Day of the Lord in Retrospect
• A synopsis of Isaiah
• Joel – Yahweh is God; Jehovah is God
Devastation of the Plague
The Past Day of the Locust
1:1 The word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.
Unprecedented Calamity
The Land Laid Waste
1:2 Hear this, you old men, and give ear, all you inhabitants of the land. Has this been in your days, or
even in the days of your fathers?
• Old men – the best judges in question concerning the past (JFB)
• This judgment was such as could not be paralleled in the ages that were past, in history, or in the memory of any
living (MH)
• Those that outdo their predecessors in sin may justly expect to fall under greater and sorer judgments than any of
their predecessors knew (MH)
1:3 Tell you your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and your children another
generation.
• Let your children know what dismal tokens of the wrath of God you have been under, that they make take warning,
and may learn obedience by the things which you have suffered, for it is designed for warning to them also. (MH)
• We ought to transmit to posterity the memorial of God’s judgments as well as of His mercies (MH)
• God urged adults to pass their history down to their children, telling them over and over the important lessons they
learned. One of the greatest gifts you can give younger people is your life’s story to help them understand the
successes you’ve had and the mistakes you’ve made (LB)
1:4 That which the palmerworm has left has the locust eaten; and that which the locust has left has
the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm has left has the caterpillar eaten.
• The weaker the instrument is that God employs the more is His power magnified (MH)
• Joel’s point was that God would punish the people because of their sin. Joel calls this judgment the “Day of the
Lord” (LB)
1:5 Awake, you drunkards, and weep; and howl, all you drinkers of wine, because of the new wine;
for it is cut off from your mouth.
• The people’s moral senses were dulled, making them oblivious to sin. Our times of peace and prosperity can lull
us to sleep. We must never let material abundance be a substitute for spiritual readiness. (LB)
• Although Joel calls for repentance, drunkenness is the only specific sin mentioned in the book. It suggests a
self-indulgent life-style pursued by those who value material things more than spiritual (NIV)
• The general destruction of vegetation by these devouring creatures has totally prevented both harvest and
vintage (AC)
• It is just with God to take away those comforts which are abused to luxury and excess (MH)
• The more delights we make necessary to our satisfaction the more we expose ourselves to trouble and
disappointment (MH)
1:6 For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth
of a lion, and he has the cheek teeth of a great lion.
1:7 He has laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree; he has made it clean bare, and cast it away;
the branches thereof are made white.
1:8 Lament like a bride girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
1:9 The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the
LORD’S ministers mourn.
1:10 The field is wasted, the land mourns; for the corn is wasted; the new wine is dried up, the oil
languishes.
1:11 Be you ashamed, o you husbandmen; howl, o you vinedressers, for the wheat and for the
barley; because the harvest of the field is perished.
1:12 The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languishes; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also,
and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered; because joy is withered and from the
sons of men.
Mourning for the Land
The Past Day of the Drought
1:13 Gird yourselves, and lament, you priests; howl, you ministers of the altar; come, lie all night in
sackcloth, you ministers of my God; for the meat offering and the drink offering is withheld from the
house of your God.
• Let the priests, the Lord’s ministers lament for they share deeply in the calamity (MH)
1:14 Sanctify you a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land
into the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD,
• We have observed abundance of tears shed for the destruction of the fruits of the earth by the locust; now here we
have those tears turned into the right channel, that of repentance and humiliation before God (MH)
• A day of restraint; a day in which people must be restrained from their other ordinary business (MH)
• Total abstinence from food and from all secular employment (AC)
• A fast was a period of time when no food was eaten and people approached God with humility, sorrow for sin, and
urgent prayer (LB)
• We punish and mortify the body, which has been the occasion of sin, we keep it in a frame fit to serve the soul in
serving God, and, by the appetite’s craving food, the desires of the soul towards that which is better than life and all the
supports of it are excited (MH)
• All had contributed to the national guilt, all shared in the national calamity and therefore they must all join in the
professions of repentance (MH)
• The Bible speaks against outward signs that do not reflect a corresponding inward belief or attitude (NIV)
1:15 Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty
shall it come.
• This “terrible day of punishment”, also called “The Day of the Lord” is a common phrase in the OT and in the book
of Joel. It always refers to some extraordinary happening, whether a present event, an event in the near future, or the
final period of history when God will defeat all the forces of evil (LB)
• Even when the Day of the Lord refers to a present event, it also pictures the “final” day of the Lord. This final event
of history (the end of this age –dj) has two aspects to it: (1) the last judgment on all evil and sin, and (2) the final reward
for faithful believers. (LB)
• The end of the age is NOT the end of the world. It will usher in the Millennium and the 1,000 year reign of Jesus
Christ – followed by another end of the age and the Father coming to dwell on the earth (dj)
1:16 Is not the meat cut off before our eyes, yes, joy and gladness from the house of our God?
1:17 The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down
for the corn is withered.
1:18 How do the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture;
yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.
1:19 O LORD, to you will I cry; for the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame
has burned all the trees of the field.
1:20 The beasts of the field cry also unto you; for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire has
devoured the pastures of the wilderness.