Joel 1

13–14 Here Joel calls for a period of national prayer and mourning. Declare a holy fast,⁴ he says. Summon . . . all who live in the land to come to the temple and cry out to the Lord⁵ (verse 14). Only the Lord can help them; the same Lord who has destroyed the land can also heal it. God is both Judge and Savior.

15 Joel, as one of the nation’s spiritual leaders,leads the people in crying out to God. He recognizes that the day of the LORD is near. It hasn’t come yet; but when it does, it will bring even greater destruction than the previous plague of locusts produced.

This “day of the Lord” is mentioned by other prophets (Isaiah 13:6,9), and it is a central theme of Joel’s message. Basically, the term “day of the Lord” refers to any direct intervention of God in human history. This intervention most commonly takes the form of judgment upon the ungodly—including God’s chosen people if they are disobedient. Thus Joel sees ahead to an even greater day of judgment coming on Judah—a great and dreadful day of the LORD (Joel 2:31)—and so he urges his people to repent and pray to God for mercy.

However, the “day of the Lord” has an additional meaning: it also refers to the day when Jesus Christ will return to earth. That day will bring not only judgment on the ungodly but also blessings on the godly—on those whose sins have been forgiven through FAITH in Christ. Thus this final “day of the Lord” will be both a day of terror for unbelievers and a day of joy for believers. The Apostle Peter, in his quotation of Joel 2:28–32, called it the great and glorious day of the Lord (Acts 2:20). It is the day that, even now, Christians look forward to with anticipation and hope.

16–20 Joel continues reminding the people of their dire circumstances. On behalf of the people he calls out to the Lord (verse 19). A fire—a “fire” of locusts, a fire of judgment—has devoured the land.

Locusts are still a problem in parts of the world today, and so we can be sure they were an even greater problem in the purely agricultural societies of Joel’s day. However, the locusts in the book of Joel can also symbolize for us any kind of disaster by means of which God tries to get our attention. Apparently when the locusts struck ancient Judah, the priests, the farmers—and the drunkards too—all shrugged it off as “just one of those things,” as an accident, as “bad luck.” But God sent Joel among them to reveal the true meaning of the locusts: God was indeed trying to get the people’s attention! And likewise, when disasters occur today we need to ask ourselves: Is God trying to get our attention? The answer virtually always will be “Yes.”