Expositor's Dictionary of Texts - Joel 2:1-32
Conversion (Ash Wednesday) Joel 2:12 A great national calamity, either impending or just passed, was the occasion of the prophecy of Joel. It is traceable to national sin, and its remedy is national repentance. The words of our text bring before us a matter which is peculiarly fit for Ash Wednesday consideration the doctrine of Conversion; for conversion is the first step in that life of penitence to which Lent calls us. But conversion is a subject about which there is much misunderstanding. ... read more
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Joel 2:20
(20) The northern army.—Literally, him of the north. “This is an exception to the usual direction of the flight of locusts” (Stanley, Jewish Church), but it may be literally applied to the Assyrian hordes, whom the Jews generally spoke of as dwelling in the north. In Jeremiah 1:13 the symbolical caldron is represented as pouring its contents (the Chaldæan army) southwards from the face of the north. And even though the wind might be conceived as capriciously blowing the locusts from the north,... read more