2:18–20 We now come to the turning point of the book of Joel—the point at which God’s jealousy leads to pity for the chosen people. God removes both the everyday judgments and the threat of final judgment from their lives, verse 18.

This passage too, however, is not to be understood in terms of some sort of self-seeking on God’s part. Rather, God’s “jealousy” could also be translated as God’s “zeal”—the word has both meanings in the Hebrew. The God of the Bible is a zealous God, with a purpose that is being worked out in the world. God will not be deterred or turned aside from fulfilling that purpose. This purpose is the restoration of the good and abundant life that he intended for his world in the beginning—the life that was corrupted and destroyed by human sin. And God’s means of worki…