Reading the book of Joel today I stumbled upon a detail I had never noticed before. Describing the locust plague that had devastated his country, Joel says,
As with the rumbling of chariots, they leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring the stubble, like a powerful army drawn up for battle. (Joel 2:5)
Does this mean that Joel was somehow acquainted with what chariot warfare was like?
I raise the question because scholars are all over the map when it comes to dating the book of Joel. Some believe he belongs in the eighth century along with Hosea and Amos, whose books sandwich his in the canon. Others point to a lack of references to kingship and other indicators to suggest a late, post-exilic date for his ministry. The prevailing opinion places Joel some time in the first half of the fourth century BC.
If Joel had ever indeed witnessed an army equipped with chariots, that would argue strongly for an earlier date. Chariots were known during the reigns of Saul and David (1 Sam 8:11-12; 2 Sam 8:4), but the first Israelite king who made extensive use of them was apparently Solomon (21 Kgs 4:26). Chariot warfare is attested in the reigns of Joram of Judah (2 Kgs 8:21, mid-ninth century) and Hezekiah (2 Kgs 19:23, late eighth century). The Assyrians used chariot forces extensively at least through the reign of Ashurbanipal (mid-seventh century), and the Persians were still using them, mainly as command vehicles, in the fifth century.
The chariot’s heyday was well in the past, however, by Ashurbanipal’s time. According to Robert Drews, the end of the Bronze Age and beginning of the Iron Age marked a transition in military tactics away from large chariot forces to heavy infantry with mounted cavalry as support troops. In terms of conventional chronology, this transition would have begun some time in the period of the Judges (!), but in Jeremy Goldberg’s chronological revision would be around the reign of David and Solomon and in David Rohl’s “New Chronology” would fall some time in the late ninth or early eighth century‚Äîin harmony with the biblical evidence, it must be noted‚Äîmaking Ashurbanipal’s chariot troops only slightly behind the technological curve. In fact, Assyrians used heavy chariots much the way armored personnel carriers are used today: when engaged by the enemy, troops would dismount to fight on foot. (This is essentially how late Bronze Age Greeks used them in the Iliad as well.) As I noted above, Persian chariots were mainly used to transport officers; the era of their battlefield dominance had long since passed by the battle of Cunaxa.
The mention of chariots in Joel 2:5 therefore provides circumstantial evidence of an early date for the book, although it settles nothing in and of itself. It may have simply been a stock phrase from his preacher’s toolkit‚Äîmuch as I might describe putting on armor or other activities of which neither I nor anyone in my audience (outside the occasional historical reenacter) have firsthand experience.
