Joel 3:2

I will also gather I will gather: -also" is a misrendering of the Heb. idiom employed (cf. Amos 3:14).

the valley of Jehoshaphat as is shewn by the play upon the name, which, both here and in Joel 3:12, immediately follows, the place is chosen as the scene of Jehovah's judgement on account of its name (which means "Jah judgeth"). No doubt there was an actual valley, so named after the king, though where it was, is quite uncertain. It may have been the spot (though this is not called a "valley") in which, according to a tradition reported by the Chronicler (2 Chronicles 20:20-24), the Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites, who invaded Judah in the days of Jehoshaphat, fell upon, and slaughtered one another; or it may have been identical with the "valley of Berachah" (or of Blessing) in which four days afterwards (2 Chronicles 20:26) the victorious Judahites assembled to "bless" Jehovah; or, as Joel seems to have in view some spot nearer Jerusalem than this valley (cf. ib. 2 Chronicles 20:27-28), it may have been the fairly broad and open valley between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, which already in Eusebius" time [47] (though we know not upon what grounds) bore, as it bears still, the name, "valley of Jehoshaphat." This valley is elsewhere always called the Wâdy(Heb. naḥal:see on Amos 5:24) of the Kidron(2 Samuel 15:23; 2 Kings 23:4; 2 Kings 23:6 al.), but it seems to be sufficiently wide to have been termed an -çmeḳ, especially as even the -ravine" (gai") of Hinnom (Joshua 15:8), on the S. of Jerusalem, appears to be so designated in Jeremiah 31:40. Happily, nothing turns here upon the identification of the spot meant, the symbolism of the name being alone significant.

[47] See the Onomasticon, ed. Lagarde, p. 273.

valley or vale: Heb. -çmeḳ, lit. deepening, "a highlander's word for a valley as he looks downinto it, always applied to wide avenues running up into a mountainous country, like the Vale of Elah, the Vale of Hebron, and the Vale of Ajalon" (G. A. Smith, Geogr. p. 384). In both A.V. and R.V. much confusion is occasioned by the same English word "valley" being used unfortunately for both -çmeḳand gai", though the latter denoted a much narrower opening, such as we should describe as a ravineor glen. For a list of both the -çmeḳsand the gai'snamed in the O.T., see Stanley, S. and P. Appendix, §§ 1, 2; and comp. G. A. Smith, l.c.p. 654 f.

plead the reflexive, or reciprocal, conjugation of shâphat, to judge. The play cannot be preserved exactly in English; though one might paraphrase the "valley of Jehoshaphat" by "the valley of God's judgement," and say that Jehovah intended to "contend there in judgementwith all nations" on behalf of His people. Pleadmeans dispute in judgement, as a litigant, Jehovah standing on one side, and the nations on the other: for the same term, similarly applied, see Jeremiah 25:31; Ezekiel 38:22; Isaiah 66:16.

scattered among the nations evidently a considerable dispersion of Israel among the Gentiles is presupposed by these words: comp. Ezekiel 11:17; Ezekiel 12:15; Ezekiel 20:34; Ezekiel 20:41; Ezekiel 22:15; Ezekiel 28:25; Ezekiel 36:19, with reference to the Jews exiled by Nebuchadnezzar in b.c. 597 and 586.

divided my land viz. among new occupants: cp. for the expression Joshua 13:7; Amos 7:17; Micah 2:4.