Chapter 2

This chapter is titled "The Day of the Lord" in ESV?  Not in NASB95..

2025 - Just read the notes from the MSB intro above again to see when this happened.  And we do not know.  The main learning from that is that "the day of the Lord" is not a single instance in all of history but a recurring event.  We should think of TDOTL as an ending or more accurately, and as we see in Joel 1, as a hospice taking over.  Despite heroic and repeated efforts by the doctors to effect a cure, all that can be done has been done.  The end is imminent, it is in sight, and no further efforts to prevent it will be made.  In Joel, God has made the call.  The locust plague was the unmistakable sign.  It was the transport with the name of the hospice on the side.  Joel knows it is done.  And  here in 2:1 Joel declares that very end, and labels it TDOTL.

2026 - I am putting this newest note near the top though I still agree with a lot of what I previously wrote below.  It occurs to me, after having done the extended study on the reference to a virgin born child in Isaiah, and the way there was a near, but significantly different fulfilment of that prophecy, but it's more absolute and consummate fulfilment in Luke 2, that Joel may be exhibiting that same kind of near/far.  Once I became aware of this interpretational methodology for prophecy, I seem to find possible examples of it in many places. 

2026 - If we go with this, then there was an event or sequence of events that would qualify as the  "coming day of the Lord" in the immediate future...I would guess within the generation to which Joel prophesied.  If we go with the hermeneutic we learned in Daniel, then Joel is speaking of two events. The immediate event would be a foreshadowing, a diluted fulfilment of that unmistakably fulfills the prophecy, but still leaves room for the typological perfection of the future, final Day of the Lord.

The wording of this verse may signal a transition from the current devastation to the final Day of the Lord during the end times:

1 Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming; it is near, [Joe 2:1 ESV]  2020-I think the trumpet blowing signals a different prophecy than chapter 1.  We are talking about something different than the current plague of locusts. 

The wording of 2:2 is a lot like that of 1:6.  A powerful foe, beyond number, never before seen, never to come again.  In Chapter 1 this was about locusts.  The indication that 2 is about something different is the use of words more often - in fact always as far as I know - used to describe the final "great and terrible" Day of the Lord.  This verse:

2 a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people; their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations. [Joe 2:2 ESV]

2020-I think this is key to the prophecy of Chapter 2.  We are talking about an invading army - a real army now, as contrasted with the present and very real locusts that were present at the time Joel is writing.  This prophecy is of Joel's future.  To figure out when he is talking about now, we need to find the place where an invading army - from a people greater than any before or after, will be present.  It could be that in my chronological reading, Joel is misplaced.  It could be that MSB is correct and we have to go back to the time of Joash.  If so, this army could be the besieging army of the Chaldeans.   Has there never again been such a people?  Maybe up to that time there had never been anything like them.  What about 70 AD though?  Has the world ever seen anything like Rome again?  Maybe it is referring to that.  Or, it could be referring to the battle that ends Great Trib and begins the Millennial.  That army is pretty huge also.  It is described this way.  17 Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly directly overhead, "Come, gather for the great supper of God, 18 to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great." 19 And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who was sitting on the horse and against his army. [Rev 19:17-19 ESV]  Is this army of the beast the greatest ever before seen and never to rise again?  Or is it this one, at the end of the Millennial:  7 And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. 9 And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, 10 and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. [Rev 20:7-10 ESV]  Neither gives us a direct "hook" to Joel's description.

2023 - But that Gog and Magog description is still pretty close.  That one is the last battle ever on this earth.  He mentions generations though...there won't be any generations after that.  Time is about to end. 

2023 - The Pre-Millennial battle is in Megiddo.  Why blow a trumpet all the way down in Jerusalem?  But in the post-Millennial, the description indicates that Zion will be surrounded by an invader intent on destruction.  So in that sense, we have to see this as Gog and Magog.

2023 - But I come back to vs 12, where repentance is possible.  That is not so after Gog and Magog.  Perhaps we are not talking about a physical battle, but a spiritual.  Perhaps this is the disposition of forces that immediately precede the rapture.  Many of these signs occur at that point.  Following the rapture, the 144,000 will preach repentance to all Israel.  The battle is for the raptured, making their way to heaven, to be in the army that will return with him at the end of tgt.  Maybe that's what this is about.

2022 - 2:4-11, Those creatures in Revelation that sting.  Do they match up?  Do we get the signs in vs 10b before they arrive in Rev?  Are the descriptions similar?

Earthquakes are missing, as are darkened sun and moon and stars falling.  These three also show up most of the time when it is the end of the age that is spoken of.  So this looks like end times...but so far is not completely nailed down to that time as I would interpret it.

vs 4, 5 sound like locusts.  BUT, there are these two verses:

3 Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth. ... 7 In appearance the locusts were like horses prepared for battle: on their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces, [Rev 9:3, 7 ESV]

8 their hair like women's hair, and their teeth like lions' teeth; 9 they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle. [Rev 9:8-9 ESV]

These sound a lot like Joel 2:2.  Many of the same words are used.

Very descriptive language in Joel about how these "locusts" move, whatever they are.  I note particularly these phrases:

"like soldiers they scale the wall",

"they do not swerve",

"They do not jostle one another",

"they burst through the weapons",

"they enter through the windows like a thief".

So...maybe we see this as Joel connecting an extant plague of locusts, though of uniquely massive proportions, with the same vision John had of the locusts-like creatures in Revelation. 2020- I think this might be the best connection.  The army is like horses, but they are locusts, and the things they do to inflict their pain are like the way locusts invade.  There is no safe place, nowhere to run, and if you stay in your house with the door bolted they crawl up the wall and enter through the window.  So neither the pre- or post-millennial battle.  An army of locusts the size of horses and with tails like scorpions.  The like of this has certainly never been seen, not before, and never again after.  This is what it most likely is about.

Rev 8 ends this way:  12 The fourth angel blew his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of their light might be darkened, and a third of the day might be kept from shining, and likewise a third of the night. 13 Then I looked, and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew directly overhead, "Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth, at the blasts of the other trumpets that the three angels are about to blow!" [Rev 8:12-13 ESV]  So we get the heavenly portents indicating God's wrath.  Three great woes are about to begin.  Then as 9 starts the locusts are released:  3 Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth. 4 They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. ... 6 And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them. [Rev 9:3-4, 6 ESV]

2024 - So.  Revelation 9 is about the 5th trumpet.  The church will be long gone.  In 9:2 the bottomless pit is opened, and black smoke bellows out.  From the smoke comes these locusts - demons confined in the pit for a very long time.  From the time of Lucifer's rebellion possibly, and others confined there during and after Jesus' time on earth.  Remember that the demons in the pigs didn't want to be sent to the abyss.  They knew about it.  The locusts in revelation are "foreign invaders", from another nation, that bottomless pit.  They come out livid and bent on inflicting maximum pain.  Is Joel talking about Rev 9? 

2024 - If we go with the 5th Trumpet, then the day of the Lord in chapter 1 is a different, current time as contrasted with the day of the Lord in 2:2, in Revelation 9.  I have a hard time saying that Joel 2 and Rev 9 are about different creatures.  The locusts of Joel's time were real, and Joel seizes on the analogy - both of the locusts and the following suffering - because it is so appropriate to the events of Rev 0.  Yep.  Going with that!  Rev 8:12-13 also match up with Joel 2:10.  Darkened, not gone completely out.

Joel describes the portents this way, for comparison:

10 The earth quakes before them; the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. [Joe 2:10 ESV]

For me, all the references needed are now present.  Joel has turned from the "object lesson of the current invasion of locusts" to the Last Days, and the wrath of God on the whole earth.

2025 - No...I don't think we can pin Joel's words in Chapter 2 down to a particular time.  I think, this year, that it is more likely Joel's prophecy was about that current cycle of dedication to God followed by decreasing reliance on him and on idols and false gods instead, to reliance on self and disbelief in any god at all, to disastrous events as punishment and warning (birth pains) which increase in both frequency and severity, to hospice, and then to death.  And then, as in vs 12, we start over.

2025- I think the "even now" in vs 12 is more about the remnant that will come through and from which God will start again and try to fulfill the covenant he made with his people.  He will do his part, over and over and over, and they will rebel each time.  To the point where Jesus brings a New Covenant...and EVEN HERE, a remnant of the Jews is still present and I believe that in tgt they will finally hold up their end, and the covenant will go into effect as originally intended by God.  "Even now" is about how God is thinking about Israel in Joel's time, and about his next working with them.  It is not about that generation still having a chance to change things.  It was too late for them. 

2026 - Good stuff above...Joel is likely referring to a coming, subsequent repeat of this invasion of locusts on a massive scale, a swarm so large and thick that it shadows the ground as it moves - darkness, gloom, clouds...Locust swarms get this big.  This subsequent locust invasion, in my opinion, has already happened, close enough to Joel's own time to corroborate for all who cared to look that his prophecy was accurate - and therefore of God.

2026 - I believe he is also referencing the invasion of locust-like creatures who come from the pit at the 5th trumpet.  That still future event is the typological fulfilment of the Joel 2 prophecy.  I believe we would be entirely correct in combining the Joel 2 and 5th Trump descriptions to "fill in" missing pieces.

Verse 12 starts a call to repentance.  It starts with "Yet even now,"  So is this addressed to those in Joel's time, or those in Revelation?  Surely even in that day, there are still those who will be saved.  There is a point though, in those last days, beyond which no more will be saved.  Those who remain unrepentant at that time will all be killed by the outpouring of God's great wrath.  I think it more likely that Joel's appeal for repentance is to those in his own time.  Perhaps to forestall the locusts of Revelation in addition to those of his own time.  As it reads, the Lord does in fact relent, and the total devastation and starvation that seems imminent never happens.  The invaders - the northerners who flew down from the north, as in perhaps the locust plague came from north of Israel...yes, this seems to make good sense in context, now that we are talking about the locusts going away.  The locusts were perhaps blown on south, into the Negev where they spread out from the Med to the Dead Sea.  The locusts died of starvation and stunk up the whole area.  Yes...I think in 2020 that this is what Joel is talking about now.

2024 - There will be a chance to repent during the 5th trumpet, and well after that.  The final door does not close until...somewhere.  There is a verse in Revelation after which I don't believe anyone CAN be saved.  The offer is withdrawn....but I can't find it this morning.  So Joel's call for repentance applies equally to those in his own time and those enduring God's wrath after the Sixth Seal. 

2026 - Beginning in 16 you have this call to repentance.  I think we will see that again in Revelation, during this horrible time, as the Jews return to Zion, even with the 5th Trumpet events unfolding.  The way will be flat and straight.  The return to Zion, despite the unfolding invasion of locust-demons, will prove to all that God is orchestrating events at that future time.  The Jews will walk unhindered through these events.

In 2:1, a trumpet is blown, as an alarm, a warning that the Day of the Lord is near.  In 2:15, a trumpet is blown as a call to repentance and prayer for God to relent.

Beginning in 18, God does relent, restores the land, vanquishes Israel's enemies.  In vs 20, He will remove the northerner.  In 586 BC, that northerner was Babylon.  In Revelation, where is it that the pre- and post-Millennial attackers come from to attack Jerusalem?  There is Armageddon, which is 70 miles to the north.  Surely an invading army from the south would not be in Megiddo...

2023 - These verses seem to be about the Millennial.  So you have a trumpet for the rapture, then a trumpet for the Millennial gathering into Zion...Is there another trumpet?

(I did not note before that from 1:2 until 2:29, we are in verse format.  From 2:30 to 3:8 we are not, and then 3:9 to the end of the book in 3:21, we are back in verse.  I surely do wish I knew how that is determined.  Is it written that way in the text used for the translation into ESV and NKJV?  Is the format different in all translations?)

This verse:

23 "Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God, for he has given the early rain for your vindication; he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain, as before. [Joe 2:23 ESV]

Going backwards a little based on vs 25...This verse speaks of God's forgiveness in the past tense.  That would seem to be about the days of Joel, not the end times.  Yet in the end times, Israel will return, and Jesus will rule from Jerusalem, and they will multiply like livestock, and the land will bloom.  We have seen these things prophesied in previous books:

11 And I will multiply on you man and beast, and they shall multiply and be fruitful. And I will cause you to be inhabited as in your former times, and will do more good to you than ever before. Then you will know that I am the LORD. [Eze 36:11 ESV] 

2020-I am mixing this wrong.  Eze 11 is about Millennial, but Joel 2:23 is about Joel's own time and that only.  That is why it is past tense.

This verse:

25 I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you. [Joe 2:25 ESV]

Saw this one used to say that even if we stray, far off the straight and narrow, as I most certainly did in my life, even then, if we return, what was lost will be restored.  If that's proper interpretation in this context of God telling Israel through Joel what they need to do.  It isn't as though they have just lost blessings and they are gone forever, forfeited by their rebellion.  All that was lost can and will be restored by God. 

2020-This seems, in light of the vs 12 interpretation above, to mean that God sent rain and sun and shade and temperatures perfect for agricultural production over the next several years, such that all the extractions from grain and wine  and oil stores was replaced, and more.  This is the restoration in view here.

Then the next two verses present some problems:

vs 26 goes back to future tense.  Blessing that will occur, unlike any ever before, but still future to Joel.  Says Israel will never be put to shame again.  But this was before 70 AD.  So the restoration now in view has to be after that.  I think now we are firmly in the Millennial.

2023 - 26b says "never again", which I think confirms that we are in the Millennial here. 

These verses come next:

28 "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. 29 Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit. [Joe 2:28-29 ESV]

So look where these verses fall...we were seeing God's blessings, God's forgiveness described in past tense.  A restoration from this locust plague of extraordinary proportions.  Then we switched in 26 to future tense, and now we get the verses about something also yet future.  "It shall come to pass..."  Afterward is also a clue, perhaps referring back now to the locusts as big as horses.  It will be after that when Israel is finally restored, never to be put to shame again.  Seeing visions, dreaming dreams, and salvation through calling is about the Millennial.  People will still need to be saved in the Millennial because the survivors of Trib, Great Trib, and war will still be flesh and blood, and they are going to produce abundantly during that thousand years.  Acts 2 was not a fulfillment of Joel 2.

(2020-This paragraph is, I think, no longer necessary.  The paragraph above is explanatory.)  This prophesy is universal.  This will happen not just to the Jews, but to servants, and by extension to Gentiles.  All flesh.  Same question...is this referring to the Age of the Gentiles, which started in 586 BC, to the time after Jesus' resurrection when the good news was preached to all the world, to the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2, or to the Tribulation period as the Jews return to Israel with hearts turned to God as never before, and as prophesied first (maybe first, I think first) in these verses:

26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. [Eze 36:26-27 ESV]

(Actually, I think it is spoken of earlier...Just don't remember where...Maybe it didn't use these exact words.)

2026 - The verses above, 2:28-29, as we are interpreting this today, as very far future events following the 5th Trumpet, means we have to place the old men dreaming and young men's visions solidly after the rapture of the church, during the "revival" of the Jews.  This is important in that under the Old Covenant there was no indwelling Holy Spirit.  That Holy Spirit presence is going to be "added" to the Mosaic law at this future time.  There will be Temple worship and sacrifice, but with the added presence of the Holy Spirit in each person.  Prophecy is going to overflow again at that time. 

2026 - This signals, possibly, a third presentation of the way of salvation.  There was the old and new covenant, and now there will be the "universal gospel" proclaimed by one of those three angels in Rev 14.  The plan of future salvation during the 70th week will be clearly proclaimed by that angel, and is partially described here in Joel 2.  Wow!  It just fits better and better every time I read the Bible!

2022 - Vss 18-20,

the invaders are turned back.  Past tense used.  Joel is speaking of historical events.  When is this about?  I don't believe it is after Manassah...but maybe.  Is it about the defeat of Satan at the end of t/gt, and establishment of the Millennial kingdom?  Past tense just rhetorical?  "I will no more make you a reproach among the nations: sounds like Millennial.  That army of locusts like the pre-Millennial battle.  The foul stench that takes months to clean up also seems to be about that battle.  Can I pull out all those references and see them in one place?

vs 25b seems to say the locusts were God's army.

26b - Millennial.  Also 27b.

28 - Millenial gifts?

30 - Does this go backward?  Or are these things Christ will do from Zion as part of ruling with an iron rod?  No...we can tie these signs to t/gt.  Those loyal to Christ will be saved through it all.  The survivors enter the Millennial - when God calls them sheep, not goats.

Cannot move on without also inserting these last two verses of Chapter 2, which follow right after those above:

30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. 31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come. 32 And it shall come to pass, [that] whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call. [Joe 2:30-32 KJV]

This pushes me into agreement with MSB that the prophesying, dreaming and visions are looking at the end times only, not at Acts.  But surely the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost, and the gifts given to those receiving the Spirit included prophecy, visions, and so on.  But at Pentecost we did not have what I consider to be the telltale signs of an end times prophesy - and these are in vs 30, as immediately following, or at least as subsequent to the pouring out of the Spirit.  Wonders in the heavens, sun darkened, moon turned to blood.  All this to happen before that final wrath comes.  (2020-Yes.  Looks like I finished in the right place last year, and confirmed it this year.)

2022 - This section inserted subsequent to a pretty in-depth look at Mark 13, which necessitated looking at Matt 24 and Luke 21 also.  I am pasting this into Isa 13 and Joel 2...because they are about the same thing:

2022 - We still have to deal with Isa 13 also.  I had not found it when I made the notes above.  Isa 13 is about the destruction of Babylon, in one sense, but also must be about the time in Revelation when Babylon is destroyed.  That is in Rev 18,19.  IF, as I think right now, the verses above about the signs in heaven portend the rapture, and NOT the final battle after Christ's return, then the verses below need to be explained in that context:

"9 Behold, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it.

This does not sound like the joyous day of the rapture.  This phrase "the day of the Lord" has to be pinned down.  I think it refers to the second  coming and the final battle.  I think it is a particular, specific, identifiable day.  I don't think the day of the Lord is the day of the rapture, so vs 9 is not about the rapture, not about Rev. 6.

10 For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light.

But THIS is the very next verse.  This matches Joel, the three gospels, and Rev 6.  So...does this tie all that is being said in Isaiah to Rev 6 and so to the rapture - as I understand its timing - or is can I "explain this away"?  Look at the next verse:

"11 I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant, and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless." [Isa 13:11 ESV].  Does this sound like the rapture?  No, I don't think it does.  So we have the signs in the heavens, the very familiar signs from Mark 13, Matt 24, and Lk 21, bracketed by descriptions of what seems necessarily to be Armageddon.  And just look at the next verse:

12 I will make people more rare than fine gold, and mankind than the gold of Ophir. 13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place, at the wrath of the LORD of hosts in the day of his fierce anger." [Isa 13:9-10, 12-13 ESV]

This description goes right along with Jesus saying these things:

"28 Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather." [Mat 24:28 ESV]

"37 And they said to him, "Where, Lord?" He said to them, "Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather."" [Luk 17:37 ESV]

At that battle, when Jesus comes, a very huge portion of the people who have managed to stay alive to that point will be fighting on the side of the Antichrist.  They will ALL be killed.  Revelation is very clear.  The language about the number of dead from that battle leaves little doubt that most of mankind -  other than the converted Jews - will be wiped out.

Looking again at the passages in Matt, Mk, and Lk, that phrase "after that time of tribulation" precedes the signs in heaven.  Revelation only mentions these signs at the 6th seal, NOT at the second coming in Rev. 19.  BUT, is it ok to say that according to Isaiah, those same signs will appear again just before the day of the Lord?  To make the case that I am making, at this point, that is what I am forced to say.  I think those vss in Isaiah 13 end as to the day of the Lord at vs 13:13.  In vs 14 we return to the prophecy of the fall of old Babylon to the Medes.

Isa 13:1-10 seem to correspond to Joel 2:1-11.  The pictures painted, the very words seem certainly to be talking about the same day.  The day of the Lord is in view.  I think both of these are about Rev 19, the second coming. 

Here are some interesting verses for direct comparison:

"6 Wail, for the day of the LORD is near; as destruction from the Almighty it will come!" [Isa 13:6 ESV]

"1 Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming; it is near," [Joe 2:1 ESV]

"7 Therefore all hands will be feeble, and every human heart will melt. 8 They will be dismayed: pangs and agony will seize them; they will be in anguish like a woman in labor. They will look aghast at one another; their faces will be aflame." [Isa 13:7-8 ESV]

"6 Before them peoples are in anguish; all faces grow pale." [Joe 2:6 ESV]

"10 For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light." [Isa 13:10 ESV]

"10 The earth quakes before them; the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining." [Joe 2:10 ESV]

So.  As clear as it is that these signs will appear in Rev 6, and as it is very clear that Rev 6 is NOT about the second coming, and all this destruction and desolation and fire and armies of the Lord DO NOT appear in Rev 6 or following, it is equally clear that these signs will precede the appearance of Christ in Rev 19, when he does come to destroy his enemies and assume the rule of the planet.  These signs precede the appearance of Christ - at both the rapture and at the second coming.  Why would they not?  I don't know why these things are not mentioned in Rev 19, perhaps because they don't need to be.  Both Isaiah and Joel - two witnesses to the events of the Day of the Lord - make it clear that they will appear then.  Isaiah and Joel didn't know about the church age - or the rapture that ends it, so they wouldn't talk about it.  Jesus discourse, recorded in Matt 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21, was about the church age, and since the end of that had not been previously described with the signs in heaven, is described in some detail there.  We must not mix the events of the rapture with the events of the second advent.  They are truly different.  AND, it may be that the best way to reconcile all this is to apply the parable of the tares being gathered and burned first, and then the wheat gathered in, to the second coming.  The burning is about that Satanic army.  They will first be destroyed, burned, and then the faithful Jews will be gathered for the Millennial Reign.  Perhaps this is why that parable about wheat and tares is found only in Matt 13:24-30, and nowhere near Matt 24.  Because they are about different times. 

2023 - Vss 28, 29, quoted by Peter after Pentecost, are about the things that will be going on during the Millennial. 

2025 - Putting the verses in for a closer look:

28  "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. 29 Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit. [Joe 2:28-29 ESV].

So is this a characteristic of the time following each "restart" of God with Israel?  Do they all start with prophetic events.  The Spirit is poured out on ALL, and then prophesy fueled by dreams and visions will return.  There is nothing here of miracles or healing or evangelism. Only about "new" prophets who will sort of "arise from the ashes" of TDOTL just completed and their purpose is to gather the remnant, turn them back to God, and start again.  Isn't that who Moses was?  Isn't that who Ezra and Nehemiah were?  And then we have TDOTL that ended in 70 AD, after the rejection of Christ.  The prophets came back after the crucifixion, but they didn't stay long, and then 70 AD happened.  That was the end of the last TDOTL, and we won't see it again until the age of the Gentiles is gone, and God turns one last time to Israel, to his people, and he brings them through the fire of TGT. 

2025 - I always thought ALL the gifts came back in Joel 2:28-29.  But only prophecy is mentioned.  This is not in the least about spiritual gifts.  In hindsight, we can see that this is about the restoration of Israel - though Israel has failed every time to "stay" restored.  It points now to TGT.  Elijah will come again at that time, prophesying repentance and the imminent day of the Lord.  Just as John came in the first century, Elijah will come in the last century.

Here is the tie to Joel, chapter 3, not chapter 2:  "13 Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Go in, tread, for the winepress is full. The vats overflow, for their evil is great. 14 Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision." [Joe 3:13-14 ESV].  Joel 3 is about Armageddon.  And this comes right after:  "15 The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining." [Joe 3:15 ESV].  Joel tells us twice that these signs in heaven will precede the second coming. 

2024 - Vss 21-30 are about the Millennial.  The restoration in view did NOT happen in Joel's time, nor has it happened at any time since then.  The "wonders" of vs 30 have not happened, but will at the end.  The Spirit poured out happens in the Millennial.  So I think, today, that Joel chapter two is about the time FROM the Sixth Seal to the Beginning of the Millennial.  Leaving it there.

2026 - Vss 30-32 must tie directly to one of the periods of signs in the heavens that we see in Revelation, the first example being at the Sixth Seal.  But there are others, and at some point I will need to take the time necessary to figure out which one it is to which Joel is here referring.    It really fits the Sixth Seal very well...but he previously referenced events that seem to correlate with the 5th Trumpet.  He could be going backwards...but it would be worthwhile to look for these signs following the 5th trumpet.  I thing that would be a better place to look for them.