Joel son of Pethuel יואל בן פתואל

Joel's first verse — "the word of the LORD that came to Joel son of Pethuel" — and that is all: no king, no year. So his place in the centuries has to be taken from tradition, and tradition differs. Seder Olam Rabbah 20 says plainly: “Joel, Nahum and Habakkuk prophesied in the days of Manasseh,” and that is the earliest anchor there is. Some commentators place him earlier, in the days of Joash or Jehoram. This base follows Seder Olam, and names the disagreement here rather than hiding it.

The book itself rests on two pictures. The first is the locusts: four waves, each eating what the last one left — "what the cutter left, the locust ate; and what the locust left, the grub ate." The land is stripped bare, the priests weep, the cattle groan because there is no pasture. Joel orders a fast and an assembly: "gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, the children and the nursing infants."

The second picture is the reverse. God will restore "the years the locust ate," the threshing floors will fill with grain, and then there will be what the world has not yet seen: "I will pour out My spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your elders shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions." In Jewish tradition these words describe the time when prophecy returns to everyone, not to the few.