The Ultimate Day of the LORD
3:1 For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and
Jerusalem,
• This prophecy had an immediate, ongoing, and final fulfillment. Its immediate interpretation could apply to King
Jehoshaphat’s recent battle against several enemy nations; its ongoing fulfillment could be the partial restoration of the
people to their land after the exile to Babylon. The final fulfillment will come in the great battle that precedes the Messiah’s
reign over the earth (Revelation 20:-79) (LB)
3:2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will
plead with them there for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and
parted my land.
• The sitting of this court for judgment; that those who have combined together against God’s people may together
receive their doom. (MH)
• All nations had made themselves liable to the judgment of God for wrong done to His people (MH)
• It is fit that criminals should be tried in the same country where they did the fact (MH)
• Jehoshaphat - There is no such valley in the land of Judea; and hence the word must be symbolical. It signifies the
“judgment of God” or “Jehovah judges”. (AC)
• In Zechariah 14:2-4 the “Mount of Olives” answers to the “Valley of Jehoshaphat” here. The latter is called the
valley of blessing. It lies between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives and has the Kedron flowing through it (JFB)
• Three specific charges are laid:
1. The people have been scattered among the nations
2. they have divided the land
3. cast lots for My people
3:3 And they have cast lots for my people; and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for
wine, that they might drink.
• When they had them they sold them, yet with so much contempt that they did not increase their wealth by their
price, but sold them for their pleasure rather than their profit (MH)
3:4 Yes, and what have you to do with Me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? Will
you render me a recompense? And if you recompense Me, swiftly and speedily will I return your
recompense upon your own head;
• Verses 4-8 are a parenthetical interlude. God announces judgment against the nations hostile to Israel, but here
he addresses the nations directly. (NIV)
• Tyre and Sidon (Phoenician cities), plus the regions of Philistia, are singled out as representatives of Israel’s
abusers; their crimes and judgment are elaborated. God is both prosecutor and judge who identifies with accused.
Justice will be swift. (Z)
• Those that contend with God will find themselves unable to make their part good with Him. He will recompense them
suddenly, when they little think of it, and have not time to prevent it (MH)
3:5 Because you have taken My silver and My gold, and have carried into your temples My goodly
pleasant things;
3:6 The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have you sold unto the Grecians, that
you might remove them far from their border.
3:7 Behold, I will raise them out of the place whither you have sold them, and will return your
recompense upon your own head;
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 has spoken it.
3:9 Proclaim you this among the Gentiles; prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of
war draw near; let them come up;
3:10 Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, I am
strong.
3:11 Assemble yourselves, and come, all you heathen, and gather yourselves together round about;
thither cause your mighty ones to come down, O LORD.
3:12 Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there will I sit to
judge all the heathen round about.
• Any place where God may choose to display His judgments against His enemies (AC)
3:13 Put you in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe; come, get your down; for the press is full, the fats
overflow; for their wickedness is great.
• Intercessory prayer (MB)
• Emphasizing the timeliness of the conflict (Z)
• The destruction of His enemies is represented here under the metaphor of reaping down the harvest; and of
gathering the grapes, and treading them in the winepresses (AC)
3:14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decisions; for the day of the LORD is near in the valley
of decision.
• A vortex everyone will be sucked into – a valley of decision of millennial kingdom over the issue of God’s
sovereignty – His plan to have Jerusalem the center of the earth (MB)
3:15 The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.
• High and mighty states shall be eclipsed, and brought to ruin, and the stars – petty states, princes, and governors –
shall withdraw their shining; withhold their influence and tribute from the kingdoms to which they have belonged, and set
up themselves as independent governors (AC)
3:16 The LORD also shall roar out of Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and
the earth shall shake; but the LORD will be the hope of His people, and the strength of the children
of Israel.
3:17 So shall you know that I am the LORD your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain; then shall
Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more.
• God blesses His people in a dual way: negatively by destroying their enemies; and positively, by giving them good
things (NIV)
3:18 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the
hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come
forth out of the house of the LORD, and shall water the valley of Shittim.
3:19 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 their land.
3:20 But Judah shall dwell forever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation.
3:21 For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed; for the LORD dwells in Zion.