An Attack Coming From the North

 

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

A closer look at Joel's prophecy in its context reveals that the propet was predicting a military attack.  (Joel 1:6; 2:1, 8, 11) Jehovah said that he would use his "great army" (Babylonian soldiers) to punish the disobedient Israelites.  (Joel 2:25) The invading army is rightly called "the northerner? because the Babylonians would invade Israel from the north.  (Joel 2:20) The army is likened to a well-organized swarm of locusts.  OF them, Joel says:  "Each [soldier] advances in his course. . .  Into the city they rush, on the wail they run.  Onto the houses they climb through the windows they enter like  thief." ( Joel 2:8, 9) Can you picture the scene? There are soldiers everywhere. There is nowhere to hide. No one can escape the sword of the Babylonians!  

Like locusts, the Babylonians (or Chaldeans)  invaded the city of Jerusalem in 607 B.C.E.  The Bible reports: "The king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword . . . , Felt no compassion for young man or virgin, old or infirm.  God gave everything into his hand.  He burned down the house of the true God, tore down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all its fortified towers wiht fire, and destroyed everything of value."  ( 2 Chronicles 36:17, 19)  When the Babylonians were finished wit the land, onlookers could only say:  "It is a wasteland without man and beast, and it has been handed over to the Chaldeans." - JEREMIAH 32:43. 

Some 200 years after Joe's prophecy, Jehovah used Jeremiah to foretell something else about this attack.  He said that a thorough search would be made for those Israelites who engaged in wicked practices - a search that would lead to their capture.  '"Here I am sending formany fishermen,' declares Jehovah, 'and they will fish for them.  After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and ever hill and out of the clefts of the crags. . . . I will repay the full amount due for their errir and their sin."  Neither the oceans nor the forests  would be able to conceal the unrpentant Israelites from the  Babylonian invaders. - JEREMIAH 16:16,18. 

Next time: AnAttack Coming From the North! - RESTORATION

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