{"id":1254,"date":"2012-12-31T09:43:59","date_gmt":"2012-12-31T17:43:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/?page_id=1254"},"modified":"2012-12-31T09:43:59","modified_gmt":"2012-12-31T17:43:59","slug":"intro-to-joel","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/?page_id=1254","title":{"rendered":"Intro to Joel"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Old Testament is the story about God\u2019s interaction with a specific family, the Israelites.\u00a0 The story goes beyond that family though and is intended to teach all mankind about God and our relationship to him (See \u201cThe Old Testament Connection\u201d<\/a> and \u201cWhat\u2019s in a Name\u201d<\/a>).\u00a0 The descendants of Israel grew to be a large nation, Israel.\u00a0 This nation was settled in the land of Canaan by God (Where modern day Israel is, and then some).\u00a0 The nation eventually was ruled by three kings, Saul, David, and Solomon.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Sometimes in the Bible \u201cIsreal\u201d refers to the whole nation, just the northern kingdom, or both kingdoms together.\u00a0 The split occurred about 931 BC.<\/p>\n

In order to preserve power in the northern kingdom the first king set up two\u00a0 new places to worship, Bethel and Dan.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 He made gold calves to set up as idols in these places of worship and told the people that these were their gods.\u00a0 Although he intended for the people to still worship the same god (Yahweh) in a new way it didn\u2019t work out that way.\u00a0 These calves were in direct disobedience to the rules God had given Moses about honoring Himself.\u00a0 So from the beginning the Northern kingdom basically defected from the true God.\u00a0 About 55 years after the split a man named Ahab became king, he was the seventh king of the northern kingdom.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Over the years Israel (the nation) had a varying amount of control over the land of Canaan.\u00a0 Sometimes the control was complete and sometimes individual cities or small areas would come under the control of non-Israelites.\u00a0 At the time of Ahab, Sidon was one such city.\u00a0 Ahab married the non-Israelite daughter, Jezebel, of the king of Sidon.\u00a0 Jezebel worshipped a false god very dominant in that part of the world, Baal.\u00a0 She encouraged Ahab to worship Baal also and eventually they made Baal the official god of the northern kingdom.\u00a0 Not only was this a complete departure from worship of the one true God, Yahweh, Baal worship was brutal and completely cruel.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The southern kingdom had a more mixed history with God.\u00a0 At least eight kings of Judah are recognized in the Bible as being faithful (at least mostly) to Yahweh.\u00a0 With respect ot reading Joel, two of these \u201cgood\u201d kings are important, Jehoshaphat and Joash.\u00a0 Jehoshaphat ruled Judah at the same time Ahab ruled Israel.\u00a0 Although Jehoshaphat is described as being faithful to God at times he didn\u2019t do everything right.\u00a0 Near the end of his reign he made a military alliance with Ahab\u2019s son, Ahaziah.\u00a0 Ahaziah was a s wicked as his father and this alliance so displeased God that God destroyed Jehoshaphat\u2019s fleet of ships.\u00a0 Jehoshaphat has several sons and he appointed one of them as co-king for the last four years of his life.\u00a0 Upon Jehoshaphat\u2019s death this son, Jehoram, became king.\u00a0 Jehoram married one of Ahaziah\u2019s sisters (a daughter of Ahab and Jezebel), Athaliah.\u00a0 Immediately upon becoming king Jehoram had his brothers all executed to protect his power.\u00a0 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).\u00a0 A second part of this curse on Jehoram was that his immediate family would \u201csuffer a great blow\u201d.\u00a0 Before his death is wives and children were taken captive by Philistines and Arabs.\u00a0 Athaliah managed to escape being captured and along with her son, Ahaziah, remained in Judah.\u00a0 The people made Ahaziah king in the place of his father.\u00a0 Within a year of becoming king Ahaziah traveled north to visit an uncle who was wounded in a battle.\u00a0 While there both were killed by a guy named Jehu who then became king of the northern kingdom.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the southern kingdom Athaliah, Ahaziah\u2019s mother took control.\u00a0 Like here father and moter whe was completely wicked and pushed Baal worship in Judah.\u00a0 To protect her new position as queen she had Ahaziah\u2019s children executed.\u00a0 Jehoshabeath, one of Ahaziah\u2019s sisters, was able to rescue one of the children, the youngest, a son named Joash.\u00a0 Joash was cared for by his aunt and an elderly priest named Jehoiada.\u00a0 Jehoiada had been born near the end of Solomin\u2019s rule had been a priest during the days of Judah\u2019s first two \u201cgood\u201d kings, Asa and Jehoshaphat..\u00a0 When Joash was seven years old Jehoiada led the people of Judah in proclaiming Joash king.\u00a0 When Queen Athaliah heard the festivities and investigated she protested, was captured and executed.\u00a0 Jehoaiada lived to the age of 130 and was an adviser to Joash until he died.\u00a0 Remember that Joash along with his Great grand-father, Jehoshaphat, was considered one of Judah\u2019s \u201cgood\u201d kings.\u00a0 Joash had quite a mess to deal with, his\u00a0 grand-mother, Athaliah, had led the people away from God, now with the help of Jehoaiada he needed to lead them back.\u00a0 It was at this time, at the beginning of his reign (835 BC) that Joel appeared on the scene with his message.\u00a0 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\u2019s crops by locusts.\u00a0 Locusts are an insect sort of like a grass-hopper.\u00a0 As locusts migrate across an area they eat every green plant in their path.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 If ever the people needed to hear from god it was at this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Old Testament is the story about God\u2019s interaction with a specific family, the Israelites.\u00a0 The story goes beyond that family though and is intended to teach all mankind about God and our relationship to him (See \u201cThe Old Testament Connection\u201d and \u201cWhat\u2019s in a Name\u201d).\u00a0 The descendants of Israel grew to be a large […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":50,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1254","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1254"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1255,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1254\/revisions\/1255"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/50"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}