What God Is Like

 Joel 2:12 “Yet even now,” declares the Lord,
    “return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
13     and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
Return to the Lord your God,
    for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;
    and he relents over disaster.

Having announced the quick and certain coming of God in judgment (keeping His promise in Deuteronomy 28), Joel also holds out hope of this coming too soon.  He reminded his people to remember the character of God: He is gracious, merciful, longsuffering, and full of hesed love. He does not like to punish, but He is also holy and righteous.  Joel foresaw what would happen generations after him, and again in the future, but he also saw that God was going to postpone the judgment if they would repent. As you go further in the chapter you find another well-known promise. This was not just physical judgment, but God would also send His Spirit, changing people from the inside out. That was fulfilled after the exile, on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, and still has promises of things to come, because God is just like that.