Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Joel 3:8
And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off: for the LORD hath spoken [it].
8. You sold the children of Judah into slavery to a nation far off in the North West; I will sell your children into the hand of the Judahites, that they may sell them into slavery to a nation far off in the South East.
the men of Sheba ] an important commercial nation of Arabia, described as a ‘son’ of Cush, Gen 10:7, of Yoan, Gen 10:28, and of Yoshan son of eurah, Gen 25:3; celebrated for their wealth in gold, spices, and precious stones, 1Ki 10:2; 1Ki 10:10 (the Queen of Sheba), Jer 6:20; Eze 27:22; Isa 60:6; Psa 72:15 (cf. Joe 3:10), and for the trade which their caravans (Job 6:19) carried on, Eze 27:22 f., Eze 38:13. The ancient geographers speak of Sabaeans in the S.W. of Arabia; and recently discovered inscriptions and other monuments shew that they were no mere trading-tribe, but a people inhabiting walled cities, possessing temples and other buildings, and enjoying a settled civilization. Sheba is mentioned also in the Assyrian inscriptions ( K.A.T [49][50] pp. 92, 145 f.). The difference in the genealogies of Sheba is to be explained, probably, partly by the fact that (as in other cases) different theories were current respecting its ethnological affinities, partly by the fact that in Gen 10:7; Gen 25:3, if not also in Eze 38:13, a Northern colony, in the neighbourhood of Dedan (S.E. of Edom), is referred to.
[49] .A.T. Eb. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das A. T., ed. 2, 1883 (translated under the title The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the O. T. 1885, 1888). The references are to the pagination of the German, which is given on the margin of the English translation.
[50] Eb. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das A. T., ed. 2, 1883 (translated under the title The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the O. T. 1885, 1888). The references are to the pagination of the German, which is given on the margin of the English translation.
far off ] comp. the corresponding verb ( to make to be far off) in Joe 3:6: note also in Jer 6:20 ‘a far country’ in parallelism with ‘Sheba.’
for Jehovah hath spoken it] a solemn asseverative formula, found also Isa 1:2; Isa 22:25; Isa 25:8; Oba 1:18: so with the mouth of Jehovah, Isa 1:20; Isa 40:5; Isa 58:14; Mic 4:4.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
I will sell your sons – God Himself would reverse the injustice of people. The sons of Zion should be restored, the sons of the Phoenicians and of the Philistines sold into distant captivity. Tyre was taken by Nebuchadnezzar, and then by Alexander, who sold more than 13,000 of the inhabitants into slavery ; Sidon was taken and destroyed by Artaxerxes Ochus, and it is said, above 40,000 of its inhabitants perished in the flames . The like befell the Philistines (see the notes at Zep 2:4-7). The Sabaeans are probably instanced, as being the remotest nation in the opposite direction, a nation, probably, the partner of Tyres traffic in people, as well as in their other merchandise, and who (as is the way of unregenerate nature) would as soon trade in Tyrians, as with Tyrians. The Sabaeans were like the Phoenicians, a wealthy merchant people, and, of old, united with them in the trade of the world, the Sabaeans sending forth their fleets across the Indian Ocean, as the Tyrians along the Mediterranean. Three fathers of distinct races bore the name Sheba; one, a descendant of Ham, the other two, descended from Shem. The Hamite Sheba was the son of Raamah, the son of Cush Gen 10:7, and doubtless dwelt of old in the country on the Persian gulf called by the name Raamah . Traces of the name Sheba occur there, and some even after our era . The Shemite Sabaeans, were, some descendants of Sheba, the tenth son of Joktan Gen 10:28; the others from Sheba, the son of Abraham and Keturah Gen 25:3. The Sabaeans, descended from Joktan, dwelt in the southwest extremity of Arabia, extending from the Red Sea to the Sea of Babel-mandeb. The country is still called ard-es-Seba , land of Saba; and Saba is often mentioned by Arabic writers .
To the Greeks and Latins they were known by the name of one division of the race (Himyar) Homeritae. Their descendants still speak an Arabic, acknowledged by the learned Arabs to be a distinct language from that which, through Muhammed, prevailed and was diffused ; a species of Arabic which they attribute to the times of (the prophet) Hud (perhaps Eber) and those before him.
It belonged to them as descendants of Joktan. Sabaeans are mentioned, distinct from both of these, as dwelling in Arabia Felix, next beyond Syria, which they frequently invaded, before it belonged to the Romans. These Sabaeans probably are those spoken of as marauders by Job ; and may have been descendants of Keturah. Those best known to the Greeks and Romans were, naturally, those in the south western corner of Arabia. The account of their riches and luxuries is detailed, and, although from different authorities consistent; else, almost fabulous.
One metropolis is said to have had 65 temples , private individuals had more than kingly magnificence . Arabic historians expanded into fable the extent and prerogatives of their Paradise lands, before the breaking of the artificial dike, made for the irrigation of their country . They traded with India, availing themselves doubtless of the Monsoon, and perhaps brought thence their gold, if not also the best and most costly frankincense . The Sheba of the prophet appears to have been the wealthy Sheba near the Red Sea. Indeed, in absence of evidence to the contrary, it is natural to understand the name of those best known.
Solomon unites it with Seba Psa 72:10, (the Aethiopian Sabae.) The known frankincense-districts are on the southwest corner of Arabia . The tree has diminished, perhaps has degenerated through the neglect consequent on Muslim oppression, diminished consumption, change of the line of commerce; but it still survives in those districts ; a relic of what is passed away. Ezekiel indeed unites the merchants of Sheba and Raamah Eze 27:22, as trading with Tyre. The merchants of Sheba and Raamah, they were thy merchants; with the chief of all spices and with all precious stones and gold they occupied in thy fairs. It may be that he joins them together as kindred tribes yet it is as probable that he unites the two great channels of merchandise, east and west, Raamah on the Persian Gulf, and Sheba near the Red Sea. Having just mentioned the produce of Northern Arabia as poured into Tyre, he would, in this case, enumerate north, east, and west of Arabia as combined to enrich her.
Agatharcides unites the Sabaeans of southwest Arabia with the Gerrhaeans, who were certainly on the Persian Gulf . No people, he says , is apparently richer than the Sabaeans and Gerrhaeans, who dispense forth everything worth speaking of from Asia and Europe. These made the Syria of Ptolemy full of gold. These supplied the industry of the Phoenicians with profitable imports, not to mention countless other proofs of wealth. Their caravans went to Elymais, Carmania; Charrae was their emporium; they returned to Gabala and Phoenicia . Wealth is the parent of luxury and effeminacy. At the time of our Lords Coming, the softness and effeminacy of the Sabaeans became proverbial. The soft Sabaeans is their characteristic in the Roman poets . Commerce, navigation, goldmines, being then carried on by means of slaves, and wealth and luxury at that time always demanding domestic slaves, the Sabaeans had need of slaves for both. They too had distant colonies , where the Tyrians could be transported, as far from Phoenicia, as the shores of the Aegean are from Palestine. The great law of divine justice, as I have done, so God hath requited me Jdg 1:7, was again fulfilled. It is a sacred proverb of Gods overruling Providence, written in the history of the world and in peoples consciences.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 8. I will sell your sons] When Alexander took Tyre, he reduced into slavery all the lower people, and the women. Arrian, lib. ii., says that thirty thousand of them were sold. Artaxerxes Ochus destroyed Sidon, and subdued the other cities of Phoenicia. In all these wars, says Calmet, the Jews, who obeyed the Persians, did not neglect to purchase Phoenician slaves, whom they sold again to the Sabeans, or Arabs.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
I will sell your sons and your daughters; give them up into the hands of the Jews, who thereby shall have opportunities of disposing of them as they see good; so you did with my people, so I will recompense you.
Into the hand of the children of Judah; to the Jews, the posterity and kindred of those you sold.
They shall sell them; either as factors for Nebuchadnezzar or Alexander the Great and his successors, or else as merchants trading on their own account, they shall make this one part of their trade, to sell Grecians, Tyrians, &c. Now though we should not have any particular history that relates the transactions of those people in this kind, yet we may rest assured it was done, since God said it should be done; nor can we expect, or is it necessary it should be, that the Jews should by a conquest of these people bring them captives, and sell them: the Zidonians, Tyrians, and Philistines did not so against the Jews, but they bought particular persons out of the hands of Syrians and Assyrians, who took the Jews captives; so when Tyre, and Zidon, and the Philistines shall be captivated by the Babylonish power, or by the Grecian, these shall sell their captives either into the hands or by the hands of the Jews.
Sabeans were a people in the parts of Arabia most remote from Tyre and Zidon; they were accounted the ends of the earth, Mat 12:42, and spread themselves along by the sea-coast on both sides of the Arabian bay or Red Sea, and passed over that sea, and planted in Africa, and were part of that country which now doth, or lately did belong to the emperor of Abyssinia, who (as the king of Spain in both Indies) glorieth in being king of both Sabeas, and successor to the queen of Sheba; to one or both of these Sabeans did the Jewish men-sellers dispose of those slaves.
To a people far off: this may be an elliptic speech, thus to be filled up, and the Sabeans shall sell them (i.e. whom they bought of the Jews) unto another nation far off from the Sabeans; or else it is an additional description of this people and their country,
For the Lord hath spoken it; then it was done, whether we know when, or by whom, or how many were sold, or not.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
8. sell them to . . . SabeansThePersian Artaxerxes Mnemon and Darius Ochus, and chiefly the GreekAlexander, reduced the Phoelignician and Philistine powers. Thirtythousand Tyrians after the capture of Tyre by the last conqueror, andmultitudes of Philistines on the taking of Gaza, were sold as slaves.The Jews are here said to do that which the God of Judah does invindication of their wrong, namely, sell the Phoelignicians who soldthem, to a people “far off,” as was Greece, whither theJews had been sold. The Sabeans at the most remote extremity ofArabia Felix are referred to (compare Jer 6:20;Mat 12:42).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah,…. That is, deliver them into their hands, to dispose of them; this is thought to have been literally fulfilled in the Tyrians, when thirty thousand g of them were sold for slaves, upon the taking of their city by Alexander, who put some of them into the hands of the Jews, they being in friendship with him: it mystically designs the power that the Jewish church, converted, and in union with Gentile Christians, will have over the antichristian states:
and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off; the inhabitants of Sheba, a country by the Jews reckoned the uttermost parts of the earth; see Mt 12:42. These are not the same with the Sabeans, the inhabitants of Arabia Deserts, that took away Job’s oxen and asses; but rather those who were the inhabitants of Arabia Felix, which lay at a greater distance. So Strabo h says, the Sabeans inhabited Arabia Felix; and Diodorus Siculus i reckons the Sabeans as very populous, and one of the Arabian nations, who inhabited that Arabia which is called Felix, the metropolis of which is Saba; and he, as well as Strabo, observes, that this country produces many odoriferous plants, as cassia, cinnamon, frankincense, and calamus, or the sweet cane; hence incense is said to come “from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country”, Jer 6:20; and since the Jews traded with these people for those spices, it is easy to conceive how they sold their captives to them: now these lived at a great distance, in the extreme parts of Arabia, both towards the Indian sea and the Arabian gulf. And Diodorus Siculus k observes, that , because of the distance of their situation, they never came into the power or under the dominion of any, or were never subdued. These seem to be the descendants of Cush, the son, of Ham; and if they were the descendants of Joktan, the son of Shem, as some think, these are placed by Vitringa l in Carmania; and where Pliny m makes mention of a city called Sabe, and of the river Sabis; and it is worthy of notice that the ancient Greek fathers n, with one consent, interpret the Sabeans of the Saracens: and whether they may not design the Turks, in whose possession this country now is, and into whose hands the antichristian powers may be delivered by means of the Christians, both Jews and Gentiles, may be considered;
for the Lord hath spoken [it]; and therefore it shall be accomplished. The Targum is,
“for by the word of the Lord it is so decreed;”
whose counsels and decrees can never be frustrated. This, in an ancient book of the Jews called Mechilta, is referred to the prophecy of Noah concerning Canaan, whose sons inhabited Tyre, “a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren”, Ge 9:25, as Jarchi observes.
g Arriam. de Exped. Alexand. l. 2. c. 24. h Geograph. l. 16. p. 536. i Bibliothec. l. 3. p. 179, 180. k Ibid. p. 181. l Comment. in Jessiam, c. 43. 3. m Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 23. n In Catena Graec. Patr. apud Spanhem. Hist. Jobi, c. 3. p. 47.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The Prophet describes here a wonderful change: the Syrians and Sidonians did sell the Jews; but who is to be the seller now? God himself will take this office, — I, he says, will sell your children, as though he said, “The Jews shall subdue you and reduce you to bondage,” — by whose authority? “It shall be, as if they bought you at my hands.” He means that this servitude would be legitimate; and thus he makes the Jews to be different from the Syrians and Sidonians, who had been violent robbers, and unjustly seized on what was not their own: and hence the manner of the sale is thus described, — “I myself shall be the author of this change, and the thing shall be done by my authority, as if I had interposed my own name;” and the Jews themselves shall sell, he says, your sons and your daughters to the Sabeans, a distant nation; that is, the people of the East: for the Prophet, I doubt not, by mentioning a part for the whole, meant here to designate Eastern nations, such as the Persians and Medes; but he says, that the Tyrians and Sidonians shall be driven to the meet distant countries; for the Sabeans were very far distant from the Phoenician Sea, and were known as being very nigh the Indians. (15)
But it may be asked here, When has God executed this judgment? for the Jews never possessed such power as to be able to subdue neighboring nations, and to sell them at pleasure to unknown merchants. It would indeed be foolish and puerile to insist here on a literal fulfillment: at the same time, I do not say, that the Prophet speaks allegorically; for I am disposed to keep from allegories, as there is in them nothing sound nor solid: but I must yet say that there is a figurative language used here, when it is said, that the Syrians and Sidonians shall be sold and driven here and there into distant countries, and that this shall be done for the sake of God’s chosen people and his Church, as though the Jews were to be the sellers. When God says, “I will sell,” it is not meant that he is to descend from heaven for the purpose of selling, but that he will execute judgment on them; and then the second clause, — that they shall be sold by the Jews, derives its meaning from the first; and this cannot be a common sake, as if the Jews were to receive a price and make a merchandise of them. But God declares that the Jews would be the sellers, because in this manner he signifies his vengeance for the wrong done to them; that is, by selling them to the Sabeans, a distant nation. We further know, that the changes which then followed were such that God turned upside down nearly the whole world; for he drove the Syrian and the Sidonians to the most distant countries. No one could have thought that this was done for the sake of the Jews, who were hated and abominated by all. But yet God declares, that he would do this from regard to his Church even sell the Syrians and the Sidonians, though it was commonly unknown to men; for it was the hidden judgment of God. But the faithful who had been already taught that God would do this, were reminded by the event how precious to God is his heritage, since he avenges those wrongs, the memory of which had long before been buried. This then is the import of the whole. The Prophet now subjoins —
(15) “This prophecy was fulfilled before and during the rule of the Maccabees, when the Jewish affairs were in so flourishing a state, and the Phoenician and Philistine powers were reduced by the Persian arms under Artaxerxes Mnemon, Darius Ochus, and especially Alexander and his successors. On the capture of Tyre by the Grecian monarch, 13,000 of the inhabitants were sold into slavery. When he took Gaza also, he put 10,000 of the citizens to death and sold the rest, with the women and children, for slaves.” — Dr. Henderson.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(8) I will sell your sons. . . .The Philistines came under the power of Uzziah and Hezekiah, who may have sold them to the Sabeans on the Persian Gulf, by whom they would have been passed on to India. The Philistines were also sold in great numbers by the Grecian conquerors in the time of the Maccabees.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Joe 3:8 And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off: for the LORD hath spoken [it].
Ver. 8. And I will sell your sons and your daughters ] And so the scene shall be soon altered, and a strange vicissitude easily observed. But when was this done? or was it ever done? Ego putarim factum, etsi scriptura non dicat quando, saith Tarnovius: I suppose it was done, though the Scripture say not when. Others fly to allegories, and understand the text of the conversion of the Gentiles. I like their way best, that say, That which God did for the Church’s sake, the Church itself is said to do it. For their cruelties to the Jews, God delivered these nations up into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar first (who had a hard tug of it, and had therefore Egypt given him for his wages), and afterwards by Alexander the Great, who took Tyre, and razed it. And this was that great service spoken of Eze 29:18 , wherein every head was made bald, and every shoulder bare, in filling up that strait of the sea, which separated it from the continent, before it could be taken. But taken it was, together with Sidon and Philistia; and their children sold as far as Sabaea, which was then counted the utmost part of the known earth, Mat 12:42 Luk 11:31 , being part of Arabia the Happy, or (as some will) the Desert. All this was done for the Jews’ sake, though the world little considereth it. It was enough for them that they knew it to be so, according to this prophecy; and that God did hereby show his high esteem of them, by avenging them of their enemies, and by thus giving men for them, and people for their life, Isa 43:4 .
For the Lord hath spoken it
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Sabeans. Defined as a distant nation. See note on Job 1:15.
people = nations.
the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
I will: Deu 32:30, Jdg 2:14, Jdg 4:2, Jdg 4:9
your sons: Isa 14:1, Isa 14:2, Isa 60:14
Sabeans: Job 1:15, Eze 23:42
far off: Jer 6:20
Reciprocal: Isa 45:14 – the Sabeans Joe 3:6 – have ye Amo 9:12 – possess Oba 1:15 – as Zec 9:4 – the Lord Zec 12:3 – in that
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Joe 3:8. Again we see that slavery was a traffic in those times, and these wicked cities are threatened with being “paid with their own coin by having their children sold as slaves. The Sabeans were a people living a great distance south of Asia, hence the prediction means to warn these cities that when their own children were taken from them, they would be sold and transported far away,
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
3:8 And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they {f} shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off: for the LORD hath spoken [it].
(f) For afterward God sold them by Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander the Great, because of the love he had for his people, and by this they were comforted, as though they themselves had sold them.