Can anybody be a prophet? Does biblical prophecy limit itself to Jewish males - and only to humans? Although without doubt the prophets chosen to represent the prophetic spirit in the Hebrew Bible are primarily men identified as members of the Northern or Southern Kingdoms of Israel and Judah - there are some mentions of women and people of other faith traditions.
And there was one prophet who imagined a wider circle - a future in which there are no limitations to who or what can be a prophet. It’s a radical vision and one of the more famous ideas for which Joel is best known.
Today’s chapter is its own interesting story, beyond what’s in it. The entire book of Joel, one of the shortest in the Bible, consists of 73 verses. It was not originally divided into chapters, in line with the rest of the biblical literature. Division into chapters was a Christian project, attributed to Stephen Langton in the 13th century. Jewish readers began using the Christian chapter division only afterwards - and ever since. But there are some discrepancies. Langton divided Joel into three chapters - linking today’s chapter with the previous one we just read. But Jewish sages disagreed and divided Joel into four chapters, for several interesting reasons.
So, technically, there are more than 929 chapters in the Hebrew Bible - it just depends on how you count, and today’s short and astounding chapter is just one more example of this lesser known ambiguity.
Numbers of chapters aside - what does Joel imagine will happen at the end of time? Like other prophets he envisions a dramatic apocalyptic turning of the tides -- great battles, blood-red moon and celestial fireworks, But all of that is secondary to the main future event - prophecy will be for everybody, and everything. It is a radical democratic notion of a utopian future that went largely ignored by generations of Jewish readers, maybe because it is so radical - or so remote. Joel is responding to Moses in a way that is not obvious but once seen, can not be unseen and adds an additional set of questions to what this puzzling prophecy is all about, and what it may mean for us, today:
וְהָיָ֣ה אַחֲרֵי־כֵ֗ן אֶשְׁפּ֤וֹךְ אֶת־רוּחִי֙ עַל־כׇּל־בָּשָׂ֔ר וְנִבְּא֖וּ בְּנֵיכֶ֣ם וּבְנוֹתֵיכֶ֑ם זִקְנֵיכֶם֙ חֲלֹמ֣וֹת יַחֲלֹמ֔וּן בַּח֣וּרֵיכֶ֔ם חֶזְיֹנ֖וֹת יִרְאֽוּ׃ וְגַ֥ם עַל־הָעֲבָדִ֖ים וְעַל־הַשְּׁפָח֑וֹת בַּיָּמִ֣ים הָהֵ֔מָּה אֶשְׁפּ֖וֹךְ אֶת־רוּחִֽי׃
“After that,
I will pour out My spirit on all flesh;
Your sons and daughters shall prophesy;
Your elders shall dream dreams,
And your youths shall see visions.
I will even pour out My spirit
Upon male and female slaves in those days.”
Joel 3:1-2
When does ‘after that’ happen? This is why the linking of chapters 2+3 is interesting. Does Joel refer to what will happen when the people finally repent, the land is able to feed them again, and all is well? Or perhaps this is a separate vision, looking to some distant future when all we know about hierarchy and class can be subverted?
What is clear here is that the spirit of prophecy is a liberally applied divine gift of divination- to be shared by all. Not just all ages - but also all social classes - and presumably - all ethnic and national origins as well.
But not just humans. What does ‘all flesh’ mean? Some have come to see this text is going beyond human species to imagine something we can prophecy emanate from every living being - animals, and maybe even plants?
This is where Joel responds to Moses - and takes the first prophet’s socio-theological wish a big step forward. Back in chapter 11 of the Book of Numbers, Moses, YHWH’s official and only spokesman, is confronted with a few men who are prophesying on the edges of the camp, in what Joshua perceives as a leadership threat. But Moses responds:“I wish all of them were prophets! May YHWH pour divine spirit on them all!”
This surprising wish does not happen during Moses’ lifetime nor since, although many have continued to deliver messages of all sorts in what they believe is God’s name. But for Joel - Moses’ wish is waiting for the democracy of the future, in which everybody will be given the spirit and the gift of voicing it.
This universal vision of equity and equality is bold and big. Not just Moses or Joel, Deborah or Miriam - everybody, all ages, genders, social class or origin story - can be prophetic. When this notion is adapted in the New Testament it becomes an important Christian concept, enabling the divine spirit to dwell on many and to manifest in multiple ways in people’s lives and the natural world.
Joel’s words offer an apocalyptic and also a postmodern vision, defying the familiar hierarchies and promising a utopian anarchy where multiple visions co-exist in a marketplace of ideas without clear distinction of authorized or approved, primary or prioritized.
On some level - isn’t this our reality already, for better or worse?
Perhaps Joel intended a higher sphere of prophetic spirit, top-down as well as grassroots, but deeply grounded in the essence of what ‘spirit’ means?
Writing in the Jewish Bible Quarterly a decade ago, Rabbi Mordechai Schreiber suggests that Joel
“is informing us that true prophecy is latent in every human being, Jew and non-Jew alike. This should not be taken to mean clairvoyance or even the ability to relate messages from God. It actually means the divine inspiration which leads one to an enlightened and uplifted state. Only when the prophetic spirit takes hold of the entire community, from the highest to the lowest, can the spirit of God prevail. One is reminded of the Latin saying, Vox populi vox Dei – "the voice of the people is the voice of God."
In other words - Joel imagines a future where spirit is present, in its deeper form, defying the material reality, mental states, and the hierarchies that are responsible for so much suffering and pain for all of history, and still right now. The language Joel uses in this short dramatic chapter will make it into one of the core Jewish texts of all time, imagining not just the future but also the starting point of how the Jewish nation got started: The Exodus, led by Moses.
In verse 3 Joel imagines the end of days, with spirit everywhere, and with supernatural dimensions:
וְנָֽתַתִּי֙ מֽוֹפְתִ֔ים בַּשָּׁמַ֖יִם וּבָאָ֑רֶץ דָּ֣ם וָאֵ֔שׁ וְתִֽימְר֖וֹת עָשָֽׁן׃
הַשֶּׁ֙מֶשׁ֙ יֵהָפֵ֣ךְ לְחֹ֔שֶׁךְ וְהַיָּרֵ֖חַ לְדָ֑ם לִפְנֵ֗י בּ֚וֹא י֣וֹם יְהֹוָ֔ה הַגָּד֖וֹל וְהַנּוֹרָֽא׃
“Before the great and terrible day of GOD comes,
I will set portents in the sky and on earth:
Blood and fire and pillars of smoke;
The sun shall turn into darkness
And the moon into blood.”
Joel 3:3-4
Blood, Fire and Pillars of Smoke show up in our Passover Hagaddah as a way to note the night on which our people fled for freedom and became a nation. That was one momentous mythic moment that defined our destiny and defied the odds. The future, Joel promises, will include another day like that - on a larger scale, universal, cosmic, not just a plague of darkness but one that will cover the planet, under a blood-red lunar eclipse.
The past meets the future, as history and myth messily collide, and spirit hovering over the face of the water, and each other’s faces and hearts, waiting to be poured on all, in the service of a hopeful, future, better world.
One more chapter of Joel awaits, with a violent future vision that flips the pastoral metaphors of previous prophets, and turns tools into weapons and yet, and yet, has prophetic hope for the last battle that will end all wars for all of us, for all time.
Dear Below the Bible Belt Readers,
Join me for our monthly Zoom conversation Below the Bible Belt - to wrap up the visions of Hosea and Joel, as we get to meet Amos. What do these ancient prophets have to tell us about war and peace today?
We’ll meet on February 1, 2024, 5pm ET to explore the legacies of the so-called minor prophets. Please bring your questions, comments, responses and thoughts.
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