Sefer Hoshea; P
erakim 13-14 and Sefer Yoel Perek Summaries Hoshea
Perek 13: Continued description of Eprhaim’s forsaking of HaShem, and that they are heading towards destruction and calamity as a result.
Perek 14: HaShem calls for Eprhaim to repent and return to Him, and there is a description of Ephraim’s future recommitment to HaShem. YOEL Perek 1: A lament over the future locusts that will plague the Land.
Perek 2: A continuation of the impending threat of the army of locusts, and that HaShem had warned the people via the prophets of such an occurrence. Consolation in that after the plague of locusts, HaShem will send bracha to the Land, and any destruction that the plague caused will be replenished with bracha. Perek 3: Times of Moshiach; those who turn towards HaShem will be saved from the fate of our enemies. Perek 4: The ingathering of the exiles and that Yehudah will ultimately survive the wars of Moshiach’s times. DVAR TORAH: Two brief points here. Firstly, though we have spoken about it before, I feel it worthwhile to outline the general happenings of Moshiach’s era since Yoel does speak about it. [Taken mostly from Rav Aryeh Kaplan’s ‘Handbook of Jewish Thought’]. First, Moshiach ben Yosef comes, and this will be followed by the great war of ‘gog umagog’ which takes place around Yerushalayim. Though Moshiach ben Yosef leads us to victory in this war, he himself is killed. Next, Eliyahu HaNavi comes and announces the arrival of Moshiach ben David and causes Bnei Yisrael to repent. Some hold that Eliyahu will be the kohen gadol in the third beis hamikdash too. There is a dispute as to how long after Eliyahu announces Moshiach ben David’s arrival will Moshiach ben David come; some hold three days, whilst others seem to hold one day. Some are of the opinion that the period of Moshiach ben Yosef will be characterised by Divine concealment, with the period of Moshiach ben David seeing revealed miracles. Our next point is a question. In Yoel, we read about the plague of locusts which is to hit the Jewish People. However, the Torah tells us (Shemos 15:26) that ‘if you listen to the word of HaShem…all the plagues that I (HaShem) brought upon Egypt shall not be brought upon you…’ Indeed, this pasuk has been used to explain the machlokes in the Haggadah about the number of plagues in Egypt and at the Yam Suf (250, 50, etc.); what difference does it make how we count the number of plagues – everyone agrees to what happened? The answer is because HaShem promised (in our above pasuk) that He would not bring a ‘plague’ upon us that He brought upon Egypt – so only things which count on their own as ‘plagues’ are included. Thus, it does matter which events are considered a ‘plague’ and which are not. So getting back to our question; how could HaShem bring locusts upon the people in the times of Yoel; surely locusts was one of the plagues in Egypt and HaShem had promised not to bring such plagues upon us again? Here are two answers, but please let me know if you have any others. 1) The pasuk only says that HaShem promises not to repeat such plagues if we are behaving loyally to Him, and perhaps those in the times of Yoel were not sufficiently loyal to merit this promise. 2) The plague of locusts here was not the same as in Egypt;
here there were different types of locusts and the plague was generally much worse it seems.
