Joel 2:2-12

2 ¹a day of darkness and gloom, ²a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains ³a great and powerful people; ⁴their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations.

3 ⁵Fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns. The land is like ⁶the garden of Eden before them, but ⁷behind them a desolate wilderness, and nothing escapes them.

4 ⁸Their appearance is like the appearance of horses, and like war horses they run.

5 ⁹As with the rumbling of chariots, they leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of ¹⁰a flame of fire devouring the stubble, ¹¹like a powerful army drawn up for battle.

6 Before them peoples are in anguish; ¹²all faces grow pale.

7 Like warriors they charge; like soldiers they scale the wall. They march each on his way; they do not swerve from their paths.

8 They do not jostle one another; ¹³each marches in his path; they burst through the weapons and are not halted.

9 ¹⁴They leap upon the city, they run upon the walls, ¹⁵they climb up into the houses, ¹⁶they enter through the windows ¹⁷like a thief.

10 ¹⁸The earth quakes before them; the heavens tremble. ¹⁹The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.

11 ²⁰The LORD utters his voice before ²¹his army, for his camp is exceedingly great; ²²he who executes his word is powerful. ²³For the day of the LORD is ²⁴great and very awesome; ²⁵who can endure it?

Return to the Lord

12 "Yet even now," declares the LORD, ²⁶"return to me with all your heart, ²⁷with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;

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Joel 2:2-12 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOEL 2

In this chapter a further account is given of the judgment of the locusts and caterpillars, or of those who are designed by them, Joe 2:1-11; the people of the Jews are called to repentance, humiliation, and fasting, urged from the grace and goodness of God, his jealousy and pity for his people, and the answer of prayer that might he expected from him upon this, even to the removal of the calamity, Joe 2:12-20; a prophecy of good things, both temporal and spiritual, in the times of the Messiah, is delivered out as matter and occasion of great joy, Joe 2:21-27; and another concerning the effusion of the Spirit, which was fulfilled an the day of Pentecost, Joe 2:28-29; and the chapter is concluded with the judgments and desolations that should come upon the land of Judea after this, for their rejection of Christ, though the remnant according to the election of grace should be delivered and saved from the general destruction, Joe 2:30-32.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Cross References 27

1. Amos 5:18, 20; Zephaniah 1:15
2. Amos 5:18, 20; Zephaniah 1:15
3. Joel 1:6; [ver. 11, 25]
4. [Joel 1:2]
5. Joel 1:19, 20
6. Genesis 2:8, 9; See Isaiah 51:3
7. Zechariah 7:14
8. Revelation 9:7
9. Revelation 9:9; [Nahum 3:2]
10. Isaiah 5:24; Isaiah 47:14; Obadiah 18; Nahum 1:10
11. [See ver. 2 above]
12. Nahum 2:10
13. Proverbs 30:27
14. Isaiah 33:4
15. [Jeremiah 9:21]
16. [Jeremiah 9:21]
17. [John 10:1]
18. Joel 3:16; [Psalms 18:7; Amos 8:8]
19. Joel 3:15; Isaiah 13:10; Ezekiel 32:7; Matthew 24:29; [Revelation 9:2]
20. Joel 3:16; [1 Thessalonians 4:16]
21. ver. 25
22. Revelation 18:8
23. See Joel 1:15
24. ver. 31
25. Malachi 3:2; [Numbers 24:23]
26. Deuteronomy 4:30; 1 Samuel 7:3; Jeremiah 4:1; Hosea 12:6
27. [1 Samuel 7:6]

The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.