Joel 2:25: “And I will restore to you the years that the locust have eaten, the canker worm and the caterpillar and the palmerworm my great army which I sent among you.”
Very little is known about the prophet Joel. He is mentioned only once, in the first chapter of the Book of Joel. The style of writing and events of the Book of Joel would tend to make him a contemporary of Habakkuk, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The name Joel is a word which combines the name of God Jehovah yo with the word God el. It is depicting the feminine and masculine nature of God or His role as a disciplinarian and as a loving parent. Indeed this book speaks of both the judgment of God in the catastrophic loss of their food supply through a locust invasion 1:1-2:17 and the promise of restoration 2:18-32.
The book is written in poetic style and is meant to be an allegory as well as a description of actual events. There is debate as to whether such an event occurred in Judah and many scholars simply accept this as an allegory. Still, for us, the allegorical nature of this book allows us to make numerous personal applications to our own lives. The message is one which teaches that what God must allow to be removed from our lives in order to bring about correction, He will one day restore. He has an army to do this which the enemy likes to use.
This is clearly the message of Joel 2:25 and many who are going through a time of loss, have embraced this as a promise of future restoration. Yet there is something more deeply embedded in this message. This loss occurred from an invasion of locust which devoured their crops. God also names the canker worm or the inch worm which is the larva of a moth, the caterpillar which is the larva for the butterfly and the palmerworm which is the larva for a beetle. These insects are noted for their destruction of trees and other plant life.
Reading this passage you cannot help but to examine the spiritual devastation that takes place when these attacks come upon us. The word locust comes from the root word ravah which literally means to multiply into a multitude. It is spelled Resh, Beth, and Hei. These letters and their order indicate that when a multitude of difficulties come upon us, it drowns out the still small voice of God. The cankerworm is yalak which is spelled Yod, Lamed, and Qof and literally means to lick or lap. The letters and their order indicate a loss of hope. The canker worm literally licks away your hope. The caterpillar in Hebrew is chasel and means to devour. This is spelled Chet, Samek and Lamed and indicates fear. The caterpillar devours you with fear. The palmerworm in Hebrew is gazem which means to cut off. The word is spelled Gimmel, Zayin and Mem and indicates sorrow or grief. The palmerworm is pictured as filling you with grief and cutting you off from the joys of life.
God is promising in this verse that he will restore us. The word restore is the word shalom. I think most of you recognize this word. There is a wide range of usages for the word shalom other than peace. The word is used to describe peace, completeness, healing, restoration, and retribution or repayment among a few of its usages. He will restore the years that these insects have destroyed. The word years is shanah which literally means to repeat, to change, to disfigure, or to alter. It can also mean again and again.
There is a literal meaning to this verse, which is that God will restore the land that the insects have destroyed. But there is also a personal message in this verse. It is the reason each insect is named. The enemy may use the locust against us and try to drown out the still small voice of God. He may send the cankerworm to discourage us and cause us to lose hope, or the caterpillar to devour us with fear and the palmerworm to fill us with such grief and sorrow that we are cut off from all the good that life has to offer. Yet, Joel prophesies that if we repent God will bring his shalom his restoration, peace and healing to change all that was disfigured by the enemy.
I was reading something interesting in the Mishnah not too long ago. Jesus told the story of the prodigal son who demanded that his father give him his inheritance so he could leave home. After using up his inheritance he came home and his father welcomed him and restored all that he had spent. We often think the eldest son was upset over the brother’s return because the father had to dip into the inheritance of the eldest son to restore the inheritance of the returning wayward son. The Bible does not say this we merely assume this to be the case, yet it was not. According to the Mishnah, a father may divide his inheritance to his sons prior to his death if even one son demands it. However, this division can only be accomplished by assigning a deed of property to the son. The son only owns his inheritance by means of a deed given to him by an assignment. The father still owns the property. Under Hebrew law the deed cannot be sold until the father’s death. Should one purchase the deed before the father dies, he has made an illegal purchase and at the demand of the father, the real owner, the purchaser must return the deed without repayment of the money he spent for the deed. In other words for the prodigal to squander his inheritance, he had to find someone to illegally purchase the deed. The money changer who purchased the deed made an illegal transaction so that when the son returned the father went to this crooked money changer and demanded the deed returned which the money changer had to do at his own lose or face the judgment of the courts. The whole family did not lose a dime. The real loser was the crooked money changer. The money the son spent was not his inheritance, but the money changer’s money.
God calls these insects His great army. Either God sends this army to correct us or the enemy may use this great army to steal from us, I am not sure, but what they take ultimately belongs to God and at any time He can simply snap His fingers and demand that the enemy returns it. If the enemy has taken anything from us, he did not steal from us, he stole it from God and if, like the prodigal son, we repent, God will demand its return.
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