What's Palestine, Greeks doing in Joel 3 from 800 B.C.?!

Joel 3 begins, [1] For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,

[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 people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.

"When it says God's going to plead with them, it's, 'I'm going to take you out here and I'm going to teach you a lesson about what you did,' " explains Richard Jordan.

"The God of the Bible is the God of Israel and they're His people and the Gentiles have scattered them among the nations 'and parted my land.' That's something God specifically told them was not to be done and the Gentiles did exactly the opposite of what God wanted done with His people.

[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.

"God says, 'You took my people and sold them cheap into slavery.'

[4] Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompence me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompence upon your own head; [5] Because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly pleasant things:

"God's telling them, 'This land is mine and when you took this stuff out of the land, that belonged to me, I own this stuff. You guys act like you do. You're taking my people, the treasures, all my things, and what do you think you're going to do with me?'

"I love that, 'What have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine?'

"He's saying, 'Who you think you are anyway, dude?' The kids say, 'You talking to me?' They're not asking the question; that's a challenge. That's what God's doing here.

"It's fascinating that He uses the word Palestine in verse 4 because Palestine was not called Palestine at this time in history. Joel was written in 800 B.C.

"It got that name in about 135 A.D. when the Romans--they hated the Jews so badly that when they finally rode them out of the land, they named the land after the Jews' vaunted enemies, the Philistines. Palestine is really a name for the Philistines.

"It's a different word in Hebrew, but we speak English, and it's that word in English because that's the term we use. This is a prophecy about the future and it's one of those places where your Bible looks into the future with the right terminology. But you need to remember the original people called Palestinians were Jews; they were the people in that land.

Verse 6: [6] The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border.

"You literally have Israel carried out of the land and they're gone. They sold them to the Grecians. Now, that's another term that's kind of strange. Eight hundred years before Christ Greece was not a world power. In fact, there were no world powers like this.

"The Babylonian empire (Daniel 2 and that image of Nebuchadnezzar) and the Media-Persia empire that preceded the Greek empire . . . The Babylonian empire doesn't come on the scene until 606 B.C. Joel is writing somewhere along about 750-800 B.C.

"So, 150 years at least before Babylon He's talking about the Greeks. The Greeks existed then, but they weren't a world power like this to carry people all over the planet.

"The reason for that is this passage is not talking about the historical past; this is a prophetic reference about what's going to happen to Israel in the future in the 'last days.' When it says they've sold Israel unto the Grecians, it's a fascinating thing how the Greeks play into the issues in 'the last times.'

"Isaiah 45, written by Isaiah in about 700 B.C., begins, [1] Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut;

"Cyrus doesn't show up in history for another 100 and some odd years; actually it's about 300 years before he shows up. He's the guy in Ezra 1 that allows them to go back after the captivity. What's he doing here?!

"Isaiah literally names a Gentile king hundreds of years before he exists and talks about him restoring Israel back into their land. 

"Talking to Cyrus, [2] I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:

[3] And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.

"Here's a guy hundreds of years before he's born whose name is put in the Scripture. My point to you is to see the Grecians in Joel 3 as a prophecy is not such a weird thing.

"I've pointed out to you repeatedly that these passages in Joel all fit in the Second Coming--specific events associated with the Second Coming.

I Kings 13: [2] And he cried against the altar in the word of the LORD, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee.

"The Josiah that does that is found in II Kings 23. If you look at the top of the page (Scofield Reference Bible) for the date, you'll see in II Kings 23 it's something like 624 B.C. So in about 600 B.C. Josiah shows up. In I Kings 13 the date at the top of that page is 975 B.C.

"He's named at least 300 years before this Josiah's born! If you read down through I Kings 13, it's a fascinating passage. You see how many times it talks about the Word of God, and you watch the guy be challenged to stay with it and fail.

"My point is it isn't quite so outlandish to read Joel 3 and to see terms like Palestine and especially the Grecians and understand this a prophetic kind of thing.

"Obviously, involved in the scattering of Israel, in the 70th Week of Daniel, and in the persecution of Israel under the Antichrist, Greece is involved. 

"Now, most of the time people say it's Rome, and they do that because of the vision Nebuchadnezzar has in Daniel 2, interpreting the feet and the toes as being the Roman empire. The difficulty with that is that isn't the way Daniel interpreted it."