Introduction
The term for “the Northerner” (ynwpc) presents a problem of interpretation that has been noted in commentaries, and this problem is whether it would have been used for locusts or a nation to the north and/or east of the land.
I will remove the northerner far from you, and drive him into a parched and desolate land, his front into the eastern sea, and his rear into the western sea; the stench and foul smell of him will rise, for he has done great things. Joel 2:20 (RSV)
Commentators note that locusts come from the south in Palestine and consequently they sense a problem in their “locusts” treatment of v. 20. The “locust plague” reading suffers from other difficulties besides the northern aspect: first, the locusts are driven in two opposite directions, as if the swarm is broken up by two diverse and opposing winds; and secondly, it is a swarm that has done “great things”. J. Barton does not think there is a geographical sense to the term and thinks it means nothing more than “the great enemy”. J. L. Crenshaw sees the description as a reflection of the prophetic pattern of an “enemy from the North”; and D. A. Hubbard sees the expression as a dramatic way of labelling the enemy.[1] Accordingly some commentators see the northerner as an enemy nation, rather than locusts, and this is reflected in the KJV.
It is far more plausible that the locusts are metaphorical for an army, but problems can be posed for commentators who take “the northerner” to be a nation and its army. For example, H. A. Whittaker proposes that it is Assyria and Sennacherib in keeping with his 701 reading.[2] However, an enemy from “the North” (!wpc) is not necessarily a “northerner” in colloquial speech.
The only other use of the Hebrew term for “northerner” (ynwpc) is transliterated as “Zephonites” (Num 26:15), and it denotes a family which were of the tribe of Gad, the northernmost tribe. In terms of the narrative perspective, “the northerner” implies the point of view of a “southerner” and this outlook is one that is internal to Israel and Judah as a whole, north and south. Furthermore, what happens to the army of the northerner—it is driven into a barren and desolate land and destroyed—did not happen to Sennacherib’s army in Isaiah’s account. This casts fatal doubt on Whittaker’s proposal that “the northerner” is Assyria and Sennacherib in 701. The same argument casts doubt on any proposal that “the northerner” is an Assyrian king with armies in the field, whether Tiglath-Pileser III, Shalmaneser V, or Sargon II (mutatis mutandis, the argument is fatal to Babylonian proposals).
Zephonite
The term translated “the northerner” requires analysis and the RSV and NASB make different choices:
But I will remove the northern army far from you, And I will drive it into a parched and desolate land, And its vanguard into the eastern sea, And its rear guard into the western sea. And its stench will arise and its foul smell will come up, For it has done great things. Joel 2:20 (NASB)
I will remove the northerner far from you, and drive him into a parched and desolate land, his front into the eastern sea, and his rear into the western sea; the stench and foul smell of him will rise, for he has done great things. Joel 2:20 (RSV)
The NASB treats the Hebrew ynwpc as an adjective and inserts “army” as does the KJV. The RSV treats the word as a noun, and this makes the use of the term here consistent with Num 26:15; the term could have been transliterated as “Zephonite” (rather than translated as “the northerner”) thereby indicating a Gadite. While ynwpc is a rare word (2x), the form of the word is very common and it is part of a family of words like Ammonite(s), Haggite(s), Shunite(s), Moabite(s), Edomite(s), and so on. This data points to “Zephonite” being the correct rendering in Joel 2:20; were it not for a (mistaken) perceived incongruity on the part of scholars in such a particular detail being present in Joel’s oracles, translators would have chosen “Zephonite”.
Who is the Zephonite?
Our question therefore is: Who is the Zephonite? The answer depends on the date we assign to the prophecy of Joel as this will determine the historical period in which we look for a Zephonite. The question of date is beyond the scope of this article, and we will here merely assume a late eighth century date for Joel (750-700) in keeping with Joel’s position in the Hebrew canon. In this period, we need a local Zephonite to identify as the target of Joel’s prophecy.
Gad along with Reuben occupied the eastern bank of the Jordan (Gilead) in the original tribal division of land (Num 32:1-5). Gilead was the border area close to Syria and subject to dominance by Damascus (Amos 1:3-5). The area came under Assyrian control during the Assyrian subjugation of Syria and Northern Israel by Tiglath-Pileser III.
In the eighth century Judah was attacked by Rezin, king of Syria, then by Pekah, king over Northern Israel, and then by both kings in an alliance (2 Kgs 15:37; 16:5; 2 Chron 28:5-6). The series of attacks implied by the record eventually led to a siege of Jerusalem (Isa 7:1), and the response by Joel was to declare that the northerner was to be “driven into a parched and desolate land”.
At the time of the combined attack upon Jerusalem, Pekah and Rezin proposed to set up “the son of Tabeal” upon the throne of Judah (Isa 7:6). W. F. Albright[3] has noted that Tabeal is mentioned in letters from the latter part of the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III (732-727). In the letters a messenger is sent from Ayanûr the Tabelite to the Assyrian official complaining of incursions into the land of Moab by men of the land of Geder, (Josh 12:13). He observes that the name “Tabeal” points to a location north of Ammon and Gilead as “Ayanûr” is a typical name of this region. Our proposal is that this “son of Tabeal” is “the northerner”. As someone “of Israel”[4] he was particularly resented as the pretender to the throne sponsored by Rezin and Pekah; hence, Joel’s invective signals him out for removal.
The Face and Rear End of the Northerner
An overtone of the oracles in Joel 2 is “face” although this is hidden in English versions.[5] This comes out in the following verses,
A fire devoureth before their face them…the land is as the Garden of Eden before their face… v. 3
Before their face the people shall be much pained… v. 6
The earth shall quake before their face… v. 10
And the Lord shall utter his voice before the face of his army… v. 11
Accordingly, when Joel 2:20 states, “with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea” (KJV), the NASB correctly interprets this as a military statement. However, as we have noted, the NASB treats ynwpc as an adjective and supplies “army” as a complement, which in turn allows its translation of “face” and “hinder part” to be the “vanguard” and “rearguard” of an army. This approach removes the anthropomorphic metaphors of “his face” and “his rear end” which we should keep as it is part of the invective directed to a person.
The term for “hinder part” is a relatively rare word (@ws, 5x) mostly translated as “end/conclusion” (2 Chron 20:16; Ecc 3:11; 7:2; 12:13); there is no other instance of the word as a body-part which is the choice of the KJV. The RSV ambiguously renders the statement as “his front into the eastern sea, and his rear into the western sea”, but if we wish to retain the body metaphors we should translate the Hebrew as “his face into the eastern sea and his rear-end into the western sea”.
The focus is on “the northerner” and his two armies. This detail matches the situation in 734 with the armies of Rezin and Pekah in support of the “son of Tabeal”. The promise in Joel 2:20 is that these armies would be decimated to the south of Judah, one toward the west and one toward the east. A battle in Judah is a plausible inference from Joel 2:20 in which the Syro-Ephraimite forces are scattered to the winds and hunted down and destroyed. The Assyrian records however show that both Pekah and Rezin fled back to their respective capital cities in the rout. We can surmise however that the son of Tabeel was killed.
Far Off in a Wilderness
The fate of “the northerner” was to be removed “far off”; the same form of the verb occurs once elsewhere in Ps 55:7, where it used in conjunction with a reference to the local wilderness south of Jerusalem; it does not have to imply great distance.
While the KJV, RSV and NASB have “I will remove far (off) from you”, this does not reflect the Hebrew underlying “from you” (~kyl[m); a better translation would be “from against you”, thereby indicating that “the northerner” was an individual associated with a siege against Jerusalem. An example of this sense is,
And Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes will I give into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life, and into the hand of the king of Babylon’s army, which are gone up from you. Jer 34:21 (KJV), cf. Deut 29:5; Josh 6:5; Ezek 18:31; Jonah 1:12
The text states that “the northerner” is driven into a “parched and desolate land (hmmvw hyc)”,[6] and this could be a disguised reference to Northern Israel (Hos 2:3, RSV); in this case, the “son of Tabeal” escapes with Pekah. However, it is just as possible that he is driven to the Judean wilderness and killed in the rout.
There is a further issue to note: the verb for “driven” is common (xdn, 54x), and it is used mostly of the driving out of the inhabitants of Judah and Northern Israel into captivity (e.g. Mic 4:6; Zeph 3:19; Dan 9:7).[7] Hence, Isaiah uses the Niphal participle form of the verb to refer to the “outcasts of Israel” (Isa 11:12; 16:3, 4; 27:13; 56:8), and in Isaiah 8 the verb is used in the statement,
And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness. Isa 8:22 (KJV)
This oracle is relevant to the interpretation of Joel 2:20 because it comes from the time of Ahaz and the incursions of Samaria and Damascus into Judah. The “they” of this prediction are those of Northern Israel who would be “driven” to darkness in Tiglath-Pileser III’s campaign. Accordingly, we suggest that there is more to the declaration of Joel 2:20 than the removal of “the northerner” to a wilderness—it anticipates and foreshadows the scattering of Northern Israel.
Assyrian Records
In 735-734, Isaiah declared that Yahweh would bring the king of Assyria upon Rezin and Pekah (Isa 8:7), and he would overflow and fill the breadth of Judah and pass through the land (Isa 8:8). This happened insofar as Tiglath-Pileser III turned from his campaign against Philistia to both distress Judah and deal with the anti-Assyrian coalition of Rezin and Pekah (2 Kgs 16:9, 2 Chron 28:18).
The chronology of events at this time in the Assyrian Annals is the subject of scholarly debate,[8] but a harmony of Tiglath-Pileser III’s records with the OT indicates an Assyrian Philistine campaign in 734, followed by military activity in Syria against Rezin and Syria’s borders with Northern Israel during 734-732. At this time, Hoshea was installed as king in place of Pekah by Tiglath-Pileser III.[9] The Assyrian records do not describe an engagement by Tiglath-Pileser III of the combined armies of Pekah and Rezin; his campaign records describe his war against these kings in their respective lands. Tiglath-Pileser III’s campaign record notes that he took tribute from Moab and Edom as well as Philistia, and the Chronicles account notes the hostility of Edom and Philistia towards Judah at this time (2 Chron 28:17-18). There could well have been therefore engagement between Pekah’s and Rezin’s forces and the Assyrian armies which led to a rout that drove the vanguard and rearguard of the coalition’s armies in different directions.
Isaiah’s oracle ends with a description of the Assyrian’s stretched out wings embracing the land of Judah (Isa 8:8), which is an appropriate image to describe the covering effect of Assyria’s protection, a protection which constrained the territory and self-determination of Judah (2 Chron 28:20).
Great Things
The reason for the removal of “the northerner” is that he has done “great things” (KJV). The same Hebrew is used in the next verse for what the Lord will do:
…because he hath done great things. Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the Lord will do great things. Joel 2:20-21 (KJV)
The Hiphil Perfect (lydgh, “become magnified”) conveys the image of someone magnifying themselves and the Qal Infinitive (twf[l, “to do things”) supplies the means—it is by their doings. Elsewhere the Hiphil is used of those who magnify themselves against Yahweh:
For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him… Ps 55:12 (KJV)
Make ye him drunken: for he magnified himself against the Lord: Moab also shall wallow in his vomit, and he also shall be in derision. Jer 48:26 (KJV), cf. v. 42
O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself. Lam 1:9 (KJV)
Pekah and Rezin sought to place the “the son of Tabeal” upon the throne of Judah; this intention is significant within the purpose of God—they intended to remove the Davidic house and thereby the Davidic promises. This kind of self-exaltation is a characteristic of both Joel’s “northerner” and “the son of Tabeal”.
Conclusion
Commentators take “the northerner” of Joel 2:20 to be a common motif of the enemy from the north. Further, they identify this “northerner” as the “great people” that are upon the mountains of Judah in Joel2:2 and/or the “nation” of Joel 1:6. Since Joel is taken to be a post-exilic work, they see v. 20 as reflecting the earlier prophecies of an “enemy from the north” in Jeremiah and Ezekiel and prophesying an enemy in the “last days”. Our argument against this consensus approach is,
- The term for “northerner” is not generic but particular; it is not “the North” nor is it “the northerner”—rather it is “the Zephonite”.
- Joel is pre-exilic and stands at the head of a tradition about a northern power attacking the nation; it is not using “enemy from the north” traditions.
- Joel is not about a nation but an individual; it is not about an “enemy” but about an individual with two supporting armies.
Our approach is a different way of reading the flow of the oracles in Joel 2—a different balance of the rhetoric. The common reading takes “the problem” to be the invader upon the mountains of Judah and breaking into the city. This “problem” is then resolved in the action of the Lord to remove the invader once the people have repented, after which the land is restored. This is a “problem-resolution” reading pattern. Our contrary proposal is that the “problem-resolution” pattern consists in the ravaging of the land by the invader followed by the restoration of the “years” eaten by the invader; it is within this pattern Joel details the removal of a “northerner”.
[1] D. A. Hubbard, Joel and Amos (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries; Leicester: Inter Varsity Press, 1989), 63; J. Barton, Joel and Obadiah (OTL; WJK Press, 2001), 47-48; J. L. Crenshaw Joel (AB 24C; New York: Doubleday, 1995), 150-151. B. S. Childs details the prophetic pattern of an enemy from the north in his article, “The Enemy from the North and the Chaos Tradition” JBL 78 (1959): 187-198, (197).
[2] H. A. Whittaker, Joel (Cannock: Biblia, 1989), 4; see also E. B. Pusey, Joel and Obadiah (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1906), 161.
[3] W. F. Albright, “The Son of Tabeel (Isaiah 7:6)” BASOR 140 (1955): 34-35. For a recent discussion, see J. K. Kuan, Neo-Assyrian Historical Inscriptions and Syria-Palestine (Hong Kong: Alliance Bible Seminary, 1995), 160.
[4] ‘Tabeel’ or ‘Tabeal’ means ‘El is good’.
[5] Crenshaw, Joel, 120.
[6] For a discussion of the motif of the “dry land” see O. Lund, Way Metaphors and Way Topics in Isaiah 40-55 (FAT 2/28; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 75-76.
[7] Within Jeremiah the pattern is clear for most uses of the verb “to drive”: 8:3; 16:15; 23:2, 3, 8; 24:9; 27:10, 15; 29:14, 18; 30:17; 32:37; 40:12; 43:5; 46:28; 50:17; but Ammon is also driven out—49:5, 36. Ezekiel uses “to drive” of Judah and Israel: 4:13; 34:4, 16.
[8] B. Oded, “The Historical Background of the Syro-Ephraimite War Reconsidered”, CBQ 34/2 (1972): 153-165; R. Tomes “The Reason for the Syro-Ephraimite War” JSOT 59 (1993): 55-71; Kuan, Neo-Assyrian Historical Inscriptions and Syria-Palestine, 186-192.
[9] ANET, 274, 283-284. For a harmonic description see J. Bright, A History of Israel (OTL; 2nd Edn.; London: SCM Press, 1972), 271-273.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One