What Does Joel 3:2 Mean in the King James?
I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The valley is named “YHWH judges,” and “plead” comes from that same root: the place and the action reveal one judgment.
THE MEANING
This verse declares that Israel’s scattering and the division of its land stand as charges before judgment. The nations are gathered at a place whose name already says what is happening: YHWH judges. Dispossession is exposed as a deed with an answer, not a neutral change of borders.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A people can be scattered and their land divided without the act counting as violence or answering to judgment.
THE ROOT
וְנִשְׁפַּטְתִּי
venishpatti
GROWS FROM
שפט
shaphat
to judge, govern, or decide a case
The verb rendered “plead” is a form of שפט, also carried by the name Yehoshaphat, “YHWH judges.” The place name and the action share one root, so the verse locates the nations inside judgment before the hearing begins.
ALSO GROWS
Yehoshaphat: “YHWH judges”
יְהוֹשָׁפָט
The valley’s name carries the same judgment root as the verb used for God’s action there.
shofet: judge
שֹׁפֵט
This is the same root in the title “Judge of all the earth,” linking Joel’s judgment of nations to the wider scope of God’s judging.
mishpat: judgment, justice, or a legal decision
מִשְׁפָּט
This branch names the judgment that makes the scattering and division of the land answerable.
THE PATTERN
The injury done to people through dispossession and exploitation is brought before God’s judgment.
Thus saith the LORD against all mine evil neighbours, that touch the inheritance which I have caused my people Israel to inherit; Behold, I will pluck them out of their land, and pluck out the house of Judah from among them.To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.THE THREAD
That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?“Judge” here is שֹׁפֵט (shofet), from the same שפט (shaphat) root as Joel’s “plead.” Genesis asks whether the Judge of all the earth does right; Joel shows that the nations’ treatment of Israel’s people and land is brought before that judgment.
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