Joel 1:15

15 The day of the LORD is near, the day when destruction comes from the Almighty. How terrible that day will be!

Joel 1:15 Meaning and Commentary

Joel 1:15

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 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" ^F24; 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.

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FOOTNOTES:

F24 (ydvm dvk) "uti vastitas a Deo vastatore", Drusius.

Joel 1:15 In-Context

13 Dress yourselves in burlap and weep, you priests! Wail, you who serve before the altar! Come, spend the night in burlap, you ministers of my God. For there is no grain or wine to offer at the Temple of your God.

14 Announce a time of fasting; call the people together for a solemn meeting. Bring the leaders and all the people of the land into the Temple of the LORD your God, and cry out to him there.

15 The day of the LORD is near, the day when destruction comes from the Almighty. How terrible that day will be!

16 Our food disappears before our very eyes. No joyful celebrations are held in the house of our God.

17 The seeds die in the parched ground, and the grain crops fail. The barns stand empty, and granaries are abandoned.