Blogging Bible Study: Digging in the Desert - Joel

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

I had planned to cover references mentioning 'desert' in both Joel and Amos today, as they each have only two, but as I worked through Joel I realized that the message from those two verses needs a week of its own to ponder.  I may have messed up my plan for the next couple of weeks, but Joel needs a selah at the end so I couldn't go on...

Joel has no historical reference point, other than a plague of locusts; the 8th or 9th century BC is about as close as the notes place it.  But it is quoted more than 20 times in the New Testament.  There are two references to desert:

"Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy hill.  Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming.  It is close at hand -- a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness.  Like dawn spreading across the mountains a large and mighty army comes, such as never was of old nor ever will be in ages to come. Before them fire devours, behind them a flame blazes.  Before them the land is like the garden of Eden, behind them, a desert waste -- nothing escapes them." -Joel 2:1-3

"But Egypt will be desolate, Edom a desert waste, because of violence done to the people of Judah, in whose land they shed innocent blood." -- Joel 3:19

There's a whole big gap between those verses in which judgment against and restoration of Judah is detailed, along with declarations of judgment against other nations.  The phrase 'desert waste' is used to describe the state after the judgment falls for both Judah and the nations of Egypt and Edom; an emphatic phrase.  Not just hot and dry...completely barren and unproductive.

As I was pondering that, I thought 'judgment isn't the only thing that will result in barrenness'; I thought of the farmers who were instructed to let their fields lie fallow for a year to rest the soil, or of winter, the season where nothing is producing...but then I realized that no, I was wrong.  Those are not non-productive circumstances...they are differently productive circumstances.  The fallow field is not barren or unproductive...it is uncultivated.  Anything that grew wild was allowed to grow and produce, and the Israelites could eat anything that grew wild. They just had to give up control of it.  And the winter season may not produce fruit or greenery, but roots are growing and preparation is made for productivity.  Rest - preparation- releasing control are all seasons we go through that do, ultimately, produce a harvest if we don't give up.  But desert waste is utterly fruitless; a judgment place, with no productivity, and needs repentance to shift.  There is no harvest in the desert waste.  

We need discernment to know the difference.  The first two situations need trust...the other needs repenting.

I need to take a hard look at what appears to be unfruitful.  Am I just in a season of rest and release?  Or am I in preparation for a season of fruitfulness?  Or have I wandered into a dry and barren place because of my own choices...a place that will never be fruitful?