The Vision of Joel 7 – New Wine of the Kingdom - Exposition of the Book of Joel ch.3.

In Joel 3.13 the picture changes. The hosts have gathered in the fatal valley and to the prophet's excited mind they appear as masses of grape-laden vines, full to bursting, awaiting the gathering and the vintage. "Put ye in the sickle" he cries "for the harvest is ripe.....The press is full, the fats (wine-vats) overflow (with the juice of the crushed grapes) for their wickedness is great". This symbol of the winepress is used elsewhere. In Revelation 14.19-20 there is the same allusion ‑ "And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city."

It is here that we are enabled rightly to place these happenings in the times and seasons of the Divine Plan. Verses 15-16 tell us that at this juncture, when the nations have gathered together and have been, as it were, 'reaped' and 'cast into the winepress', "the sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth shall shake; but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel". These are the signs of the Second Advent, and of the establishment of the Kingdom in power; the gathering and the reaping lead up to this culmination. The incitement to war, the turning of all the arts of peace to purposes of conflict, the federating of weak nations into allegedly strong unions, constitutes a clear fulfilment of this prophecy. The framing of treaties, agreements and pacts of mutual aid against real and fancied aggression, carried to the extent it has been in recent years are a definite indication of the imminence of that 'darkening' of the sun and moon and 'shaking' of the heavens which in Matt. 24 is given as the immediate herald of the manifestation of the returned Lord in glory to all mankind. That is a late stage in the succession of events which constitutes His Advent; the gathering of the Church and its union with Him "beyond the veil" take place before this, and may well have occurred before the nations have completed their assembly in the Valley of Jehoshaphat.

If this "winepress" feature, when the Lord will "roar out of Zion", is to result in the immediate deliverance of His earthly people in the Holy Land and the almost immediate commencement of Millennial work, as verse 18 seems to indicate, then it must logically follow that the Church will have been gathered some time previously, before Armageddon is fought out around the land of Israel. "So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no stranger pass through her any more" (v.17). That is the outcome; the Gentile hosts have come up for judgment and have been judged; they have undertaken their last assault against the citadel of God's righteousness and been repulsed, and their power has been broken for ever. Israel has returned wholly and completely to the Lord her God, and the stage is fully set for the Millennial Kingdom.

"And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with water, and a fountain shall come forth of the House of the Lord, and shall water the valley of Shittim." (3. 18). This verse is full of Millennial imagery, the wine and milk of the Kingdom, and the River of Life. These symbols are found elsewhere in the Scriptures, separated. Here they are found combined. Here is our authority for linking them together and proclaiming to all and sundry that in that day, when the River of Life commences to flow again from the sanctuary of God, there will be wine and milk. These are the deep truths and the elementary truths of the Divine Plan, the things by which men approach unto God, and enter into communion with him, as well as the things by which men may learn to live their earthly lives acceptably conforming to His laws — without money, and without price. We are indebted to Ezekiel for the clearest view of this Millennial river. Out from the Sanctuary that symbolises the Divine Government on earth during that Age (Ezek. 47) he saw a stream emerge, waters that rapidly widened and deepened as they pursued their onward course, until they became a mighty river, too wide and too deep to pass over. They flowed down into the Dead Sea, and healed its barren waters, so that fish could live; and upon the banks of that life-giving river grew every kind of tree whose fruit was good for food and whose leaves were potent for healing. Fitting symbol, this, of the life-giving influences that will flow out from the administration of the Lord Christ and His glorified Church "in that day". Small wonder that men will cry "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and He will save us, This is the Lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation." (Isa. 25. 9). To Ezekiel, the vision was as a restoration of man's lost Eden home; he saw once again the mystic river that watered the garden, and the Trees of Life in the midst of the garden, lost to mankind for so many weary centuries, now restored before his wondering eyes.

Zechariah, in a later day, saw the same thing. Like Joel, he saw it in connection with, and immediately following, Israel's spectacular deliverance from their enemies. He had stood and watched (Zech. 14) the investment of Jerusalem by the hostile forces, and the Lord go forth as when He fought in the day of battle, and the disruption of those forces by the power of that going forth. Then he had seen the living waters come forth out of Jerusalem. This was not seasonal winter stream to be dried up by the summer's heat, but a sparkling river bearing fertility and life to every thing and every one within its reach all the year round; "in summer and in winter shall it be". So these three prophets joined together in giving testimony to the means by which God will in the coming Age bring life and health to the nations, so that the writer of Revelation, centuries later, was able to revive their vision in his own words. When, in his turn, he came to close the last book of the Bible with his inspired description of what God will do at the end, he saw "a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb on either side of the river, the tree of life… and there shall be no more curse." (Rev. 22.1-3).

The "valley of Shittim", as the translators, have it, is the "Valley of Acacias." (Shittim is the Hebrew word for acacia). The Valley of Acacias was the name given to the terraces on either side of the Jordan, for a considerable distance above its entrance into the Dead Sea, which in ancient times (and to some extent in modern times also) were thickly forested with acacias. There is a striking parallel with Zechariah's vision here, for he also sees the river of life issuing forth toward the "east country"- this same district-and thus, finding its way by means of the Jordan into the Dead Sea. One cannot help feeling that both prophets saw the same thing in vision, and described it, each in his own words, and one wonders, is it possible that each enjoyed a foresight of a literal stream that is to flow thus, "in that day". This may be so without in any way deprecating the symbolic interpretation of the passage, which to us is in any case the more important. In the natural picture, the flowing of the great "fountain" is not just a single spring. The Hebrew ma'an means a collection of many springs gushing forth a great quantity of water at one place, as in the "fountains of the great deep" in the story of the Flood in Gen. 7.11. Its consequence in the rivers of Judah all flowing with waters (Joel 3.18) would, of course, result in abundant harvests of grapes, and consequent wine, and ample pasturage for flocks which produce milk. No wonder then, that Joel says the mountains would "drop down" new wine ‑ so heavily laden with prolific vines would they be ‑ and the hills flow with milk, so rich in flocks and herds would they be in their turn. All this is due in the first place to the River of Life flowing out from the house of the Lord. That then must be why Isaiah cries out so triumphantly (55.1). "Ho, every one that thirsts, come ye to the waters; come, buy wine and milk without money, and without price". It is in this chapter that the spiritual application of the material illustration is so clearly seen, for Isaiah goes on to say, "Wherefore do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfies not? Hearken diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto me. Hear, and your soul shall live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you.".

That is the call and the work of the Millennial Age, to offer the symbolic wine and milk to all men, without money and without price, and exhort them to "listen" and "hear", that their souls may live. That all this is "without money and without price" may be taken as an indication of the abundance of wine and milk that the living waters will have brought forth. It will become as common and free as the air we breathe, and the sunshine that warms us. That, at any rate, will be true of the wine and milk of the Millennial Age. So the prophet turns his eyes away from the fair vision, and looks upon the Divine warfare against evil that has made that vision possible. "Egypt shall be a desolation" he cries, "and Edom shall be a, desolate wilderness, for the violence against the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in the land." What kind of Millennial Age is this that witnesses prosperity and life on the one hand, and desolation and death on the other? Has God His favourites after all, and are Egypt and Edom to be punished eternally for their oft-times misguided and ignorant opposition to the children of Judah?

This verse is symbolic and cannot be literally fulfilled. Edom does not exist and the Egyptians today are racially a different people. In that day when Israel shines forth resplendent, purified and converted, as God's earthly missionary nation, the nations that cried "let us cause them to cease from being a people on the face of the earth" have ceased to exist as nations, but Israel, whom they oppressed, is enthroned forever. That is the Divine decree. "Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed, FOR THE LORD DWELLETH IN ZION."