Joel 2:1-3

1. By the blowing of the horn the priests are to warn the people (Amos 3:6) of the near approach of the day of Jehovah and to gather them into the temple to pray. The latter thought is not expanded until Joel 2:15.

Trumpet Better, horn. See on cornet, Hosea 5:8. Evidently the priests are addressed, which would indicate that the signal was intended also to summon the people to worship. Before speaking of the latter the prophet describes the calamity that calls for penitence and prayer.

Zion One of the hills on which Jerusalem stood. First mentioned as a Jebusite fortress which David captured, and whose name he changed into City of David. Its exact location is still a matter of dispute. Christian tradition identifies it with the southwest spur, but it was more likely in the southeast. After the building of the temple the name was extended so as to include the temple hill; so here. The signal is to be given from the top of the temple mount, so as to be heard far and wide.

Holy mountain Called holy because it was separated as the dwelling place of the Holy One of Israel (Psalms 2:6; see on Hosea 11:9; Zechariah 14:20).

Tremble It is high time to awake from careless indifference, for this is not an ordinary calamity; it forebodes the near approach of the day of Jehovah (Joel 1:15).

In order to make more effective the appeal which is to follow, the prophet pictures in 2ff. the terror of the day as signalized by the present calamity. The first half of the verse is closely connected with Joel 2:1, it describes the day as a day of darkness… gloominess… clouds… thick darkness Four synonyms, for the sake of emphasis intense, impenetrable darkness (Zephaniah 1:15; Ezekiel 34:12). Three of the words are used in Deuteronomy 4:11, of the darkness in which Sinai was enveloped when Jehovah descended upon it in fire; the fourth is applied in Exodus 10:22, to the plague of darkness. Darkness is in the Old Testament a very common figure for calamity (Isaiah 5:30; Isaiah 8:22; Isaiah 9:2); here it is a very appropriate picture, for all writers agree in speaking of locusts as clouds darkening the sun. “These creatures do not come in legions, but in whole clouds.… All the air is full and darkened when they fly. Though the sun shine ever so bright, it is no brighter than when most clouded.” “Soon after my arrival at Barosh I saw a swarm of locusts extending a mile in length and half a mile in width. They appeared in the distance like a black cloud. When they came nearer from the east the black swarm darkened the rays of the sun and cast a dark shadow like an eclipse” (Forbes).

As the morning Better, R.V., “dawn.” This does not belong to the preceding; it opens the description of the present calamity, which is not the day itself, only the dawn.

As See on Joel 1:15. It is in every respect like the dawn, because (1) as the dawn introduces the day, so the present calamity marks the beginning of the day of Jehovah; (2) the reflection of the sunlight from the wings of the locusts produces a glimmer that may be likened to the light of dawn. “The day before the arrival of the locusts we could infer that they were coming from a yellow reflection in the sky, proceeding from their yellow wings. As soon as the light appeared no one had the slightest doubt that an enormous swarm of locusts was approaching” (Alvarez). (3) Whether there is the additional thought that the locusts came from the east, where the dawn becomes first visible, is doubtful.

Spread upon the mountains Not in apposition to “day” (A.V.), nor is parus, “spread out,” the predicate of an indefinite subject (Keil); it is rather the predicate of the subject “a great people and a strong”; so that the whole sentence should be read, “Like dawn lies spread out upon the mountain a great people and a strong” (Joel 2:5).

People The army of Joel 2:11 and of Joel 2:25, the swarms of locusts (Joel 1:4). The rest of Joel 2:2 points back to Joel 1:2. The present calamity has no analogy in the past, no matter how far back one goes; nor will it ever be equaled in the future; it stands out unique and without parallel (Exodus 10:14). It is because of the enormity of the plague that Joel regards it as the forerunner of the final judgment, and it is on this account that he uses the hyperbolical expressions.

The destructiveness of the great and powerful people is further described in Joel 2:3. All is lost; the beautiful country has become a wasted desert.

Fire… before… behind them a flame Literally, him, or it, the swarm of locusts. Like fire the locusts have swept over the country; whatever was in their way they have devoured, they have left behind nothing but destruction and ruin (compare comment on Joel 1:19). A most appropriate figure. “A few months afterward a much larger army alighted and gave the whole country the appearance of having been burned.” “Wherever they settled it looks as if fire had devoured and burned up everything” (Forbes). “It is better to have to do with the Tartars than with these destructive animals; you would think that fire follows their track” (Volney). “Bamboo groves have been stripped of their leaves and left standing like saplings after a rapid bush fire, and grass has been devoured so that the bare ground appeared as if burned” (G.A. Smith, The Book of the Twelve, 403; also Tristram, 316). The following expression emphasizes the destructiveness still more: before them the land was as the garden of Eden Fertile, rich in verdure, pleasant to look upon (Genesis 2:8 ff.). A similar comparison of the restored land with the garden of Eden is found in Ezekiel 36:35; our passage may be dependent on that in Ezekiel, though not necessarily.

Desolate wilderness Such as Egypt and Edom will become (Joel 3:19; compare Jeremiah 12:10).

Nothing shall escape Better, R.V., “none hath escaped.” The future tenses in Joel 2:3-11 should be rendered, as in R.V., as present or past tenses, describing a condition present to the prophet and his listeners.