"Joel," it is further remarked, "must have prophesied at a time when the Philistine and other nations, who had become so haughty under Jehoram, had but lately ventured upon destructive plundering expeditions as far as Jerusalem, 2 Chron. xxi. 10 ff." This argument would be plausible, if the injuries inflicted by the Philistines and the inhabitants of Tyrus had not appeared in equally lively colours before the mind of Amos (chap. i. 6-10), who, at all events, prophesied between seventy and eighty years after these events. It is just this fact which should teach caution in the application of such arguments. The recollection of such facts could not be lost, as long as the disposition continued from which they originated. It was as if they had happened in the present; for, under similar circumstances, similar events would have again immediately taken place. The passage chap. iv. 19, "Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the violence against the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in the land," shows also how lively was the recollection of injuries sustained long ago. Egypt and Edom in that passage are mentioned individually, in order to designate the enemies of the people of God in general, and yet with an allusion to deeds perpetrated by the Egyptians and Edomites properly so called. As the suffix in ארצם must be referred to the sons of Judah--for we have no historical account of a bloody deed perpetrated against Judah by the Edomites in their own land, and it was the land of Judah which was invaded and devastated by the host of locusts--we can think, in the case of the Egyptians, only of the invasion under Rehoboam (1 Kings xiv.), and in the case of the Edomites, only of the great carnage which they made in Judah, during the time at which David carried on war with Aram in Arabia and on the Euphrates,--probably at a time when he had sustained heavy losses in that warfare; compare my Comment. on Ps. xliv. and lx. Of any [Pg 297] similar later occurrence there is no account extant. It is only by a fanciful exposition that "the innocent blood" can be found in 2 Kings viii. 20-22. The Edomites at that time kept only a defensive position, and did not come into the land of Judah. "The innocent blood" implies a war of conquest, and a hostile inroad. "In chap. iv. (iii.) 4-7, Joel promises a return to the citizens of Judah, who had been carried away by the Philistines under Jehoram; and, hence, an age cannot have elapsed since that event." Thus _Meier_ argues. But the words, "Behold, I raise them out of the place whither ye have sold them," contain no special prediction, but only the application of the general truth, that God gathers together the dispersed of Judah, and brings back again the exiled of Israel; and it is only requisite to compare concerning them. Gen. xv. 16, "In the fourth generation they shall come hither again," and l. 24, "God will visit you, and bring you out of this land."