Bible Strands
Joel 3:18
And in that day the mountains will drip with sweet wine, and the hills will flow with milk. All the streams of Judah will run with water, and a spring will flow from the house of the LORD to water the Valley of Acacias.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Joel delivers this oracle concerning "that day" to Judah, immediately after declaring Jerusalem's permanent holiness and just before pronouncing desolation on Egypt and Edom.
The words — The Hebrew יִטּפוּ (yi.te.Fu) means "they will drip" and עָסִיס ('a.Sis) translates to "sweet wine," describing the mountains' output. The verb תּלכנה (te.Lakh.nah) renders "they will flow" or "they will go," applied to the hills and milk.
The thread — This motif of life-giving water originating from Jerusalem appears in Zechariah 14:8 and Ezekiel 47:1, where water issues from the temple threshold. Isaiah 35:6 similarly records water gushing in the wilderness, though it locates the phenomenon in the desert rather than the sanctuary.
Why it lands — The text asserts that divine presence will transform the land into a place of agricultural abundance and perpetual water supply. A reader must recognize that this physical fertility serves as the tangible proof of Judah's restored security and God's dwelling among them.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the valley of Shittim.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 35:6 Then the lame will leap like a deer and the mute tongue will shout for joy. For waters will gush forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.
- Ezekiel 47:1 Then the man brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and I saw water flowing from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar.
- Zechariah 14:8 And on that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it toward the Eastern Sea and the other half toward the Western Sea, in summer and winter alike.
- Revelation 22:1 Then the angel showed me a river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb
- Amos 9:13 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the plowman will overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes, the sower of seed. The mountains will drip with sweet wine, with which all the hills will flow.
- Numbers 25:1 While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with the daughters of Moab,
- Isaiah 30:25 And from every high mountain and every raised hill, streams of water will flow in the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall.
- Psalms 46:4 There is a river whose streams delight the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.
- Isaiah 41:17 The poor and needy seek water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. I, the LORD, will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
- Exodus 3:8 I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.