Joel 1:15

Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come. THE DAY OF THE LORD IS AT HAND - (Joel 2:1; Joel 2:11) i:e., the day of His anger (Isaiah 13:9; Obadiah 1:15; Zephaniah 1:7; Zephaniah 1:15). Isaiah (see the Hebrew) has copied word for word this phrase from Joel here: literally, 'Near is the Day of the Lord, like destruction from the Almighty shall it come.' In the original the...

It now follows, _Alas the day! for nigh is the day of Jehovah. _Here the Prophet, as it was at first stated, threatens something worse in future than what they had experienced. He has hitherto been showing their torpidity; now he declares that they had not yet suffered all their punishments, but that there was something worse to be feared, except they turned seasonably to God. And he now exclaims, as though the day of Jehovah was before his eyes, and he calls it the day of Jehovah, because in that day God would stretch-forth his hand to execute judgment; for while he tolerates men or bears with their sins, he seems not to rule in the world. And though this mode of speaking is common enough in Scripture, it ought yet to be carefully noticed; for all seem not to understand that God calls that his own day, when he will openly shine forth and appear as the judge of the world: but as long as...

14-20 The sorrow of the people is turned into repentance and humiliation before God. With all the marks of sorrow and shame, sin must be confessed and bewailed. A day is to be appointed for this purpose; a day in which people must be kept from their common employments, that they may more closely attend God's services; and there is to be abstaining from meat and drink. Every one had added to the national guilt, all shared in the national calamity, therefore every one must join in repentance. When joy and gladness are cut off from God's house, when serious godliness decays, and love waxes cold, then it is time to cry unto the Lord. The prophet describes how grievous the calamity. See even the inferior creatures suffering for our transgression. And what better are they than beasts, who never cry to God but for corn and wine, and complain of the want of the delights of sense? Yet their cryi...

Verse 15. _ALAS FOR THE DAY!_] The _Syriac repeats_ this, the _Vulgate, Septuagint_, and _Arabic_, thrice: "Alas, alas, alas, for the day!" _AS A DESTRUCTION FROM THE ALMIGHTY_] The destruction that is now coming is no ordinary calamity; it is as a signal judgment immediately inflicted by the Almighty....

ALAS FOR THE DAY! FOR THE DAY OF THE LORD IS AT HAND - The judgment of God, then, which they were to deprecate, was still to come. : “All times and all days are God’s. Yet they are said to be our days, in which God leaves us to our own freedom, to do as we will,” and which we may use to repent and turn to Him. “Whence Christ saith, ‘O Jerusalem - if thou hadst known in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace’ Luke 19:42. That time, on the contrary, is said to be God’s Day, in which He doth any new, rare, or special thing, such as is the Day of Judgment or vengeance.” All judgment in time is an image of the Judgment for eternity. “The Day of the Lord” is, then, each “day of vengeance in which God doth to man according to His will and just judgment, inflicting the punishment which he deserves, as man did to Him in his day, manifoldly dishonoring Him, accor

EXPOSITION JOEL 1:1 THE WORD OF THE LORD THAT CAME TO JOEL THE SON OF PETHUEL. The name Joel signifies "Jehovah is God," or "whose God is Jehovah." We read in Scripture of several of the same name, but the prophet is distinguished as "the son of Pethuel," a name signifying "the sincerity of God," or "godly simplicity." We are not certain of the exact period at which Joel prophesied, but he is generally believed to have been the earliest prophetic writer of the southern kingdom, and one of the earliest of the twelve minor prophets, while Jonah is generally thought to have been the earliest prophetic writer whose book has found a place in the sacred canon. It is at least certain that Joel preceded Amos, who begins his prophecy with a passage from Joel (comp. Joel 3:16 wi

ALAS FOR THE DAY! FOR THE DAY OF THE LORD [IS] AT HAND,.... A time of severer and heavier judgments than these of the locusts, caterpillars, c. which were a presage and emblem of greater ones, even of the total destruction of their city, temple, and nation, either by the Chaldeans, or by the Romans, or both: AND AS A DESTRUCTION FROM THE ALMIGHTY SHALL IT COME unawares, suddenly, and irresistibly: there is in the Hebrew text an elegant play on words, which may be rendered, as "wasting from the waster", or "destruction from the destroyer, shall it come" x; even from the almighty God, who is able to save and destroy, and none can deliver out of his hands; see Isaiah 13:6; the word signifies one powerful and victorious, as Aben Ezra observes; and so it does in the Arabic language. x כשד משדי "uti vastitas a Deo vastatore", Drusius....

ANALYSIS AND ANNOTATIONS I. THE PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS II. THE COMING DAY OF THE LORD: THE RUIN, THE REPENTANCE AND THE RESTORATION III. THE EVENTS OF THE DAY OF THE LORD: ISRAEL'S ENEMIES JUDGED AND THE KINGDOM ESTABLISHED I. THE PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS CHAPTER 1 _ 1. The prophet's appeal (Joel 1:1) _ 2. The call to the drunkards (Joel 1:5) 3. The call to the people and the priests (Joel 1:8) 4. The day of the Lord and the suffering land (Joel 1:15) 5. The prayer of the prophet (Joel 1:19)...

A CALL FOR A FAST AND SOLEMN INTERCESSION. The prophet bids the priests, clothed in the garb of mourners, come into the Temple and lament night and day. Let them institute with the appropriate ritual a fast, and summon a solemn gathering of the community. The awful plight of the land suggests the thought that the locusts are but harbingers of the dreaded Day of Yahweh (Amos 5:18). Nothing less can be portended when the joyous sacrifices are interrupted by the blight and drought which have destroyed vegetation, and brought hunger and thirst to the cattle so that even they appeal dumbly to Yahweh. JOEL 1:15. SHADDAI (_ mg._): this rare title for Yahweh is chosen for the sake of assonance with DESTRUCTION (_shodh_); it is perhaps equivalent to the Babylonian Divine title, š adua = my Rock.

THE DAY OF THE LORD. See note on Isaiah 2:12. This is the great subject of Joel's prophecy, already the. "at hand". DESTRUCTION FROM THE ALMIGHTY. Note the Figure of speech Paronomasia (App-6). Hebrew. _ke shod mishshaddai =_ mighty destruction from the Almighty. Compare Isaiah 13:6. THE ALMIGHTY. the All-bountiful. Hebrew. _Shaddai._ App-4. In this connection it is similar to "the wrath of the Lamb" (Revelation 6:16; Revelation 6:17) in its violent contrast....