1 Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble in fear, because the day of the I AM is coming! It is close!
“The Day of the Lord” is the Day of Judgment. This means that the time was drawing near for God to bring the punishment on Israel He had promised.
2 It will be a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, as the morning spreads over the mountains, a great, strong people, like nothing that has ever been seen before, or will be seen again, even for many generations.
This may be in reference to the Assyrian army, but is more likely still describing the locust plague.
3 A fire eats up the ground in front of them, and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the garden of Eden in front of them, and behind them is left a desolate wilderness. Yes, nothing shall escape them.
4 They will look like horses, and they will run like men riding horses.
Since "the appearance" is like horses and horseman (not “they are horses and horsemen”), this is very likely still talking about the locusts marching into the land just like a mounted army would. Other translations read, “In front of the locust the land is like the Garden of Eden. Behind, like a desolate wilderness that has been burned.” The locust will devour the land and change it from a paradise into a desert.
5 They will sound like chariots coming over the tops of the mountains; like the noise of a flame of fire that devours the stubble; like a strong people dressed for battle.
God describes the noise of this army of locusts that is coming. It is horrible.
6 When they see them, the people will be in pain, their faces will be black with despair.
7 They will run like mighty men. They will climb walls like soldiers, and they will march in perfect formation. They will not break their ranks:
8 Neither will one bump into another. They will each walk in his own path, and when they are stabbed with a sword, they will not be wounded.
In the book “On the Banks of Plum Creek,” Laura Ingles Wilder describes a locust invasion. Her description is very similar to Joel’s here, though a bit less poetic. She describes the bugs marching across the land and straight up any obstacles they meet. If the windows and doors weren’t shut tight and the fire going in the fireplace, the house would be filled with them. They simply blackened the entire landscape.
9 They will overrun the city. They will cover the walls. They will climb on the houses. They will enter all the windows, like a thief.
10 The earth will quake when they arrive. The very sky will tremble. The sun and the moon will be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining:
When locusts hit the swarming stage, the sky would literally be so darkened you couldn’t see the sun.
11 And the I AM will speak in front of His army, because His camp is very large, because he is strong who is obedient to His commands, Because the appointed day of the I AM is great and very terrible. Who can live through it?
In this case, God’s army is the locust swarm. This event was almost certain doom to any country.
12 "Because of this," says the I AM, "All of you turn to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning,
13 "And tear your hearts, instead of your clothes, and turn to the I AM your God. Because He is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry, and of great kindness, and He turns from evil."
God did not want the show of grief (tearing the clothes); He wanted the real thing (tearing the selfishness and disobedience from the heart).
14 Who knows? He might return and leave us a blessing instead of punishment, maybe even enough for food and drink offerings for us to give Him?
God just might change His mind about the punishment if only the people will repent.
15 Blow the trumpet in Zion! Declare a time of holy fasting!Call for a solemn gathering!
16 Gather the people, purify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those who are still small babies! Let the bridegroom come out of his bedroom and the bride out of her dressing room.
17 Let the priests, the ministers of the I AM, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, "Spare Thy people, Oh, I AM, and don't let Thine heritage be reproached, so that the heathen rule over them! Why should they say about Thy people, 'Where is their God?'
If the entire nation will gather and plead for forgiveness…
18 Then will the I AM be jealous for His land, and pity His people.
God will show mercy.
19 Yea, the I AM will answer and say to His people, "Look, I will send you grain, and wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied with them, and I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen.
20 But I will remove the northern hoards far away from you, and will drive them into a barren and desolate land. The first part of the hoard will drown in the eastern sea, and the last parts will drown in the western sea, and their rotting corpses will stink up the country because God has done this great thing.
God will remove the grasshoppers from the land in a miraculous way.
21 Don't be afraid, O land! Be glad and rejoice! Because the I AM will do great things.
If Judah will only repent, God will miraculously protect her. Even if she delays her repenting until after the locusts and the army invade, He will still do great things.
22 Don't be afraid, all you wild animals, because the wild pastures are growing, the trees are bearing fruit, the fig tree and the vines are producing food!
Judah will again become a prosperous land. Being situated on the Mediterranean Sea, Israel had an ideal climate and under normal circumstances would have produced very abundant crops, besides being on the major trade route between Europe, Asia and Africa.
23 Be glad then, you children of Zion, and rejoice in the I AM your God, because He has given you the gentle Autumn rains, and He will cause the rains to come down for you, the Autumn rains and the Spring rains as well.
Judah depended entirely on the rain to water their crops. They had one rainy season at planting time to give the seeds a good boost and one just before harvest to give maximum growth. God promises to again send these rains.
24 And the threshing floors will be full of wheat, and the vats will overflow with wine and oil.
25 And I will give back to you the years the swarming locusts, the hopping locusts, the stripping locusts, and the cutting locusts have eaten up. They are the great army I sent among you.
He would so prosper them that they wouldn’t be able to find any damage left from the locust. This is a conditional promise; Judah must first turn back to God.
26 You will have plenty to eat, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the I AM your God that has treated you so wonderfully, and My people shall never be ashamed.
27 And you will know that I am in the middle of Israel, and that I am the I AM your God, and that there is no other god. My people shall never be ashamed.
In fact, the remnant of Israel and Judah did turn back to God at the time of Cyrus’s command to return to Jerusalem. God fulfilled His promise and the land was blessed abundantly. And again, after the Maccabees kicked the Syrian Empire out and returned to true worship in the third century BC, Israel became very prosperous.
Whichever time God is referring to here specifically, we can apply the lesson to our day; when we worship God our nation will prosper. When we ignore Him we will fail.
28 And after all this, I will pour out My spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions.
29 I will also pour out My spirit on slaves and servants and handmaids at that time.
30 I will show wonders in the sky and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
31 The sun will become dark, and the moon will become blood, before the great and fearful day of the I AM come.
32 And it will happen, that whoever will call on the name of the I AM will be delivered, because in mount Zion and in Jerusalem will be deliverance, as the I AM has said, and in the remaining part whom the I AM will call.
Peter quotes these verses in Acts 2:17-21. He identifies these verses as being fulfilled right then. Joel says “It shall come to pass afterward.” Or After the years the locust have eaten have been restored and the land is prosperous again …. while Peter says “In the Last Days…” These are the same time period. Peter is speaking of the last days of the nation Israel. Her time was almost up. There were only a few things left to be fulfilled before the end of their world.
Peter tells us in Acts 2:39 that this promise of the infilling of the Holy Ghost is to all that the Lord will call to Him, not just to those living at that time. The rest of Joel is specifically to the nation Israel.
Verses 30 and 31 were fulfilled not long after Peter’s sermon in Acts. The Day of Pentecost happened in roughly AD30. The first century Jewish historian Josephus records that in AD68-70 there was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year;
“Thus also, before the Jews rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded the war (with Rome), when the people were come in great crowds to the feast of unleavened bread on the eighth day of the month (Nisan) and at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day-time; which light lasted for half an hour…At the same festival also, a heifer, as she was led by the high priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb in the midst of the temple. Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner court of the temple, which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a base armed with iron, and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, which was there made of one entire stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night. …who then came up thither, and not without great difficulty was able to shut the gate again. …for before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their amour were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner court of the temple as their custom was …they felt a quaking and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude saying, ‘Let us remove hence.’”
Josephus would have had nothing to gain by inventing such stories. He was a non-religious Jew at the time of the war with Rome. He was taken captive by General Titus (future Roman Emperor) who liked him. Titus had him play arbitrator between Rome and Judah in hopes Josephus would convince his people to surrender. Unfortunately they wouldn’t listen and Rome destroyed them. These miraculous stories gained him no favor with either side and were taken directly from eyewitnesses. So there is no reason to doubt his word.
These events would certainly have fulfilled verse 30.
The sun being darkened and the moon turning to blood is mentioned in Revelations, also. In the patriarch Joseph’s dream in Genesis, the sun stood for Jacob and the moon for either Leigh or Rachael. Symbolically, this meant all of Israel. The entire nation was darkened and slaughtered at the time of the Roman conquest, just forty years after the falling of the Holy Ghost. AD70 was the “Great and Notable Day of the Lord;” it was the “Great Day Of Judgment” for the nation Israel.
After Cornelius was saved in Acts 10, “whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” The persecutions of the Christians and the destruction of Jerusalem caused the carrying of the gospel into the entire known world; the entire Roman Empire.