had a duty to be helpful, but instead, they took advantage of their plight. Historically, the Philistines were the archenemies of Israel, but the Phoenicians were close to the Israelites in every respect. They spoke the same language, they wrote in the same script, and they even built Jerusalem together – remember David and Solomon’s friendship with King Hiram? Neither the Phoenicians nor the Philistines were powerful enough to destroy or overcome Israel on their own, but when other, more powerful enemies attacked Israel, these neighbors “piled on” adding insult to injury. The prophet Amos singles out both Tyre, that’s Phoenicia, and Philistia “Becaus