Joel 1:15

15 Alas for the day! ¹For the day of the LORD is near, and as destruction from the Almighty^[a] it comes.

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 Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests; wail, O ministers of the altar. Go in, pass the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God! Because grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.

14 Consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD.

15 Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.

16 Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God?

17 The seed shrivels under the clods; the storehouses are desolate; the granaries are torn down because the grain has dried up.

Cross References

• 1. Joel 2:1, 11, 31; Joel 3:14; Isaiah 13:6, 9; Jeremiah 46:10; Ezekiel 30:2, 3; Amos 5:18; Obadiah 15; Zephaniah 1:14, 15; Zechariah 14:1; 2 Peter 3:10

Footnotes

• [a]. Destruction sounds like the Hebrew for Almighty