why did the Phoenicians sell Jews as slaves?
They were merchants, and they apparently would buy and resell anybody as a slave. Joel is remarking on this, because the Phoenicians and Israelites was always allies and helped each other out before. Q: In Jo 3:6, does the mention of Jews among the Greek lands indicate a post-exilic date? A: No. Arvid S. Kapelrud mentions that there was an active slave trade in the 6th and 7th centuries B.C. (Joel Studies p.154-158). The Mycenean Greeks came to Greece a little before Moses time. Old Testament scholar Gleason Archer in Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties p.296 mentions that Greek coins from the late 6th century were found in Palestine from the issues of Peristratus, which would be prior to the exile. After listing numerous references to Greek mercenaries in Neo-Babylonian documents, he concludes “In light of such data as these, it is nothing short of naïve to suppose that a late ninth-century Joel could not have known anything about the Greeks, or to imagine that no slave-traders ever we
