Joel 3:4 - meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Joel 3:4
Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompense me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompence upon your own head;
a circuit or region · noun, common feminine plural construct
Palestine
פְּלָ֑שֶׁתpe.La.shet
H6429
Pelesheth · proper noun, a place name
render
מְשַׁלְּמִ֣יםme.sha.le.Mim
H7999
to be safe (in mind · verb, piel active participle, masculine plural absolute
recompence
הַגְּמ֗וּלha.ge.Mul
H1576
treatment · interrogative particle + noun, common masculine singular absolute
recompense
גֹּמְלִ֤יםgo.me.Lim
H1580
to treat a person (well or ill) · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural absolute
swiftly
קַ֣לkal
H7031
light · adjective, masculine singular absolute
speedily
מְהֵרָ֔הme.he.Rah
H4120
properly · adverb
return
אָשִׁ֥יב'a.Shiv
H7725
to turn back (hence · verb, hiphil imperfect, 1st person common singular
recompence
גְּמֻלְכֶ֖םge.mul.Khem
H1576
treatment · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
head
בְּרֹאשְׁכֶֽםbe.ro.she.Khem
H7218
the head (as most easily shaken) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Amos 1:6-10 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they carried away…
Jeremiah 47:4 Because of the day that cometh to spoil all the Philistines, and to cut off from Tyrus and Zidon every helper that remaineth: for the LORD w…
Isaiah 34:8 For it is the day of the LORD’s vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion.
Isaiah 59:18 According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recomp…
Isaiah 23:1-2 The burden of Tyre. Howl, ye ships of Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering in: from the land of Chittim it…
Ezekiel 25:12-17 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because that Edom hath dealt against the house of Judah by taking vengeance, and hath greatly offended, and revenge…
Deuteronomy 32:35 To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that…
Judges 11:12 And Jephthah sent messengers unto the king of the children of Ammon, saying, What hast thou to do with me, that thou art come against me to…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Joel 3:1-8
We have often heard of the year of the redeemed, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion; now here we have a description of the transactions of that year, and a prophecy of what shall be done when it comes, whenever it comes, for it comes often, and at the end of time it will come once for all.
I. It shall be the year of the redeemed, for God will bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, Joe 3:1. Though the bondage of God's people may be grievous and very long, yet it shall not be everlasting. That in Egypt ended at length in their deliverance into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Let my son go, the he may serve me. That in Babylon shall likewise end well…
what have ye to do with me--Ye have no connection with Me (that is, with My people: God identifying Himself with Israel); I (that is, My people) have given you no cause of quarrel, why then do ye trouble Me (that is, My people)? (Compare the same phrase, Jos 22:24; Jdg 11:12; Sa2 16:10; Mat 8:29).
Tyre . . . Zidon . . . Palestine-- (Amo 1:6, Amo 1:9).
if ye recompense me--If ye injure Me (My people), in revenge for fancied wrongs (Eze 25:15-17), I will requite you in your own coin swiftly and speedily.
John Gill on Joel 3:4
Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine?.... The Tyrians, Zidonians, and Philistines, were near neighbours of the Jews, and implacable enemies to them; and are here put for the enemies of the true church of Christ, the Papists and Turks, and in whose possession those places now are: these are addressed by the Lord, inquiring or demanding the reason of their ill usage of him and his people: "what have ye to do with me?" to be called by my name, or accounted my people? I know you not, nor will I have any fellowship with you: or what have ye to do with my people, to disturb and distress them? what wrong have I or they done you, that you thus use t…
(Verse 4-6.) But what do you want with me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Will you retaliate against me? If you retaliate against me, I will quickly repay you for your actions upon your own heads. For you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried off my precious treasures into your temples. You have sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, in order to remove them far from their own land. LXX: What have I to do with you, Tyre and Sidon, and all the Galilee of the Gentiles? Are you rendering retribution to me, or do you hold anger against me in your heart (for this is what μνησικακείτε means in Greek)? Quickly and swiftly I will repay your retribution upon your heads, because you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried off my precious treasures into your temples. And you have sold the sons of Judah and the sons of Jerusalem to the Greeks, in order to remove them far from their borders. And the Jews consider these places, Tyre, Sidon, and the borders of Palestine, or Galilee, to be inhabited by foreigners: because during the Jewish captivity, when they were conquered by the Romans, they persecuted the people of God; in fact, they persecuted the very God who presided over the people, according to what is written: 'He who receives you, receives me' (Matt. 10:40). Therefore, on the contrary, whoever persecutes the people of God, persecutes the very God to whom the people belong. I will restore, he says, to you what you have done to my people: for you have taken my silver and gold, that is, the vessels of the temple, and whatever was most precious and beautiful in it, the golden candlestick and the golden table of proposition, and the two golden Cherubim, and the mercy-seat, and the golden bowls and censers, and you have consecrated them to your idols (2 Kings 25). However, the Chaldeans are said to have done these things more, who placed the vessels of the Lord's temple in the temple of Bel: from which afterwards Belshazzar drinks in the vessels, and immediately his kingdom is transferred to the Medes and Persians (Daniel 5). But because after the Great and Horrible Day of the Lord, these things are said to happen, which the apostles interpret in the resurrection of the Lord, and the Hebrews differ in the future time of judgment, it is more to be understood about the Romans: that Vespasian and Titus, after the…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Jehoshaphat, Valley of — Mentioned in Scripture only in Joel 3:2, 12. This is the name given in modern times to the valley between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, and the Kidron flows through it. Here Jehoshaphat…
Palestina And Palestine — (land of strangers). These two forms occur in the Authorized Version but four times in all, always in poetical passages; the first in (Exodus 15:14) and Isai 14:29 The second (Joel 3:4) In each case…
Palestine — Originally denoted only the sea-coast of the land of Canaan inhabited by the Philistines (Ex. 15:14; Isa. 14:29, 31; Joel 3:4), and in this sense exclusively the Hebrew name Pelesheth (rendered…
Tyre — A rock, now es-Sur; an ancient Phoenician city, about 23 miles, in a direct line, north of Acre, and 20 south of Sidon. Sidon was the oldest Phoenician city, but Tyre had a longer and more…
Zidon — A fishery, a town on the Mediterranean coast, about 25 miles north of Tyre. It received its name from the “first-born” of Canaan, the grandson of Noah (Gen. 10:15, 19). It was the first home of the…
Zidon, Or Sidon — (Genesis 10:15,19; Joshua 11:8; 19:28; Judges 1:31; 18:28; Isaiah 23:2,4,12; Jeremiah 25:22; 27:3; Ezekiel 28:21,22; Joel 3:4) (Joel 4:4); Zech 9:2; Matt 11:21,22; 15:21; Mark 3:8; 1:24,31; Luke…
Sidonians, The · Predictions respecting: Their spoiling and oppression of the Jews to be fully recompensed — Predictions respecting: Their spoiling and oppression of the Jews to be fully recompensed
Tyre · Prophecies respecting: Its inhabitants to be sold as slaves, as a recompence for their selling the Jews — Prophecies respecting: Its inhabitants to be sold as slaves, as a recompence for their selling the Jews
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
on Joel 3:4-6
Joel 3:4-6
4. Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompense me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompence upon your own head;
4. Atque etiam, quid vobis mecum Tyre et Sidon, et cuncti termini Palestinae? An mercedem vobis rependitis mihi? Etsi confertis hoc in me, velox (subito) rependam mercedem vestram in caput vestrum;
5. Because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly pleasant things:
5. Quia argentum meum et aurum meum abstulistis, et desiderabilia mea bona transtulistis in templa vestra (alii, palatia.)
6. The children also of Judah and…
In Joe 3:2 and Joe 3:3 Joel is speaking not of events belonging to his own time, or to the most recent past, but of that dispersion of the whole of the ancient covenant nation among the heathen, which was only completely effected on the conquest of Palestine and destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and which continues to this day; though we cannot agree with Hengstenberg, that this furnishes an argument in favour of the allegorical interpretation of the army of locusts in ch. 1 and 2. For since Moses had already foretold that Israel would one day be driven out among the heathen (Lev 26:33.; Deu 28:36.), Joel might assume that this judgment was a truth well known in Israel, even though he…
The Phoenician cities of Tyre and Sidon and the cities of Philistia were guilty of looting the precious treasures of Jerusalem and selling its people as slaves to the Greeks (see Amos 1:6, 9).
