The Old Testament is the story about God’s interaction with a specific family, the Israelites.  The story goes beyond that family though and is intended to teach all mankind about God and our relationship to him (See “The Old Testament Connection” and “What’s in a Name”).  The descendants of Israel grew to be a large nation, Israel.  This nation was settled in the land of Canaan by God (Where modern day Israel is, and then some).  The nation eventually was ruled by three kings, Saul, David, and Solomon.  After Solomon the nation split into two kingdoms; the northern kingdom continued to be called Israel and was made up of 10 tribes or families of Israelites and the southern kingdom was called Judah and was made up of two tribes or families.  Sometimes in the Bible “Isreal” refers to the whole nation, just the northern kingdom, or both kingdoms together.  The split occurred about 931 BC.

In order to preserve power in the northern kingdom the first king set up two  new places to worship, Bethel and Dan.  The old place was in Jerusalem in the southern kingdom and the king felt that his people might be drawn back there, causing him to lose power.  He made gold calves to set up as idols in these places of worship and told the people that these were their gods.  Although he intended for the people to still worship the same god (Yahweh) in a new way it didn’t work out that way.  These calves were in direct disobedience to the rules God had given Moses about honoring Himself.  So from the beginning the Northern kingdom basically defected from the true God.  About 55 years after the split a man named Ahab became king, he was the seventh king of the northern kingdom.

Over the years Israel (the nation) had a varying amount of control over the land of Canaan.  Sometimes the control was complete and sometimes individual cities or small areas would come under the control of non-Israelites.  At the time of Ahab, Sidon was one such city.  Ahab married the non-Israelite daughter, Jezebel, of the king of Sidon.  Jezebel worshipped a false god very dominant in that part of the world, Baal.  She encouraged Ahab to worship Baal also and eventually they made Baal the official god of the northern kingdom.  Not only was this a complete departure from worship of the one true God, Yahweh, Baal worship was brutal and completely cruel.  Although the northern kingdom abandon God he did not abandon them and until 722 BC when he allowed the Assyrian people to conquer them he continually sent prophets to them; confronting them abut their disobedience and encouraging them to turn bacck to Him.

The southern kingdom had a more mixed history with God.  At least eight kings of Judah are recognized in the Bible as being faithful (at least mostly) to Yahweh.  With respect ot reading Joel, two of these “good” kings are important, Jehoshaphat and Joash.  Jehoshaphat ruled Judah at the same time Ahab ruled Israel.  Although Jehoshaphat is described as being faithful to God at times he didn’t do everything right.  Near the end of his reign he made a military alliance with Ahab’s son, Ahaziah.  Ahaziah was a s wicked as his father and this alliance so displeased God that God destroyed Jehoshaphat’s fleet of ships.  Jehoshaphat has several sons and he appointed one of them as co-king for the last four years of his life.  Upon Jehoshaphat’s death this son, Jehoram, became king.  Jehoram married one of Ahaziah’s sisters (a daughter of Ahab and Jezebel), Athaliah.  Immediately upon becoming king Jehoram had his brothers all executed to protect his power.  After eight years of evil rule in Judah God inflicted Jehoram with a terrible disease in which his bowels actually came out of his body (2 Chronicles 21:12-20).  A second part of this curse on Jehoram was that his immediate family would “suffer a great blow”.  Before his death is wives and children were taken captive by Philistines and Arabs.  Athaliah managed to escape being captured and along with her son, Ahaziah, remained in Judah.  The people made Ahaziah king in the place of his father.  Within a year of becoming king Ahaziah traveled north to visit an uncle who was wounded in a battle.  While there both were killed by a guy named Jehu who then became king of the northern kingdom.

In the southern kingdom Athaliah, Ahaziah’s mother took control.  Like here father and moter whe was completely wicked and pushed Baal worship in Judah.  To protect her new position as queen she had Ahaziah’s children executed.  Jehoshabeath, one of Ahaziah’s sisters, was able to rescue one of the children, the youngest, a son named Joash.  Joash was cared for by his aunt and an elderly priest named Jehoiada.  Jehoiada had been born near the end of Solomin’s rule had been a priest during the days of Judah’s first two “good” kings, Asa and Jehoshaphat..  When Joash was seven years old Jehoiada led the people of Judah in proclaiming Joash king.  When Queen Athaliah heard the festivities and investigated she protested, was captured and executed.  Jehoaiada lived to the age of 130 and was an adviser to Joash until he died.  Remember that Joash along with his Great grand-father, Jehoshaphat, was considered one of Judah’s “good” kings.  Joash had quite a mess to deal with, his  grand-mother, Athaliah, had led the people away from God, now with the help of Jehoaiada he needed to lead them back.  It was at this time, at the beginning of his reign (835 BC) that Joel appeared on the scene with his message.  As we will see from the book of Joel it appears that there was also a more physical problem that Joash had to face early in his reign, the destruction of Judah’s crops by locusts.  Locusts are an insect sort of like a grass-hopper.  As locusts migrate across an area they eat every green plant in their path.  In the time of Joash that would have meant hunger and starvation for most of his kingdom since mosts foods were locally grown and not imported.  If ever the people needed to hear from god it was at this time.