Joel 2:2

Joel 2:1 opens with two commands, “Blow ye the trumpet” (tâqaʻ) and “sound an alarm” (rûwaʻ). The trumpet is the shôwphâr, the ram’s horn, and its piercing blast was the sound Israel knew as a warning. Trumpets marked the new moons and feasts (Numbers 10:10) and gathered the assembly (Numbers 10:3), and Ehud blew one to call Israel out to battle (Judges 3:27). Here the blast is an alarm of war, and the danger is the LORD’s own day.

The LORD calls Zion “my holy mountain”, so the alarm sounds from Jerusalem and the temple mount, the spiritual and political heart of the nation. The warning goes first to God’s own people. Peter writes in the same spirit that “the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God” (1 Peter 4:17).

The people’s answer is to tremble. The verb râgaz means to quiver with any strong emotion, especially fear or anger, and here it is the shaking of people who know that the LORD is coming. Joel gives two reasons in one breath: the day “cometh” (bôwʼ), and it “is nigh at hand” (qârôwb). He had already cried over the locusts that “the day of the LORD is at hand” (Joel 1:15), after describing how they ruined the land (Joel 1:4–7). Now the alarm grows louder, because what the locusts began points to a reckoning that reaches every part of life.

The word yôwm means a day, and also a span of time, and “the day of the LORD” names the time when the LORD steps into history to judge sin and to establish his rule. It may run longer than one sunrise to the next. The name in the phrase is Yᵉhôvâh, the self-existent, eternal name of God and the name of Israel’s covenant God. The day is his, it comes when he decides, and it carries out his justice.

The prophets speak of this day with one voice. Amos warned those who longed for it: “Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light” (Amos 5:18–20). Zephaniah said that “the great day of the LORD is near” and called it “a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness” (Zephaniah 1:14–16), the very words of Joel 2:2. Malachi foretold Elijah’s coming “before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD” (Malachi 4:5).

For the unrepentant the day is darkness and wrath. For those who call on the LORD it holds deliverance, and Joel says so before this chapter ends: “whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered” (Joel 2:32). That is why the terror of these eleven verses turns at once into a call to fasting, weeping and prayer (Joel 2:12–17). “Nigh at hand” makes the day a present matter that calls for an answer now.

Joel draws this army from the locusts of the chapter before and describes it in the language of war, and in verse 11 Joel calls it “his army”. Joel 1 plainly describes a locust plague. In Joel 2 the same kind of ruin comes as “a great people and a strong”, with horses, chariots, battle array, mighty men, scaled walls and unbroken ranks, so the picture moves between the two through the whole of Joel 1–2. In Judah a swarm could strip a whole country of its crops and bring famine and ruin, and the law had named the locust among the curses that would follow disobedience (Deuteronomy 28:15–68).

Believers differ on what the army is. Some hold that it is the locust plague itself, described as an invading army to show how terrible it was. Some hold that Joel foretells a human invasion, such as the Assyrians or the Babylonians, pictured as a swarm to show its size and its power to consume. Others hold that the plague was real and was also a foretaste of a greater judgment, the final day of the LORD, so that the words reach past the locusts to that day. On every reading the army belongs to the LORD and carries out his word.

Scripture shows the LORD using armies in this way. He called Assyria “the rod of mine anger” (Isaiah 10:5–7), named Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon “my servant” (Jeremiah 25:9), raised up the Chaldeans to march through the breadth of the land (Habakkuk 1:5–11), and warned of a nation from far off that would eat up the harvest and the bread (Jeremiah 5:15–17). Whether he sends insects or soldiers, the LORD rules the forces that come against a land.

Joel heaps up four words for darkness in verse 2: chôshek (“darkness”), ʼăphêlâh (“gloominess”), ʻânân (“clouds”) and ʻărâphel (“thick darkness”). Chôshek is the plain absence of light, and the word also pictures misery, destruction, death, sorrow and wickedness. ʻĂrâphel is a dense gloom, and Scripture uses it for the awesome presence of God at Sinai, where “Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was” (Exodus 20:21) and the mountain burned “with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness” (Deuteronomy 4:11). So the darkness of this day is the darkness of God drawing near in judgment. It is real gloom over sky and land, like the darkness the LORD sent on Egypt (Exodus 10:21–23), and it is also the sign of his displeasure and of his favour withdrawn.

Then comes a picture of light. The army spreads “as the morning spread upon the mountains”. Dawn runs across the peaks swiftly and covers them all, and so this host spreads over the land and leaves every part of it touched.

The army is “a great people and a strong”. ʻAm is a people, a body gathered together, rab means great or many, and ʻâtsûwm means mighty, strong or numerous. The verse ends by setting this host apart from every other in history, past and to come, “even to the years of many generations”. Dôwr means a generation, and also a period or age, so the day becomes the measure that later generations remember.

Fire goes ahead of the army and flame follows it. The verb for “devoureth”, ʼâkal, means to eat, and figuratively to devour or consume, which suits an army that eats the land bare. Joel then sets two pictures side by side. Before them the land is “as the garden of Eden”, and behind them it is “a desolate wilderness”. The word gan is a garden, a fenced and tended place, and it calls to mind the garden God planted eastward in Eden (Genesis 2:8). The word midbâr is open country where cattle are driven, and so a desert. A land like paradise becomes waste in a single passing, “and nothing shall escape them.”

Isaiah speaks of the LORD’s comfort in the opposite direction: “he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD” (Isaiah 51:3). Judgment turns a garden into wilderness, and the LORD’s mercy turns wilderness back into a garden. Amos tells of one judgment after another that the LORD sent on Israel so that they would return to him (Amos 4:6–11), and Joel’s picture of ruin leads in the same way to his call to return.

In verse 4 Joel says how the army looks. Marʼeh, “appearance”, comes from the verb to see and means the look or form of a thing. Their look is the look of horses (çûwç), and they run (rûwts) like horsemen (pârâsh), a word for a horse or for a soldier riding one. Cavalry was the swiftest and most feared force in war, so the comparison makes the army fast, strong and impossible to outrun. John’s vision uses the same likeness: “the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle” (Revelation 9:7). The locusts the LORD brought on Egypt went up over all the land (Exodus 10:14), and Jeremiah heard the snorting of an enemy’s horses from Dan while the whole land trembled (Jeremiah 8:16).

Verse 5 turns to sound. The word qôwl, “noise”, is a voice or sound of any kind, from a whisper to thunder, and Joel uses it twice, for the noise of chariots and the noise of a flame. The army leaps (râqad) over the mountaintops with the rumble of chariots, crossing the heights as easily as level ground. The second sound is the crackle of a flame, lahab, a flash or blaze, joined to ʼêsh, fire, as it devours stubble, and dry stubble goes up at once. Jeremiah said an invader’s chariots would be “as a whirlwind” (Jeremiah 4:13), and Malachi says that the coming day “shall burn as an oven” and that all who do wickedly “shall be stubble” (Malachi 4:1).

Last, the army is “as a strong people set in battle array”. ʻÂtsûwm, “strong”, is the same word as in the “great people and a strong” of verse 2, and ʻam again is a people. “Set in battle array” joins ʻârak, to set in a row or put in order, to milchâmâh, battle or war. The roaring swarm is drawn up like soldiers in their lines.

Verse 6 turns from the army to the people who see it. “Before their face”, that is, at the army’s approach, “the people shall be much pained”. The verb chûwl means to twist or writhe in pain, especially the pain of childbirth, or in fear. Jeremiah uses the same picture of strong men holding themselves like a woman in labour (Jeremiah 30:6). Pânîym, “face”, comes twice in the verse. It is plural in form and always used as a singular, and its senses of surface, front and presence all grow from the face itself, where fear first shows. “All faces shall gather blackness” joins qâbats, to gather, to pâʼrûwr.

Verses 7 and 8 describe the army’s discipline. They run like gibbôwr, “mighty men”, the word for warriors and champions, and they climb the wall like “men of war” (ʼanshêy milchâmâh). The verb ʻâlâh is the plain word for going up, and the wall that guards a city is climbed like any slope. Each marches “on his ways”, and they keep their ranks. The word behind “ranks” is ʼôrach, a well-trodden road or path, also used of a company of travellers, so each holds to his own course.

Verse 8 adds, “Neither shall one thrust another”. Dâchaq means to press or crowd, and each moves with room to spare beside his neighbour. “They shall walk every one in his path”, and the word for path, mᵉçillâh, is a raised road or highway. A host so great moves in perfect order, as though one will directs every member, and in Joel’s picture one does, for verse 11 calls it “his army”. Even the sword is useless against them: “when they fall upon the sword, they shall not be wounded.” The verb bâtsaʻ means to break off or cut off, so they pass through the swords that meet them whole and unbroken. Human defence comes to nothing when the LORD sends his host.

In verse 9 the army reaches the city, ʻîyr, a word that pictures a place guarded by a watch. They “run to and fro” in it, shâqaq, a verb for coursing about like a beast of prey seeking greedily. They run along the wall, chôwmâh, the wall of protection that was a city’s chief defence, as though it were a road. They climb onto the houses, bayith, the shelter of each family. Last, “they shall enter in at the windows like a thief.” A window, challôwn, was smaller and set higher than a door, an unlikely way in, and the thief, gannâb, comes in uninvited and unseen. Every defence, from the city wall to the family’s inner room, gives way.

The thief became a picture of the Lord’s coming. Jesus told his disciples to be ready, since the goodman of the house would have watched if he had known when the thief would come (Matthew 24:43–44), and Paul wrote that “the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night” (1 Thessalonians 5:2–3).

In verse 10 creation itself answers. “The earth shall quake before them”: the verb is râgaz, the same verb used for the people’s trembling in verse 1, so the land shakes as its people do. “Before them” is pânîym again, the face or presence of the advancing host. “The heavens shall tremble” as well. The sun and moon “shall be dark”, qâdar, a verb meaning to be ashy or dark-coloured and so to mourn in sackcloth, as if the sky itself put on mourning. The stars “withdraw their shining”. ʼÂçaph is to gather or take away, and nôgahh is brightness, so the stars draw their light back in. Earth below and heaven above are shaken, and every light is dimmed.

The prophets use these signs when the LORD judges. Isaiah says that in the day of the LORD on Babylon “the sun shall be darkened in his going forth” (Isaiah 13:9–10). Ezekiel says that when the LORD puts out Egypt he will make the bright lights of heaven dark over it (Ezekiel 32:7–8), and Amos that the LORD will “cause the sun to go down at noon” (Amos 8:9).

Verse 11 shows who leads the army: “the LORD shall utter his voice before his army”. The word for voice is qôwl, the same word as the “noise” of chariots and flame in verse 5, and now the loudest sound in the passage is the LORD’s own voice. He speaks like a commander at the front of his troops. The word for army, chayil, means strength, ability, wealth or a host, and the locusts, the soldiers and every power in the passage are his to command.

Three reasons follow, each opening with “for” (kî): “his camp is very great”, “he is strong that executeth his word”, and “the day of the LORD is great and very terrible”. The one who carries out his word has the strength to do all that he says, and what he decrees comes to pass. “Terrible” comes from yârêʼ, to fear or to revere, so the day is greatly to be feared, and it shows his power, holiness and justice to all who fear him rightly.

The verse ends, “and who can abide it?” The verb kûwl means to contain or endure. Malachi asks the same of the LORD’s coming: “But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth?” (Malachi 3:2). In John’s vision the people of the earth cry, “For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” (Revelation 6:17), and Isaiah calls the day “cruel both with wrath and fierce anger” (Isaiah 13:6–9). The question expects the answer that by their own strength none can, and it leads straight into the verses where the LORD shows the way to stand.

The New Testament centres Joel’s day of the LORD on Christ. At Pentecost Peter quoted the promise of the Spirit from later in this chapter (Joel 2:28–29) and said, “this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:16–21). Christ’s first coming opened the last days with salvation for all who call on the Lord, and the full day Joel describes awaits his return, when he comes to judge the nations (Matthew 25:31–46) as the one “ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead” (Acts 10:42). Every knee will bow at his name (Philippians 2:9–11), and he comes as King of kings with the armies of heaven following him (Revelation 19:11–16). Joel’s trumpet looks ahead to the trump of God that sounds when the Lord himself descends from heaven (1 Thessalonians 4:16), and the sixth seal in Revelation brings the same earthquake and darkened sun, joined to “the wrath of the Lamb” (Revelation 6:12–17).

The answer to “who can abide it?” is given at the cross. When Jesus was crucified there was darkness over all the land from the sixth hour to the ninth (Matthew 27:45, Mark 15:33, Luke 23:44). There the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), bore God’s judgment against sin in our place. So Paul can say, “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him” (Romans 5:9), and that Jesus “delivered us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10). He is the light of the world (John 8:12), and the day that comes as a thief on the unready is, for those who are in him, a day of joyful deliverance.

His victory reaches every power that held us. He has bound the strong man (Mark 3:27), put away sin by the sacrifice of himself (Hebrews 9:26), spoiled principalities and powers (Colossians 2:15) and given us the victory over death (1 Corinthians 15:54–57). He is the child whose name is “The mighty God” (Isaiah 9:6), “the gates of hell shall not prevail against” his church (Matthew 16:18), and he cleanses it to present it to himself holy (Ephesians 5:25–27). The garden lost in Genesis 3, which Joel saw turned to wilderness, is restored in the new heavens and new earth “wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13), where God dwells with his people and “there shall be no more curse” (Revelation 21:1–4, Revelation 22:1–5).

The LORD has the alarm sounded before the day arrives, and that is his kindness. These verses tell the truth about him. He is holy, his strength carries out all that he says, the armies of the earth and the lights of heaven answer to him, and his day is great and very terrible. They ask the question that only he can answer, and he answers it in the next breath: “Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil” (Joel 2:12–13).

The God who leads the army is the God who calls his people back, and the same chapter goes on to promise his Spirit and deliverance for everyone who calls on his name. The trumpet in Zion was meant to send God’s people to him. The day too great for anyone to abide in his own strength is the day Christ has made safe for all who are his.