Joel 1:15

15 Ah! For the day! For the day of Yahweh is near. It will come like destruction from Shaddai.^[a]

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 Gird yourselves and lament, O priests! Wail, [O] ministers of [the] altar! Come spend the night in sackcloth, [O] ministers of my God, because offering and libation are withheld from the house of your God.

14 Solemnize a fast! Call an assembly! Gather [the] elders, all [of] the inhabitants of the land [in] the house of Yahweh your God, and cry out to Yahweh.

15 Ah! For the day! For the day of Yahweh is near. It will come like destruction from Shaddai.

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

17 The seeds shrivel under their clods; the storehouses are desolate. The grain storage places are destroyed because grain has dried out.

Footnotes

• [a]. Often translated "the Almighty"