Images found in Joel

There is so much imagery in the book of Joel. I could see the locusts swarming and the armies assembling from the very beginning. I could have written about almost every verse in the book because it is just so jam packed full of gems. There were three different portions, though, that especially stood out to me. The first one is in chapter two, and it reads:

“With a noise as of chariots

They leap on the tops of the mountains,

Like the crackling of a flame of fire consuming the stubble,

Like a mighty people arranged for battle.”

This “great and mighty people” come alive through the description here. I love that the soldiers don't just jump or run, they leap. This gives more of a sense of quickness to the passage, I think. The soldiers are not just marching to where they need to go, they are making haste even in strenuous parts of their journey. I could also see and hear the army because of the similes used in this portion. I could see the flames of fire which helped me to understand the amount of all consuming people that Joel is referencing here. The army arranged for battle must be fierce to be compared with fire and might. I could see them engulfing an area of land from an aerial view based on Joel's description.

I think it's excellent that even short lines from this book seem to pop with images. In the second example of imagery that I found, Joel describes that, “The pastures of the wilderness have turned green.” I can literally see these pastures turn green in my mind. It is as if one moment they are brown and withered but with just one word from God, they are green. Of course, I don't know if that is how God will do it or not, but that is what came to my mind.

The third and last example of imagery that I loved is the verse that says, “Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears.” How interesting that common farmers are being instructed to make weapons. I can see them lined up like blacksmiths pounding out their garden tools to use in battle. There really is a lot of good imagery in this book, and I enjoyed looking deeper at it to discover images I had not noticed the first time I read this book through.