Joel 2:1-2, 12-17a is part of a larger segment, 1:2-2:27, that is a lament around the event of a plague of locusts. I provide a detailed summary and verse-by-verse study, focusing on themes of lament, repentance, and hope. I contextualize Joel’s message within the broader prophetic tradition and draw connections to other biblical passages. The application section offers practical insights and analogies to illustrate the importance of repentance and decision-making, offering insight into the relevance of the text to personal growth and repentance.
Summary
Joel invites the elders and the people to listen. Has such a thing happened in their days or that of ancestors? The question implies that it has not. The devastation is so great that they are to tell their children of it, and so is each successive generation. He notes what the cutting and swarming locust has eaten. Drunkards are to wake up and weep. The fruit of the vine is cut off from them. A nation has invaded the land, powerful and innumerable. Its teeth are that of a lion and it has the fangs of a lioness. It has lain waste the vines and fig trees. It has stripped off their bark and burned their branches. He invites them to lament as a virgin child-bride dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth. One cannot even offer a grain or drink offering in the house of the Lord. Priests mourn as ministers of the Lord. Workers will weep, suggesting they will have no work. They have devastated the fields. Trees have dried up. Joy withers among the people, suggesting no reason for the joy of harvest. Then, the priests are to put on sackcloth and lament. As ministers of the altar, they are to wail. They are to pass the night in sackcloth, “ministers of my God.” Grain and drink offering do not come into the house of God. They are to sanctify a fast and call a solemn assembly. They are to gather the elders and the people to the house of the Lord and cry out to the Lord. They are to express their “Woe,” for the day of the Lord is near and destruction from the Almighty comes, for which see Amos 5:18-20, Zephaniah 1:7, 14-16, Mark 1:15, Matthew 3:2. Joel borrows the notion of the day of the Lord from the prophetic tradition and applies it to his present circumstance. Food does not come to the house of the God, nor does joy and gladness. The seed shrivels. The storehouses and granaries are empty. The animals groan. Cattle and sheep have no pasture. Yet Joel turns his cry to the Lord. The fire has devoured the pastures and trees. Wild animals cry to the Lord because water has dried up.
Verse-by-verse study
Joel 2:1-2 is the beginning of a formal community lament that continues until verse 11. It provides an opportunity to discuss the significance of the Day of the Lord. Joel describes the invading locusts as an invading army. The point of the prophet is the close connection between the natural and moral order and the occurrence of the judgment of God in historical natural disasters. Other passages, such as the book of Job, Ecclesiastes 7:15, and John 9:2-3 will challenge such notions. The text seems to rely upon Isaiah 13.
Blow the trumpet (shofar) in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Trumpet blasts regularly accompany liturgical action (e.g., Exodus 19:19; Leviticus 23:24; II Samuel 6:15, etc.) Israel used the sounding of the trumpet for summoning the people to action (especially military action, e.g., Joshua 6:5; Judges 3:27; 6:34; and II Samuel 2:28 and 18:16, where it signals the end of the assault). Israel also used it for announcing information of widespread significance. For example, I Samuel 13:3 Saul used a trumpet blast to announce Jonathan's defeat of the Philistines at Geba. II Samuel 15:10 Absalom used the trumpet blast to announce his kingship at Hebron. I Kings 1:34 shows a similar use of the trumpet for announcing a legitimate king, Solomon. In this context, sounding the trumpet was used to raise an alarm, and this is one of the most common uses of the sound of the trumpet in prophetic literature (e.g., Jeremiah 4:19, 21; 6:1, etc.). The image has a particular nuance, however, in several prophetic contexts, which is as the unheeded warning: Despite prophetic announcement of impending and avoidable disaster, the people choose to ignore the signal and meet with unnecessary suffering (e.g., Jeremiah 6:17; 42:14; Ezekiel 33:3-4, 5). Prophets also used the image to nuance the definition of the prophetic office: A prophet who sees disaster coming and does not announce it in time for the people to save themselves bears the burden of guilt for the people's destruction (Ezekiel 33:6). Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near. Joel raises the alarm not for the usual reasons, such as preparation for battle, but to announce the impending arrival of the "day of the LORD," an important concept found only in the prophetic writings of the Old Testament. The idea forms one of the central themes in Joel, occurring here and at 1:15; 2:11, 31; and 3:14. Only the prophet Zephaniah uses the image more frequently than Joel (six times: 1:7, 8, 14, 18; 2:2, 3). The prophetic traditions concerning the day of the LORD are consistent: Whatever the people may have expected on that appointed hour, judgment is an essential element of it, often directed against Israel and its leaders. The day of the LORD may originally have designated the Sabbath, as its use in Revelation (1:10) suggests (one frequently finds the recrudescence of ancient imagery in the book of Revelation), but it quickly acquired the specialized meaning of Yahweh's battle day (Jeremiah 6:10), possibly echoing themes found in earlier Canaanite mythology about the god Baal (whose name means "Lord"). Popular Israelite religion took up this meaning to salve a national consciousness frequently bruised by powerful neighbors. The Day is 2 a day of darkness (Amos 5:18) and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness!Darkness and gloom were images of judgment (Am 5:18). Locusts can make the sky become dark. They are like an invading army. In the prophetic imagination, the day of the LORD was far from a consoling image. For the prophets of Israel, the glib partisanship underlying popular confidence in divine retribution betrayed the people into a misunderstanding of the nature of their own God: Israel, no less than Israel's neighbors, would be the object of Yahweh's wrath on the day of justice. Alarming news like this leads Joel to direct the attention of his readers. Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come.
Then, in 2:12-17 we find the theme of true repentance. The message of the prophet is of more than disaster; it is also of hope. 12 Yet, signaling a turning point in the message, even now, says the Lord, return to me. Israel has had its back to God. The Lord invites them to return. Israel may yet avert the impending disaster through turning to Yahweh with all your heart, an image embedded in Israel's most basic theological declaration, the Shema: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might" (Deuteronomy 6:5). Israel now experiences devastation, not by political foes, but by an awareness of sin that manifests itself in a return to Yahweh. The external signs of such a turn would be to do so with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. However, 13 rend your hearts, a sign of genuine of repentance, and not your clothing, a sign of the external display of repentance.
The Deuteronomistic understanding of the dual nature of the God of Israel deeply influenced the preaching of the prophets, including Joel. Yes, God executes punishment against evildoers on the one hand, but God is also gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents (repenting) from punishing. 14 Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, (repent) and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord, your God? God may relent again! God may still turn judgment to blessing. Repentance now will make worship and praise possible in the future.
15 Blow the trumpet (shofar) in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly. This time, the shofar summons people to the temple rather than warns them of impending doom. They are to 16 gather the people. Regardless of how “introverted” we may be we must not isolate ourselves. God has created us for community, and so, at a critical moment of repentance, we do so in the context of community. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy. 17 Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord (an appellation unique to Joel, here and at 1:9) weep. They keep a physical distance as a symbol of their separation from God. No mention of the king is an indication of the time Joel is writing. The priests are to accept the role of interceding for the people. One can only hope that clergy today take their role here seriously.
Application
True repentance begins with sorrow for what we have done. Yet repentance must move beyond sorrow with the decision to reject the hurtful things we have done. Repentance is complete when we become different persons and a different people. Return to the Lord, your God, the prophet reminding us that the good news is that God is always willing to relent from judgment. It is to those who know both themselves and their God with such insight that the prophet Joel extends a message of hope. To use an analogy, in the physical realm, the pupil of the eye dilates in darkness and finds what light might be present. In a similar way, the soul may “dilate” in misfortune to find God.[1] Leslie Weatherhead tells of a little boy who was a terrible misconduct problem for his parents. They took him to counselors and tried strict, permissive, and various forms of punishment. Nothing worked. One day this child was in his backyard trying to teach some tricks to a puppy his parents had bought for him. The puppy, though trying to cooperate, had no idea what the boy wanted of him, and the boy soon became so frustrated he kicked his dog with all his might. The dog fell, injured. As the boy stood there, uncertain, the little dog struggled to its feet, a trace of blood on its mouth, and crept over to the boy. When he reached out to the dog, the puppy licked the boy’s hand as a sign of continuing love and affection. This was too much. The boy cried, dashed into the house, threw his arms around his mother, and sobbed out his shame. What discipline, punishment, and scolding had failed to do, his own realization of a hurt inflicted on one who had continued to love him had done.
I want to pause for a moment and reflect upon the importance of deciding. Joel, while warning the people of dire consequences or wrongdoing, also assures them of a warm welcome home for those who return to the Lord. Then they will encounter a loving, forgiving God. We all need to hear this word. After all, on the individual level, I doubt that any of us makes it through many days without doing or saying something or other that is hurtful and wrong. Joel is clear that we will experience the consequences of such actions. Joel reminds us that if we repent, the Lord will forgive. While repentance begins with remorse, it does not end there. We may feel uneasy about what we have done but repeat the action under similar circumstances next time. Repentance requires a decision to be different. It also requires inward change that enables us to be different. God can see to that change, which is why repentance is not possible apart from a relationship with God. The greatest thing each person can do is to give oneself completely to God. Yes, we need to give our weakness and fears to God. God wants our obedience more than our good intentions. We too often settle for offering to God the minimal rather than all. We do this out of our weakness.[2]
The operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti tells a story about how his father helped him discover the direction of his life's work. As a young man studying to become a teacher, Pavarotti received an invitation to study with Arrigo Pola, a famous tenor in his hometown of Modena, Italy. When it came time for him to graduate from college, he approached his father for advice: "Shall I be a teacher or a singer?" His father replied, "Luciano, if you try to sit on two chairs, you will fall between them. For life, you must choose one chair." Pavarotti chose the singing chair. Although it would be another seven years before he would reach New York's Metropolitan Opera, Pavarotti credited this decision to choose one path, and one path only, as the key to his success.
The divided affection of Israel, in the prophetic mind, was a more menacing threat to the existence of Israel than was any external enemy. What Joel is inviting us to consider is the duality of human beings. We have a capacity for evil and goodness. Evil rises. Yet, when it does, some people will rise to fight against it. Humanity has this duality. Yet this duality cuts across our hearts, for we have a war between the best and worst of our nature.[3]
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