The Early and the Latter Rain
21 Land, don’t be afraid. Be glad and rejoice, for Yahweh has done great things. 22 Don’t be afraid, you animals of the field; for the pastures of the wilderness spring up, for the tree bears its fruit. The fig tree and the vine yield their strength. 23 “Be glad then, you children of Zion, and rejoice in Yahweh, your God; for he gives you the early rain in just measure, and he causes the rain to come down for you, the early rain and the latter rain, as before. 24 The threshing floors will be full of wheat, and the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.
Three commands not to be afraid — to the land, the animals, and the people — and the gift named is rain in its proper seasons.
Land, don't be afraid. The address is to the ground itself, then to the animals of the field, and only third to the children of Zion. The order reverses chapter 1, where the ruin was reported outward from people to livestock to soil; the repair is announced inward.
Each address carries the same reason. Yahweh has done great things — the identical phrase used of the enemy's destructiveness at the end of Joel 2:20, now transferred to the one who undid it.
Verse 23 names the gift, and it is not a harvest but the condition of one: the early rain — moreh H4175 — and the latter rain, malqosh H4456. The first softens ground for sowing in autumn; the second fills the grain in spring. Both are needed and neither can be stored, so the promise commits God to a whole agricultural year rather than a single act.
Verse 24 states the outcome in the plainest terms the book uses: threshing floors full of wheat, vats overflowing with new wine and oil. Chapter 1 had reported those same three commodities destroyed Joel 1:10, and they return in the same order.
settled What this mark means