Joel starts from a great plague of locusts, which he describes not only in the ravages they commit upon the land, but in their ominous foreshadowing of the Day of the Lord. They are the heralds of God’s near judgment upon the nation. Let the latter repent instantly with a day of fasting and prayer. Peradventure Jehovah will relent, and spare His people. So far chap. i. 2—ii. 17. Then comes a break. An uncertain interval appears to elapse; and in chap. ii. 18 we are told that Jehovah’s zeal for Israel has been stirred, and He has had pity on His folk. Promises follow, _first_, of deliverance from the plague and of restoration of the harvests it has consumed, and _second_, of the outpouring of the Spirit on all classes of the community: chap. ii. 17-32 (Eng.; ii. 17—iii. Heb.). Chap. iii. (Eng.; iv. Heb.) gives another picture of the Day of Jehovah, this time described as a judgment upon the heathen enemies of Israel. They shall be brought together, condemned judicially by Him, and slain by His hosts, His “supernatural” hosts. Jerusalem shall be freed from the feet of strangers, and the fertility of the land restored. These are the contents of the book. Do they describe an actual plague of locusts, already experienced by the people? Or do they predict this as still to come? And again, are the locusts which they describe real locusts, or a symbol and allegory of the human foes of Israel? To these two questions, which in a measure cross and involve each other, three kinds of answer have been given. A large and growing majority of critics of all schools[1133] hold that Joel starts, like other prophets, from the facts of experience. His locusts, though described with poetic hyperbole—for are they not the vanguard of the awful Day of God’s judgment?—are real locusts; their plague has just been felt by his contemporaries, whom he summons to repent, and to whom, when they have repented, he brings promises of the restoration of their ruined harvests, the outpouring of the Spirit, and judgment upon their foes. Prediction is therefore found only in the second half of the book (ii. 18 onwards): it rests upon a basis of narrative and exhortation which fills the first half.