Joel 2:18

Then the Lord became ¹  zealous for his land; he had compassion on his people.

Then the LORD will be jealous for his land and take pity on his people.

Then the LORD will be zealous for His land And will have pity on His people.

Then the LORD will pity his people and be indignant for the honor of his land!

At that, GOD went into action to get his land back. He took pity on his people.

Then the Lord had a care for the honour of his land and had pity on his people.

Then the LORD became jealous for his land, and had pity on his people.

Then the LORD will be zealous for His land, And pity His people.

Then the Lord became ¹  zealous for his land; he had compassion on his people.

¹ tn The time-frame entertained by the verbs of v.18 constitutes a crux interpretum in this chapter. The Hebrew verb forms used here are preterites with vav consecutive and are most naturally understood as describing a past situation. However, some modern English versions render these verbs as futures (e.g., NIV, NASV), apparently concluding that the context requires a future reference. According to Joüon 2:363 §112.h, n.1 Ibn Ezra explained the verbs of Joel 2:18 as an extension of the so-called prophetic perfect; as such, a future fulfillment was described with a past tense as a rhetorical device lending certainty to the fulfillment. But this lacks adequate precedent and is very unlikely from a syntactical standpoint. It seems better to take the verbs in the normal past sense of the preterite. This would require a vantage point for the prophet at some time after the people had responded favorably to the Lord’s call for repentance and after the Lord had shown compassion and forgiveness toward his people, but before the full realization of God’s promises to restore productivity to the land. In other words, it appears from the verbs of vv. 18-19 that at the time of Joel’s writing this book the events of successive waves of locust invasion and conditions of drought had almost run their course and the people had now begun to turn to the Lord.