Joel
1:4 – four words for locust – cf. Inuit's 20/32 words for snow – no well what do you get lots of and have to deal with in life/death.
1:5 – on the raising of booze prices and the resulting hardship for the alcoholic! Supply and demand. Crop failure. I wonder what the grape stocks did!
1:14 – see also Isaiah 1:13 – lambasted special holy days when not sincere, but here they're called for – a place for both.
1:15 – day of the Lord – popular notion was one of joy arising out of God "getting the enemy good!". The Prophets felt that a lot of folks inside Israel were going to "get it" to therefore a day of sadness not joy.
1:19-20 a separate instance? Sees and builds on and beyond the immediate? Or is it a case of it never rains but it pours?
2:1f what vivid imagery – intermingled with today's make it potentially very visual and useful.
2:13 – rend your hearts and not your garments – the open-ended doom – opportunity for change of situation always presented – sincerity.
2:14?
2:16b – okay guys, knock it off! It must be serious! Overriding the honeymoon.
2:26 – the eternal optimists! They have historically lurched from one crisis to the next and have had nothing but problems.
2:28 – the spirit-inspired dreams and visions etc. What do we read into this – those of us who grew up in our formative years in the optimistic 60s where "you do your own thing" grants of money were handed out as a way of life – the dream – world future here now. When "future" is "foretold", "dreamed", or "envisioned" – it has a diabolical way of crashing into the present despite any notions of whether that intangible would have come about or not. The potency of ideas and words and spirit in the material realm is incredible – for good or evil.
3:10 interesting parody on "ploughs into ploughshares" – more descriptive of what we've done since Micah! Here a call to military preparation for the day of judgment – peace – one idea which never really got beyond the dream stage in our priorities.
3:17b – meaning? Unclean? Warriors? Everybody friends?
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