The Valley of Jehoshaphat appears only once in the Bible, in the book of the prophet Joel, and it is not even known whether it is a real place.
In a prophetic vision, God announces that he will gather all the nations into this valley to judge them for how they treated Israel, scattering the people and dividing up their land.
Joel calls the same place the “valley of decision,” where the day of the Lord is near. The image is of multitudes gathered before God’s final judgment.
The biblical text does not indicate where this valley is located. Since the fourth century AD, a Christian tradition has identified it with the Kidron Valley, between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, but this is an association made after the text, not information given by Joel.
Many evangelical scholars understand that the prophet uses the name symbolically, to evoke God’s character as the righteous judge of the nations, rather than to point to an exact spot on the map.
The Valley of Jehoshaphat is a reminder that history is moving toward a final reckoning, in which God himself will sit to judge with justice everything the nations have done against his people.
