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.