Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Joel · About this commentary
I Will Pour Out My Spirit
Joel 2:28-29
28 “It will happen afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions. · WEB
The promise leaves agriculture behind entirely, and every barrier that limited who could speak for God is named in order to be removed.
It will happen afterward. Two words mark the largest turn in the book: everything to this point has been about a plague and its reversal, and what follows is neither.
I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. The verb is used of liquid emptied out without measure, and the recipient is not a prophet but a population. Under the old arrangement the Spirit came on chosen individuals for particular tasks, and Moses had said he wished all the Lord's people were prophets Numbers 11:29. This verse grants the wish.
The barriers are then listed and dismissed one at a time. Sons and daughters will prophesy, so sex is no bar. Old men will dream and young men will see visions, so age is no bar. And verse 29 adds the class that had no standing at all: also on the servants and the handmaids. Three divisions that governed who could speak in that world, named in order to be canceled.
Peter stood in Jerusalem and said this was that Acts 2:16–17, with a crowd of Galileans and slaves and women speaking as the evidence.
settled What this mark means