Joel 3:3

And they have cast lots for my people,.... Not only parted their land, but cast lots for their persons, Or played at dice for them, how many captives each soldier should have, and which should be

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.

It was customary with conquerors to divide the captives by lot, and so did these enemies of the Jews, Obadiah 11; and so did the Chaldeans on the captive Ninevites, : though this was grievous, yet it was the common lot of captives. Have given a boy for an harlot; either procured a boy to bestow on some harlot or other which they kept, or gave a boy, instead of money, the price of an harlot to be enjoyed by lewd soldiers. And sold a girl; a young girl, which, being captive, fell to their lot, they have valued at a base, low price, and sold for wine, that they might drink; so much as at one sitting one of them could drink; or perhaps for one draught of wine, when the barbarous soldier was dry or minded to be drunk.

Joe 3:3 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.Ver. 3. And they have cast lots for my people] Impiously and imperiously domineering over them as those rude soldiers that cast the dice upon our Saviour’ s coat, at his passion. It was ordinary to divide by lots the enemies they had taken in the fight, Nahum 3:10 Obadiah 1:11 Lamentations 3:53 Judges 5:30; but at base rates thus to sell God’ s people ignominiously, and that to satisfy their lewd lusts - this was unsufferable. And have given a boy for an harlot] Heb. that boy, as afterwards that girl, with an emphasis; a son and daughter of Israel, those earthly angels Angli quasi Angeli, the English boys just as angels, as Gregory the Great once said of the English boys presented to him. "Thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire," said God not without very great indignation, to their idolatrous parents, Ezekiel 16:21. His they were more than theirs, by virtue of the covenant he had made with that people; hence Deuteronomy 14:1, "Ye are the children of the Lord your God," and can he bear with your misusages? "Should he deal with our sister as a harlot?" said they with courage (as the great Zaijn, in Zonah, importeth) Genesis 34:31. So here, should they give a boy such a boy, for a harlot? that is, for the hire of a harlot, and to gratify such abhorred filths? In the reign of Henry II of France, A.D. 1554 many precious sons of Zion were burned there for religion, not without the indignation of honest men, who knew that the diligence used against those poor people was not for any piety or religion, but to satiate the covetousness of Diana Valentina, the king’ s mistress, to whom he had given all the confiscations of goods made in the kingdom for cause of heresy. And sold a girl for wine, that they might drink] "The wine of violence," Proverbs 4:17; "drink and be drunken, and spue, and fall, and rise no more," Jeremiah 25:27; worthy, therefore, to be served as that drunken Turk was by that severe bashaw who caused a ladleful of boiling lead to be poured down his throat. God will turn a worse cup down their wide gullets one day, Psalms 11:6 Quorum vivere est bibere, and whose profane proverb it is, Bibere et sudare, est vita Cardiaci To drink and to sweat is the life of the heart. But what a heathenish baseness is that of the Papists, besides a horrible abuse of God’ s holy ordinance, that at Rome a Jewish maid may not be admitted into the stews of whoredom unless she will first be baptized. Espensaeus, a modest Papist, writeth it, not without detestation.

(3) Cast lots . . .—The nations who oppressed and carried away the Jews treated them as chattels, cast lots for the possession of them as slaves, and purchased a night’s revelry or other indulgence with the captives they had taken.

Verse 3. Have given a boy for a harlot] To such wretched circumstances were the poor Jews reduced in their captivity, that their children were sold by their oppressors; and both males and females used for the basest purposes. And they were often bartered for the necessaries or luxuries of life. Or this may refer to the issue of the Chaldean war in Judea, where the captives were divided among the victors. And being set in companies, they cast lots for them: and those to whom they fell sold them for various purposes; the boys to be slaves and catamites, the girls to be prostitutes; and in return for them they got wine and such things. I think this is the meaning of the text.

3. The reference is to the custom, common in ancient warfare, by which the conquerors divided amongst themselves the captives by lot, to deal with them afterwards as they pleased: and the Jewish prisoners were held by their captors so cheap that one who had received a boy as his lot sold him to a slave-dealer in exchange for a harlot,—or perhaps (Targ. Pesh.) gave him for the hire of a harlot,—and one who had received a girl parted with her for the sake of a carouse of wine. cast lots] Obadiah 1:11 (of Jerusalem at the time of its capture by the Chaldaeans), Nahum 3:10 (where it is said, as a special indignity, that lots were cast on the “honourable men” of No-amon);—each time the same phrase. that they might drink] and have drunk.

And they have cast lots - They treated God’s people as of no account, and delighted in showing their contempt toward them. They chose no one above another, as though all alike were worthless.

2. At the time of the restoration Jehovah will gather all nations — All that are guilty of hostility toward the people of God; and that included all the nations known to the prophet, for all had