Love Truth Blog

Joel’s statement “rend your heart not your garment” (Joel 2:13) is to be understood within the larger context of prophet’s call to repentance. It is an exhortation to turn from sin and recommit oneself to the worship of Yahweh. The tearing of one’s own garment served to be an outward sign of repentance; however, Joel conveys that Yahweh was looking to the heart. The external symbol meant nothing without a genuinely contrite heart. The urgency of the call to repentance could not be understated by the prophet, for all had been spoken in view of a coming terrible visitation of the Lord, which would bring about a divine judgment liken to the desolation of a swarm of locust. Joel says, “What the gnawing locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; And what the swarming locust has left, the creeping locust has eaten; And what the creeping locust has left, the stripping locust has eaten” (Joel 1:4). The prophet then warns: “Blow a trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm on My holy mount...

“See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; in that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the LORD your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it. But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it” (Deut. 30:15-18). Yahweh had spoken His Law to the people through the prophet Moses. These Commandments would direct them in knowing the difference between right and wrong, truth and error, light and darkness. They gave the children of Israel a new identity as a sanctified people of God. They would form the spiritual fabric of their society, which would allow them to thrive in the pro...