Neville Goddard on Joel 3:9-16 - Mystical Bible Interpretation

Read Joel 3 in context

Scripture Focus

9Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up:

10Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.

11Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O LORD.

12Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about.

13Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great.

14Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.

15The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.

16The LORD also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the LORD will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.

Joel 3:9-16

Biblical Context

Joel 3:9-16 calls the nations to muster and prepare, turning plowshares into swords and harvest into judgment. It paints a day when the LORD sits in judgment in the valley of decision.

Neville's Inner Vision

I discern in Joel that the outer scene mirrors my inner state. The valley of Jehoshaphat becomes the inner valley where I decide who I am. To beat plowshares into swords is to transmute my everyday thoughts into decisive imagination; my living concerns become instruments of power as I declare, I am strong. The call to assemble the heathen gathers all my faculties—sight, memory, desire—into one sovereignty: the I AM. The harvest ripe and the press full reveal that my inner causes are ripe for expression in consciousness, not waiting in circumstance. Wickedness dissolves under awareness, yielding a new state of being. The sun and moon darkening signal the old sense dissolving as I rise to a higher measure of reality. The LORD roaring from Zion is the inner voice of authority within me; the earth shakes as my certainty lands. I am the judge and the judged, and the day of the LORD is now touched by my decree. By this inner act, I reclaim my kingdom.