Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain; let all the inhabitants of the land tremble for the day of Jehovah cometh, for it is at hand;
This alarm is not about an enemy army only. It announces a day that belongs to God Himself. Which trumpet is this, and what is "the day of the LORD"?
The command to sound an alarm draws on the silver trumpets of Numbers, where each blast had a set purpose. ("Jehovah" below is God's name, printed as "the LORD" in the ESV.)
The trumpet was to be blown by the priests on two main occasions. One was for the journeying of the camps, and the other was for calling the assembly to the door of the tabernacle. If they went to war, they were to blow an alarm with the trumpets. Then Jehovah remembered them and saved them from their enemies. We might say, then, that this last blast was on the people's part, to bring in Jehovah. The more ordinary sounding was on Jehovah's part, to gather the people for their solemn feasts and sacrifices before their God.
Both uses appear in Joel, and the pattern carries into the New Testament:
The prophet Joel gives us an example of both. "Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on My holy mountain!" (Joel 2:1). Here a powerful adversary is in view, as the following verses show. But again, "Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly" (Joel 2:15). Here it is a matter of approaching God, as the next verses show. We find similar thoughts in the New Testament. 1 Corinthians 14:8 speaks of the alarm for conflict, so the trumpet must give no uncertain sound. In 1 Thessalonians 4:16, the trumpet of God sounds. It gathers the saints, dead or living, to meet the Lord when He comes again.
The alarm sounds on one mountain, and God's own words show why that place matters:
Jehovah says, "Zion and My holy mountain." He takes notice of it as His. He calls all the inhabitants of the land to tremble, for the day of Jehovah is coming… "Therefore," says Jehovah, "turn to Me." And the trumpet of alarm becomes (according to Numbers) a trumpet of summons, in Zion, to repentance and self-humbling between the porch and the altar.
What makes the day terrible is not the invader's strength but God behind him:
Jehovah's day was at hand. It was a day when not only enemies would be there. Jehovah too would remember Israel — not yet to save His people, but to use the foe as a whip against them. This might well be a note of alarm; Jehovah would not be absent. It was not merely the day of the Assyrian, but of Jehovah.
The expression runs right through the prophets:
The prophets speak of the day of the Lord again and again. It always has in view the day when the Lord steps in to judge the earth. That judgment leads on to the restoration of Israel and the blessing of the nations.
This day is not the same event as the Lord's coming to meet His people in the air:
The descent of the Lord Jesus into the air, and the taking up of the Church to meet Him there, is one thing. The day of the Lord, and its coming upon the ungodly like a thief in the night, is another thing. The one is all brightness and joy; the other is all gloom, and darkness, and terror.
The invasion looks like pure disaster. One detail turns it into ground for hope:
A great and strong people, who devour the earth, are in the land. Only one thing gives hope, and that one thing is in itself the most terrible of all: Jehovah leads this devouring people. It is His army. Faith takes hope from this. He who has recognised the trumpet of God… who has understood that it is God's judgment, that Jehovah is in it, can come before Jehovah according to His own ways. He can plead with Jehovah according to His love for His people.
Joel said the day was near. Kelly holds that the warning was not empty in Joel's own day, and that the same enemy power will return:
I answer that it did come in their day. The same Assyrian power, which came close upon the time of Joel, will reappear in the last days.
Yet the full day has still not come:
The prophet said "is at hand," but God's patience deferred its full execution, and defers it still.
And the alarm is not the end of the story:
Joel 2 will suffice to show that the trumpet is to be blown in Zion, and the alarm sounded because the day of the Lord is coming, bringing first judgment, then blessing. The people are to be gathered for fasting and repentance, and finally for blessing and glory on earth.
- Trumpet — Two blasts from Numbers meet here. One calls to battle. One gathers the people to God.
- Zion — God calls the mountain His own, so the warning becomes a call to turn back to Him.
- Tremble — The reason to tremble is not the invading army but the One who directs it. The day belongs to God, not to the enemy.
- Day — The day of the LORD is God stepping into world affairs to judge evil. It is a day of gloom and terror, not the bright hope held out to the Church.
- Hope — Because the army is His, faith can plead with Him. The alarm that opens in judgment ends in repentance, restoration and blessing.
a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and gross darkness, as the dawn spread upon the mountains; -- a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after them, to the years of generations and generations.
Joel describes what is coming: darkness piled on darkness, and behind it a vast force spreading over the mountains. Two questions follow. Is this still the locust plague of chapter 1? And is this dark day the event Christians are waiting for?
Chapter 1 described real insects stripping the land. Kelly explains why chapter 2 turns from those facts to a heavier warning.
In Joel 2 the prophet leaves the literal locusts behind (except of course in the blessing of verse 25, which reverses everything). He goes forward to what the locusts stood for. So the first chapter gives us actual facts, and nothing more: the various creatures that damaged every plant in the land... From verse 15 God uses them as an introduction, to warn His people of a still greater and more serious burden.
The gloom described here is often confused with the moment when Christ comes for His own. Kelly rules that out on the plain sense of the words.
But that day surely comes — "a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness." It is impossible to apply this to the Lord's coming to receive His saints caught up to meet Him... Will His presence, which gathers us to Him above, be in any way "a day of gloom and thick clouds"? The confusion is an obvious blunder. And there is more. His presence is never called His "day." I have no doubt why. The idea of His "day" always assumes that He is displayed openly to the world.
Does the spreading light belong to the army or to the day? Commentators have taken it both ways.
The second verse describes the day, and you can compare it with Zephaniah 1:15-16 and Isaiah 60:2. The words, "As the dawn spread upon the mountains," describe the day and not the army, as some have taken it. On the one hand the day of the Lord is a day of darkness and gloom. On the other hand it is "like the dawn spread upon mountains." After the darkness, the morning light will break — "the morning without clouds" (2 Samuel 23:4).
Translations differ here too. The ESV reads "like blackness there is spread upon the mountains." Older versions read "as the morning spread upon the mountains."
Kelly names this army. He also explains why the picture goes far beyond anything Joel's own people saw.
Next we have a most graphic description of the Assyrian army... In this vivid sketch an unequalled army comes up against the land. No doubt the prophecy goes beyond what attacked the Jews at that time. That is, we must take in the whole view — the past now prominent, the future still more serious behind it — to meet the full strength of the divine words... But the future day will see a far more terrible host.
The past invader becomes the model for the last one.
Many armies in past history have occupied the land of Israel and wasted it, but here is the coming great invasion from the north. The prophet Isaiah mentions this invasion too. The Assyrian who came in Isaiah's day to take Jerusalem is the pattern of the final Assyrian. That last invader threatens the land and the people with destruction.
Joel says no generation has ever seen its equal. So where does this day sit, and what comes after it?
The second chapter takes us at once to the end of the times of the nations, when the day of the Lord takes place. Before the Lord appears in that day, the greatest distress will fall on the land and the people. There will be a great time of trouble such as never was before (Matthew 24:21). The remnant of His people will cry to the Lord to step in and deliver them. The Lord will answer their cry and deliver them. Then their land becomes once more like the garden of Eden. God will pour out His Spirit on all flesh, and from Jerusalem blessing will extend to all the nations.
The point of the warning is not despair. It is the appeal that follows a few verses later.
Joel 2 speaks of "a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness." In view of that day he urges the people to "turn to the LORD your God, for He is... of great kindness." Blessing is in His heart for His people, The verses that follow show what His kindness provides for a nation that turns back.
- Alarm — the warning is of a day worse than the locusts. The insects of chapter 1 were the picture; this day is the thing itself.
- Darkness — clouds and thick darkness mark the day of the Lord. It is God's judgment shown openly on earth, not the moment when Christ gathers His own to Himself above.
- Army — commentators read the great and strong people as the invader from the north. The Assyrian of Isaiah's day is the pattern of the last one.
- Unequalled — nothing like this has come before, and nothing will come after. It is the one great time of trouble, and it ends with a remnant's cry and God's answer.
- Kindness — God warns early so the nation will turn back to Him. The same chapter promises a land restored like the garden of Eden.
A fire devoureth before them, and behind them a flame burneth; the land is as a garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness yea, and nothing escapeth them.
Joel pictures an army that burns rich farmland into bare ground as it passes. Fire runs ahead of it, flame follows behind, and nothing is left. The question every reader faces is who this army is, and why God should let it loose on His own land.
Joel's hearers had just lived through a disaster. Insects had stripped the country bare, and God used that plague to speak of a far greater day.
Countless armies of insects invaded the land, and food ran short as never before. The Spirit of God uses that moment to wake the people up to the day of Jehovah. That great and terrible day was still to come, and in it He would display His power in judgment. He had shown long patience. At last He would step in to clear the glory of His name from the reproach that the sin of His people had brought on it. He would also take vengeance on all that lifted itself up against Him.
The language stretches past any army Joel could point to. It makes the reader look at two things at once.
This vivid sketch pictures an unmatched army coming up against the land. No doubt the prophecy goes beyond what attacked the Jews in Joel's day. We must take in the whole view to meet the full strength of these divine words. It is like a double star: the past event now stands out in front, and the graver future lies behind it. The Assyrian was a most formidable force at that time. Yet after all their boastful insolence, a single night wiped them out, and Sennacherib went home in disgrace, plainly and by his own confession beaten. But the future day will see a far more appalling host.
The two halves of the verse show the same land from two ends of the same march. One writer takes the "garden of Eden" side as a land already built up and prospering.
This army of Israel's enemies finds the land like the garden of Eden. Political Zionism has restored it, watering the fields and farming them. The Jews are at it now, determined to make Palestine the garden-spot of the world, their Eden, as it has been said. Then comes the rude awakening. They thought themselves safe. They had made their plans without trusting in the Lord and without true repentance. Yet they dreamed that those plans had fully succeeded. But now the greatest trouble of their long history of blood and tears is at hand. The land is once more stripped of its beauty.
Commentators differ on whether Joel still has real locusts in view here. Either way, "nothing escapes them" points past appetite to who commands the march.
The locusts have no king, says Agur, yet they all go out by bands (Prov. 30:27). A recent observer puts it like this: "Nothing in their habits is more striking than the stubbornness with which they all keep to the same line of march, like a disciplined army." This built-in discipline, under a king no one can see, shows whose hosts they are and who marshals them. "His army," the Lord calls them (Joel 2:11)... To fight them is hopeless, and the destruction they cause is total.
Because the army belongs to God, His purpose sets the limit of what it can do. The proud force doing the damage is itself on a short leash.
Though proud, fierce and ungodly, they are still the means God will use to punish His people Israel. They will cover the land like swarming parasites. At the very least, they will bring Israel to her knees before God. Once that is done, the Lord Himself will judge these Gentile nations without sparing them. He will deliver the afflicted children of Judah and Israel.
The prophecy does not stop with a land turned to desert. It ends the other way round.
The remnant of His people will cry to the Lord to step in and rescue them. The Lord will answer their cry and deliver them. Then their land becomes once more like the garden of Eden. There will be a great outpouring of the Spirit on all flesh. From Jerusalem, the great centre of the kingdom, blessings will reach all the nations.
- Occasion. A real swarm stripped a real country, and God used that visible disaster to wake His people up to the day of the Lord.
- Scale. The words outrun Joel's own century: the Assyrian of his day was terrible, but the army still to come is worse.
- Ownership. The destroyer marches in ranks under an unseen King — He calls it "His army," which is why nothing escapes it.
- Purpose. The invader is a rod, not a ruler; God uses it to bring Israel to her knees, then judges it.
- Reversal. Eden turned wilderness is the middle of the story, not the end. The same land becomes a garden again when the people cry to the Lord.
The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so they run.
Joel describes the coming invader with one comparison: it looks like cavalry and it charges like cavalry. So what is he pointing at? Is it the swarm of insects stripping the land in his own day, or something far worse still ahead?
Joel's first chapter deals with a real plague of insects. By chapter two, commentators say, those insects stand for something else.
These were real locusts. They fell on the land and destroyed all its plant life in a short time. But they also stand for other instruments God would use later in Israel's history to bring judgment on the land and the people. They picture the armies of the nations, as the second chapter shows, where the Lord calls them "My great army."
This picture of horses on the charge sits inside a description far larger than anything the people had yet faced. One writer reads the passage as double: a nearer fulfilment with a graver one behind it.
Next we have a most graphic description of the Assyrian army… "Their appearance is like the appearance of horses, and like war horses they run." This vivid sketch pictures an army without equal coming up against the land. No doubt the prophecy goes beyond what attacked the Jews at that time. We must take in the whole prospect… to meet the full strength of the divine expressions. The Assyrian was a most formidable force. Yet after all their boastful insolence they were destroyed in a single night. Sennacherib returned in disgrace, beaten in plain sight, and he knew it and owned it. But the future day will see a far more appalling host.
Prophets often use one event in two ways at once.
Here we find an example of what is usual in prophetic teaching. The Spirit of prophecy takes up some event that should act on the conscience of the people. No doubt this was meant to wake their conscience at the very time of the event. But it was meant far more to use that event as a picture of some event in the last days of much greater weight.
The comparison to war horses is not only about speed. Locusts move in an order that looks trained, and that order tells you who commands them.
"The locusts have no king," Agur says in Proverbs, "yet all of them march in rank." (Prov. 30:27.) One observer writes: "Nothing in their habits is more striking than the way they all keep to the same line of march, like a disciplined army." This built-in discipline, under a king no one can see, shows whose hosts they are and who marshals them: "His army," the Lord calls them. (Joel 2:11.)
If the advancing host belongs to God, then the people are not at the mercy of blind force. That one fact is what makes prayer possible.
A great and strong people, who devour the earth, are in the land. There is but one thing that gives hope (and that one is in itself the most terrible thing of all) — Jehovah conducts this devouring people. It is His army. Faith takes hope from this. Think of the person who has recognised the trumpet of God… who has understood that this is God's judgment and that Jehovah is in it. He can come before Jehovah according to His own ways. He can plead with Jehovah according to His love for His people.
Later Scripture borrows Joel's locust army. What it borrows is the helplessness and the sheer number, not the crop damage.
The figure of locusts is probably taken from the prophecy of Joel. There the Lord calls them His "great army," and the prophet describes their ruin of the land in powerful terms… The air grows dark with their vast numbers as they approach, and no green thing escapes their hunger. Their overwhelming numbers, and man's complete helplessness before them, seem to be the features in view. Their action is quite different from real locusts, which cause no torment to man.
- Plague. Real locusts stripped the land in Joel's day and destroyed every green thing in a short time.
- Picture. God then uses that disaster as a portrait of a later, greater invasion. The near event carries a far one.
- Parade. They run "like war horses," in ranks that never break. Creatures with no king still keep formation, and that points to an unseen Commander.
- Possession. He calls the destroyer "My army." That God directs it is the most frightening fact in the chapter, and the only ground of hope in it.
- Plea. Faith that recognises God's hand in the trouble comes to Him and pleads for His people.
Like the noise of chariots, on the tops of the mountains, they leap; like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array.
Joel stacks up three pictures of what is coming. There is a sound like chariots over the hilltops, a crackle like fire in dry stalks, and a mass moving in ranks like an army. The real question is not what makes the noise, but who is behind it.
Chapter 2 still has the locust plague in view. But one writer shows how Joel's wording reaches further than insects.
I have no doubt that Joel means the damage done by locusts; but the way he says it is unusual... If the ants could be called a "people," the locusts could certainly be called a "nation." The wording also opens the way to something more... Joel treats the plague of his own day as a fact. At the same time he uses language that leads easily on to a prediction: a nation that would treat the Jews in a way never seen before. There need be no doubt that this nation is the Assyrian.
The verse ends by comparing the swarm to soldiers in formation. What makes them look like an army is their discipline. That discipline points past the insects to the One who marshals them.
Man may have departed from God and become hostile to Him. But nature, in its whole framework, obeys Him and serves Him still. So the sinner finds himself in a stream of hostile forces, the hosts of the Lord. The army of locusts is a vivid picture of them... One observer says that nothing in their habits is more striking than the way they all keep to the same line of march, like a disciplined army. This instinctive discipline, under an invisible king, shows whose hosts they are and who is marshalling them: "His army," the Lord calls them. To fight against them is hopeless, and the destruction they cause is total.
If the army belongs to God, then the invasion is not random and not outside His reach.
A great and strong people, who devour the earth, are in the land. There is only one thing that gives hope (and that one thing is in itself the most terrible of all) — the LORD leads this devouring people. It is His army. Faith takes hope from this. The one who has recognised the trumpet of God has understood that this is God's judgment, and that the LORD is in it. That person can come before the LORD according to His own ways, and plead with Him according to His love for His people. This is the true character of faith in all times.
The picture of this advancing army is not given for its own sake. The chapter tells the people what to do about it.
The army of insects is still in view, but it looks forward to the future, when God will bring His judgments upon the land. The army is His, and the camp is His: the day of the LORD is great and very terrible. God calls the people to repentance — to tear their hearts and not their clothes — for He is merciful and gracious... God will hear, and will destroy their enemies, above all the northern army, and He will bring His people into great blessing.
In the verse, the words "drawn up for battle" describe God's instrument of judgment. One writer applies the same picture to believers, quoting an older translation of the phrase.
How good it would be if people could say the same of us in a spiritual sense: "a strong people set in battle array" (Joel 2:5).
- Sound. The verse opens with noise — chariots over the hills, fire in dry stubble. Joel describes a swarm of insects in the language of war.
- Order. What makes locusts terrifying is not their size but their formation. They keep the same line of march like a disciplined army, and fighting them is hopeless.
- Owner. That discipline points to an invisible commander. The Lord calls it "His army," so the invasion is not chaos but judgment.
- Hope. The most frightening fact is the only hopeful one. Because the Lord leads this army, faith can go to Him and plead His love for His people.
- Response. God asks for torn hearts, not torn clothes. The same God who sends this army will destroy the enemies of His people and bring them into great blessing.
Before them the peoples are in anguish all faces turn pale.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
They run like mighty men; they climb the wall like men of war; and they march every one on his ways, and break not their ranks.
Joel describes an advance that nothing can stop. This army scales walls, holds its line, and never turns aside. Commentators ask two questions about it: who are these marchers, and whose orders do they follow?
Chapter 1 describes a locust plague that had already stripped the land. In chapter 2 the language shifts. The prophet keeps the locust imagery, but points at a human invader — the nation of Assyria.
There need be no doubt that the nation in question is the Assyrian. The first chapter starts with the repeated and dreadful damage the locusts did in the prophet's day. But it looks on to the trouble of a terrible day. The second chapter mentions no such destruction by insects. It mixes pictures taken from them with the Assyrian who was sure to come up.
Another writer traces the same shift, and adds where this invader comes from and what follows his arrival.
The locusts appear no longer as a scourge of literal insects; they become typical of an invading army. This hostile army invades the land from the North and makes the land a wilderness. An alarm sounds in Zion, and the people repent.
Joel dwells on formation, not size: each one holds his own line. A locust swarm moves the same way, and one writer says that order gives away who commands them.
"The locusts have no king," says Agur, "yet they all march out in bands" (Prov. 30:27). One observer says that nothing in their habits is more striking than the determination with which they all keep the same line of march, like a disciplined army. This instinctive discipline, under an invisible king, shows whose hosts they are and under whose command. The Lord calls them "His army" (Joel 2:11). To fight against them is hopeless, and the destruction they cause is total.
These marchers follow orders. One writer names the commander, and finds in Him the only hope left.
A great and strong people, who devour the earth, are in the land. Only one thing gives hope. That one thing is itself the most terrible of all: Jehovah leads this devouring people. It is His army. Faith takes hope from this. The one who has understood that this is God's judgment, that Jehovah is in it, can come before Jehovah according to His own ways. He can plead with Jehovah according to His love for His people.
The invader has no idea that God is using him.
Not that he is conscious of being an instrument of chastening. He understands this no more than the Assyrian of old, who was in fact the rod of Jehovah's anger (Isa. 10:5-7). It is his lust for power and conquest that sets his forces in motion, yet Jehovah is pleased to call them "His army" (Joel 2:11).
Serving God's purpose protects no one. The axe that carries out the sentence falls under sentence itself.
In this remarkable way the prophet mixes the name and day of Jehovah with the Assyrians. He employed them at that time to do His work. Isaiah 10 calls the same enemy "the rod of his anger," and "the axe" that boasted over Him who cut with it. Surely then the Lord Jehovah will turn against that axe and destroy it. He will use it to carry out His purposes on a guilty people.
The same order carries a lesson for the church, whose Head is also unseen.
They need no king and no brilliant leader to organize them. Yet the order of their camp is more exact and more unified than the world's best-organized army. God has given them this wise instinct. Alone, the little locust is nearly helpless; in bands they are almost unbeatable. Christ, the Head of the body, the church, is in glory today, the only Head. But if He is not seen, is He any less able to direct His saints in godly unity?
- Picture. A real locust plague gives Joel his words. The marching ranks of verse 7 point on to an invading army from the north.
- Discipline. The unbroken line of march shows an unseen commander. Creatures with no king move as one because God orders their march.
- Ownership. God calls this destroying host "His army." That is the most terrifying fact in the chapter, and the only ground for hope. Faith can plead with the God whose judgment it is.
- Ignorance. The invader marches for his own ambition and never suspects he is a rod in God's hand.
- Reversal. God uses the enemy against His people, then turns on the enemy. The axe that boasts over the One who swings it is broken in the end.
Neither doth one press upon another; they march every one in his path; and fall amid weapons, but are not wounded.
Joel pictures an invading army in perfect order: nothing breaks its ranks, and no weapon turns it back. Who commands such a host, and why does God let it reach His own land?
The locust supplies the image. It moves with an order it never learned, and each one keeps its own line without crowding the next. Commentators say that order shows who is directing it.
"The locusts have no king," says Agur, "yet they all go out in ranks" (Prov. 30:27). One observer says that nothing in their habits is more striking than the way they all keep to the same line of march, like a disciplined army. This instinctive discipline, with an invisible king, shows whose hosts they are and who is marshalling them: "His army," the Lord calls them (Joel 2:11).
The lesson drawn from this is not about insects but about resisting God.
So nature, with its laws, serves the Law-giver, and woe to those who fight against their God. They are hopelessly in the grip of destructive forces. Those forces fully acknowledge the God these people refuse — they are the disciplined hosts of the Lord of Hosts. An insect can teach us this, if only we have hearts to learn the lesson.
Commentators read the marching columns of chapter 2 as a picture of a human army invading from the north.
An unequalled famine had come, caused by the invasion of countless armies of insects. The Spirit of God uses that opportunity to wake the people up about the day of Jehovah… The rod of Jehovah set before us here is the northern army — the same one we so often find in the prophets — the Assyrian. But in the end it is God Himself who steps in. After chastening His people by means of this enemy, He destroys him and judges all the nations gathered around Jerusalem.
The description outruns anything Judah had seen. Sennacherib's Assyrians were terrifying, yet they fell in a single night. The full weight of Joel's words still lies ahead.
The Assyrian then was a most formidable force. Yet after all their boastful insolence they were destroyed so completely in a single night that Sennacherib went home in disgrace. He was clearly beaten, he knew it, and he admitted it. But the future day will see a far more appalling host.
The ESV says they "burst through the weapons and are not halted." Older versions speak of falling on the sword without a wound. Behind that line stands a Hebrew word for a thrown weapon.
shelach, a missile of death, like a dart. Job 33:18; Job 36:12; Joel 2:8.
One translation keeps that literal sense. It shows a column marching straight down the open road:
Nor does one press on another. A mighty one marches in the high road. They fall upon the dart, but are not wounded.
The passage keeps moving between the invaders and the Lord whose day it is. That carries a warning for the invader.
In this remarkable way the prophet mixes the name and day of Jehovah with the Assyrians He was then using to do His work. Isaiah 10 calls the same enemy "the rod of His anger," "the axe" that boasted against Him who was cutting with it. Surely then the Lord Jehovah will turn against that axe and destroy it.
The unstoppable march is not the end of the story. It has a purpose for the people it overruns.
The Lord uses these destructive hosts to humble His people. When this great calamity is upon them, He shows them that He is their help.
So the description runs straight into an appeal:
After this we find the practical appeal to repent. "Therefore also now, says Jehovah, turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Tear your hearts, not your clothes. Turn to Jehovah your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and relents from sending disaster."
- Ranks. Creatures with no king march like trained soldiers. The unbroken formation points to an unseen Commander marshalling them.
- Owner. The Lord calls this force "His army." Those who fight God are gripped by forces that obey the God they refuse.
- Invader. Commentators read the locust column as a picture of the northern army, the Assyrian — the rod in God's hand.
- Unstoppable. They fall on the thrown weapon and are not wounded. No defence turns aside a judgment God sends.
- Purpose. The rod humbles the people so they learn that He is their help. Then God breaks the rod that boasts against Him.
They spread themselves over the city; they run upon the wall; they climb up into the houses; they enter in by the windows like a thief.
Joel 2:9 ends a picture of attackers who cross a walled city as if it had no walls. Commentators read the scene on two levels. One is a swarm of locusts stripping the land in Joel's own day. Behind it stands a far greater invader still to come.
Chapter 1 records what actually happened to the land. Chapter 2 puts the same picture to a second use.
Swarms of locusts had fallen on the land and stripped it of everything green... Then the vision widens in the second chapter. The locusts appear no longer as a scourge of literal insects; they become typical of an invading army. This hostile army invades the land from the north and makes the land a wilderness.
The details in verse 9 — city, wall, houses, windows — fit warfare more than farming. Writers see a habit of prophecy at work here.
Here we see what is usual in prophetic teaching. Some event takes place that should work on the conscience of the people. The Spirit of prophecy takes it up, no doubt to awaken their conscience at the very time of the event. But He does so far more in order to use it as a picture of some event in the last days of much greater importance.
Kelly tests the picture against a plain fact of nature. It points past the insects to a person.
Everyone agrees that "the northern" does not mean an invasion of locusts, for locusts come from the south. It is the great enemy of the last day. He will not perish in the sea, as those insects normally do. He will be driven into a barren and desolate land, with his face toward the east or Dead Sea, and his back toward the far or Mediterranean Sea.
Kelly names the power God used in Joel's own day, and shows how it ends. (The writers use "Jehovah," the personal name of God.)
In this remarkable way the prophet mixes the name and day of Jehovah with the Assyrians, whom He used at that time to do His work. Isaiah 10 calls the same enemy "the rod of His anger," and "the axe" that boasted over Him who cut with it. Surely then the Lord Jehovah will turn against that axe and destroy it.
What makes verse 9 frightening is not size but order. Writers read that discipline as proof of an unseen commander.
"The locusts have no king," says Agur, "yet all of them march in rank." (Prov. 30:27.) A recent observer says this: "Nothing in their habits is more striking than the way they all keep the same line of march, like a disciplined army." They hold this discipline by instinct, under an invisible king. It shows whose hosts they are, and under whose command: "His army," the Lord calls them. (Joel 2:11.)
The same fact that makes the invasion hopeless is the one opening for faith.
There is only one thing that gives hope (and that one thing is in itself the most terrible of all) — Jehovah leads this devouring people. It is His army. Faith takes hope from this... The one who has understood that this is God's judgment, that Jehovah is in it, can come before Jehovah in keeping with His ways. He can plead with Jehovah on the ground of His love for His people.
Windows and walls are the ordinary marks of safety, and the verse shows both useless. Gaebelein applies this to a people who felt secure in what they had built.
This army of Israel's enemies finds the land like the garden of Eden... Then comes the rude awakening. They thought they were safe. They dreamed that their plans had fully succeeded — plans made without trusting in the Lord and without true repentance. But now the greatest trouble of their long history of blood and tears is at hand.
Darby draws the practical point. A judgment announced ahead of time has a purpose.
The day of Jehovah is hanging over them, and the Spirit of prophecy gives the insight to understand what it means. So it becomes a call to repentance at the moment when repentance is necessary — the moment appointed by God to step in at once on behalf of His people. These are the ways of God. He knows the moment. He acts openly to force His people to take notice, and He acts in testimony to direct their hearts.
- Swarm. A real locust plague in Joel's day is the starting point. From chapter 2 the insects picture an invading army from the north.
- Rod. The invader is God's instrument, not God's rival — the same "rod" that God will turn against for its boasting.
- Reach. Wall, housetop and window fall in turn. The ordered advance marks it as an army under an unseen King.
- Refuge. Prosperity and planning give no shelter. The invader finds a land like Eden and leaves a wilderness.
- Return. The warning comes so hearts will turn. The very fact that God leads the army gives faith a place to plead.
The earth quaketh before them; the heavens tremble; the sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.
Joel 2 opens with a trumpet blast in Zion: the day of the Lord is near. Verse 10 shows what happens as the army of verses 3–9 advances, and it raises two questions: who are they, and is the darkness literal?
The words "before them" point back to the invaders of the previous verses. One writer ties the alarm and the invasion together, and calls that invading army God's own.
Joel 2:1 sounds the alarm, because the day is near. The day is then described as the invasion of a people such as Israel and the land had never seen. It was, in fact, the army of Jehovah. His power was with it as His rod. The voice of Jehovah was heard before it; the day of Jehovah announced itself as there.
The prophet's language moves back and forth between the human invader and the God who sends him.
In this remarkable way the prophet blends the name and day of Jehovah with the Assyrians, whom He used at that time to do His work. The same enemy is called in Isaiah 10 "the rod of his anger," "the axe" that boasted against the One who chops with it. Surely therefore the Lord Jehovah will turn against that axe and destroy it.
Chapter 1 described real swarms of insects stripping the land. By chapter 2 the picture has shifted.
In Joel 2 the literal locusts are left behind, and the prophet goes forward to that which the locusts represented. So the first chapter gives us plain facts: nothing but the various creatures that destroyed all the plants of the land. From verse 15 God uses them to introduce a warning to His people about a still greater and weightier burden.
Some commentators read the darkened sun, moon and stars as a picture of power, not of the sky. The verse moves from the greatest light down to the lesser ones.
These images mean the overthrow of the powers of the earth by great social and political upheavals. The sun, the supreme authority, goes dark. The lesser powers, the moon and stars, are either shaken or completely overthrown.
Not every writer settles the question. One leaves it open, and still places the upheaval just before the Lord appears.
It seems to me that these changes, whether physical or political, take place not long before the Lord is revealed from heaven for all to see. Remember what this time is like. Unbelief is thriving in the earth, people make a god of man, and they deny the only Lord God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. In this way we can see how God will rebuke and confuse the wisdom of the wise by such terrible upheavals.
Joel's image did not stay in Joel. It became the standard language for the day when God takes over the government of the world.
Sun — supreme rule as appointed by God, whether in blessing or in judgment. The full reality will come when Christ, the Sun of righteousness, takes His great power and reigns. Joel 2:10 is quoted in Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, Acts 2, Revelation 6:12 and Revelation 8:12. In all of these the idea is supreme rule in the sphere spoken of.
The chapter turns next from terror to a call to come back to God.
So right after this comes the practical appeal to repent. "Yet even now, declares the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love."
Verse 2 pictures light spreading over the mountains, though some translations read it as blackness. One writer ties that line to the day itself, not to the army.
The words, "As the dawn spread upon the mountains," are a description of the day and not of the army, as some have taken it. On the one hand the day of the Lord is a day of darkness and gloom, on the other hand it is "like the dawn spread upon mountains." After the darkness, the morning light will break "the morning without clouds."
- Alarm — The trumpet of verse 1 sets the tone. Nothing in verse 10 is an accident; the day of the Lord is arriving.
- Army — The prophet calls the invaders who make the earth quake God's own army, His rod. He uses the axe, then judges the axe for boasting.
- Advance — Chapter 2 leaves the real locusts of chapter 1 behind and uses them as a picture of a far greater invader still to come.
- Authority — Sun, moon and stars stand for higher and lower rule, so their darkening pictures a collapse of government. Commentators differ over how physical the signs will be.
- Appeal — The shaking aims at the heart: "rend your hearts and not your garments." Morning without clouds follows this darkness.
And Jehovah uttereth his voice before his army; for his camp is very great; for strong is he that executeth his word for the day of Jehovah is great and very terrible; and who can bear it?
Joel 2:11 is the peak of the prophet's alarm: the LORD Himself leads the army sweeping the land, and His voice goes before it. That one fact turns disaster into a summons — and it raises the verse's closing question: who can endure it?
The alarm in Zion goes back to an old command, and the terror of the picture rests on who leads the army:
Numbers 10:9 commands Israel to blow the trumpets loudly and sound an alarm when the enemy is in the land, and then Jehovah will remember them. So in Joel 2:1 the alarm sounds in Zion. A great and strong people, who devour the earth, are in the land. There is only one thing that gives hope — and that one thing is in itself the most terrible thing of all — Jehovah leads this devouring people. It is His army. Faith takes hope from this. Anyone who has recognised the trumpet of God, anyone the Spirit of prophecy has awakened when it sounded the alarm... anyone who has understood that this is God's judgment, that Jehovah is in it — that person can come before Jehovah according to His own ways. He can plead with Jehovah according to His love for His people. This is the true character of faith in all times.
Why call locusts an army at all? Their order shows who marshals them, even while man is in revolt:
Man may have departed from God and become hostile to Him, but nature in its whole framework is obedient, and serves Him still. So the sinner finds himself in a stream of hostile forces. They are the hosts of the Lord, and the army of locusts is a vivid picture of them. "The locusts have no king," says Agur, "yet all of them march in rank" (Prov. 30:27)... This instinctive discipline, with an invisible king, shows whose hosts they are — under whose marshalling: "His army," the Lord calls them. Fighting them is hopeless, and the destruction they cause is total.
The chapter works on two levels: the locust plague itself, and the far larger invasion it pictures. One writer names the enemy still to come:
Many armies in past history have occupied the land of Israel and laid it waste, but here is the coming great invasion from the north. This invasion is mentioned in the prophet Isaiah also. The Assyrian who came in Isaiah's day to take Jerusalem is the type of the final Assyrian who threatens the land and the people with destruction.
The famine of chapter 1 announced the day; it was not the day itself:
Reading the prophecy, you can see that it separates two things: the famine that led up to the day of Jehovah, and that day itself. Just compare Joel 1:15 with Joel 2:1, 11.
The strength in this verse is the strength that makes God's word come true. What follows is not more threat but an invitation:
Jehovah utters His voice before His army. He is strong who carries out His word: "For the day of the LORD is great and very awesome; who can endure it?" "Therefore," says Jehovah, "turn to Me." So the trumpet of alarm becomes, as Numbers 10 directs, a trumpet that summons Zion to repentance and humiliation between the porch and the altar. And the Lord rouses Himself to act for His people... He is jealous for His land, and pities His people.
The closing question has an answer, and it is one to settle before the day comes:
Who can endure it? Only a saint. I urge you, sinner, not to risk it.
Another writer asks the same question and rules out the credentials people trust:
When the great day of His wrath has come, who will be able to stand? Who? The great, the mighty, the noble of the earth? Who? The well-disposed, the upright, the moral? Only those who are redeemed "with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish or spot."
The day no one can endure is also Israel's day of rescue:
There could be only one such time; none is to be like it. Still, it is the day of deliverance for Israel: "Strangers shall no more make a servant of him, but they shall serve the LORD their God and David their king [Christ]... but I will by no means leave you unpunished" (Jer. 30:8-9, 11). These promises have plainly never come true yet, for it will be a final deliverance.
- Whose army. The LORD calls the invading host His army — the terror of the verse and its only hope are one fact: God is in it.
- Whose word. The strength on display is the strength that carries out what God has said; creation obeys Him even while man does not.
- Whose call. The trumpet of alarm becomes a trumpet of summons: "Therefore turn to Me."
- Whose shelter. "Who can endure it?" rules out the great, the moral and the upright. Only those redeemed by the blood of Christ can stand.
- Whose day. The day none can endure is also Israel's final deliverance — judgment and rescue come together.