Joel 2:1–11 Explained: The Day of the Lord Approaches (Session 3)

This is a verse-by-verse episode of Joel 2:1-11, exploring the historical context, meaning, and faithful application of the passage within the Christian faith.

Sirens don’t sing; they warn. Joel chapter 2 opens with a trumpet blast from Zion that cuts through comfort and asks a hard question: are we awake to what God is saying about judgment, justice, and hope? We walk through the text line by line and hear why the Day of the Lord is described as darkness, gloom, and a devastation so complete that Eden-like land becomes wilderness. The locust swarm of chapter one widens into a disciplined military force—ranked, relentless, and unstoppable—moving with speed and precision across Jerusalem’s walls and into its homes.

This conversation also wrestles with God’s character. The text says the Lord leads this army, and that tests our tendency to only see what feels gentle. Scripture presents a God who is both loving and just, who disciplines to restore, and who calls Zion “my holy mountain” with covenant authority. The question “Who can endure it?” becomes an invitation to real hope: those who trust the Messiah of Israel, Jesus, find life beyond wrath and meaning beyond ruin. If you care about biblical prophecy, the future of Jerusalem, and a faithful view of God that refuses caricature, this deep dive will sharpen your understanding and strengthen your hope. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves careful Bible study, and leave a review with your take on Joel 2’s timeline and fulfillment.

Transcript

Sound The Alarm In Zion

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Many places in life have an alarm that gets sounded whenever something is wanting to get people's attention. The fire department has an alarm to alert the firefighters. The military has an alarm to alert when it's time for the soldiers to come to attention. Even people might have an alarm on their homes in case there's a burglar that comes in. Well, today in Joel chapter two, we're going to see God has an alarm, and it's for something so great that everyone needs to pay attention. Hi, my name's Glenn. I'm here with Steve. We are reasoning through the Bible. If you have your copy of the Word of God, we want to start in Joel chapter two, and we're going to be in verse one. If you remember last time in chapter one, Joel introduced this idea of a locust invasion that is a picture for a military invasion for the nation Israel. It is very severe and it covers the ground. It takes every green tree in sight. And we're going to see today why that is important for the nation Israel. So let's go ahead and dive in. Steve, can you read the first two verses of Joel chapter 2?

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Blow a trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm on my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming. Surely it is near. A day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness. As the dawn is spread over the mountains, so there is a great and mighty people. There has never been anything like it, nor will there be again after it to the years of many generations.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

So it says here, Steve in verse one, to blow a trumpet. Why would someone blow a trumpet? What reasons would people be besides playing music? That's not really the purpose here. Why would somebody blow a trumpet?

SPEAKER_00 2:18

First thing, the trumpet that is spoken of here is actually a ram's horn or a shofar. It's one that was used by the people to sound an alarm, just what the text is talking about. To blow it, to alert the people that there is a need for them to assemble, that there's a need for them to do something special, or that there is an army coming, there's an invasion coming, and that they need to take action.

Zion And The Scope Of Judgment

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Anytime you blow a trumpet, you're trying to get people's attention. That's the whole point. As you pointed out, Steve, there's a call to action here. In olden days, people would have trumpets to direct the troops, or in a civilian population, you would blow a trumpet, say when one of the king's men was coming to give an announcement or proclamation, or some important dignitary was about to pass through, they would blow a trumpet. You're trying to get people's attention because of something important. And then it says, sound an alarm on my holy mountain, and quote, let all the inhabitants of the land tremble. To what mountain and what land is this verse referring?

SPEAKER_00 3:31

He's talking about the city of Jerusalem. That is what Zion means, just means the city of Jerusalem. And Jerusalem is built on a mountainous area there in the nation of Israel. I think also something to bring out, Glenn, is that he's depicting that's the day of the Lord is near, but he's giving them an alert. He's giving them a warning, he being God. So he's not just coming in without any type of warning. He's giving the people a warning that the day of the Lord is coming.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

The alarm in the trumpet are because this is something to fear. The last part of verse one says, Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming. So the day of the Lord is something to be afraid of, something very frightening. The day of the Lord is not Christian salvation. The day of the Lord is the destruction of the land of Israel. Verse one makes this quite clear. Verse two, it is a day of darkness and gloom. So when we see the day of the Lord referred to, this is not a pleasant time. It's a very severe destruction. It's total devastation. The day of the Lord is something that we need to pay attention to because the alarm is sounding, there's great trouble ahead. The middle of verse 2 starts to describe an invasion as a vast army. The clear suggestion is that this army will be like waves of locusts, so many that you can't count them. They cover the ground, they destroy everything. The chapter puts the day of the Lord in verse one, and it mentions that same day of the Lord again in verse 11. So, in between those two verses is the description of the locust invasion. Joel is using the language of a locust invasion to describe the devastation of the day of the Lord. We know that because again, verse one and verse 11 specifically mentioned this day. And therefore, the locust invasion is a description of a true military invasion. He makes that quite clear. At the end of verse 2, the invading army is so vast and so terrible that it says, quote, there has never been anything like it, nor will there be again after it. It says Israel has been invaded many times by many destructive armies. In a book by the author Eric Klein, the book called Jerusalem Besieged, he counts that Jerusalem has had 118 conflicts over the years. And these would not include some of the most recent ones that have happened since Klein's book was published. Israel has been leveled and rebuilt so many times that the archaeologists have to be very careful to identify which layer of rubble they're digging through. Jerusalem has been attacked and invaded over and over again. Yet Joel 2-2 says the day of the Lord will be the worst invasion that Israel has seen ever in its entire history. So, Steve, what does that tell us as Bible interpreters and Bible readers?

Worst Invasion In Israel’s History

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Back at the first part of verse 1, it says a trumpet in Zion. We mentioned that that's the city of Jerusalem itself. And then on my holy mountain, Yahweh's holy mountain, holy being that it's been set apart. It's set apart for him. So I think that we all should take heed of that and take warning and pay attention that this is a special city that God says it's mine and it's set apart for me. So that's the first thing to take away. The second thing to take away, Glenn, is when it says there at the end of verse 2, nor will there be again after it to the years of generations. There won't be anything like it. So that tells me that this is something that is still in the future because of what you just got through mentioning, the various times that Jerusalem has been attacked, conquered, sacked, put under siege. And I know that this isn't talking about the sacking of Jerusalem in AD 70, because as you mentioned in our very first session, that Jerusalem was later sacked in the 130s during the Barcopa rebellion, and that more people were killed during that sacking of Jerusalem than the one in AD 70. So we know for sure that this can't be talking about the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70. Those are two major things I take away from this.

Reading Joel 2:3–11 Aloud

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Joel chapter 2 specifically says, My holy mountain, Zion, the land. It is speaking about the physical Jerusalem. It says that this day is coming, so it's a very severe one, as we have seen and will see. So therefore, we know two things. It is not Christian salvation when we talk about the day of the Lord. This is the destruction of Israel. We also know that, as you pointed out, Steve, it's very difficult to squeeze this into 70 AD when Rome came in and destroyed the temple. 70 AD was indeed very, very bad. Rome besieged the city for a number of months, and they took days and weeks to go through the city. Once they breached the walls, they tore down the temple. It was very severe. But we can't see that it was any more severe than many years earlier when Babylon came in and did the same thing. Again, read Ezekiel. He goes into graphic detail of what Babylon was doing at the time of destroying the city of Jerusalem. Also, we have here, as we're going to see in verses coming up, in chapter 2, verse 20, God removes the invading army and delivers Jerusalem from the invasion. Again, in verse 32 of the same chapter. So in 70 AD, God didn't come in and remove the Roman army and save Israel, which is what this chapter is saying. So it's very difficult to squeeze this into a time in the past simply because of what we just said. It's specifically in Jerusalem. It's the worst time ever. There's not much of a distinction between the many destructions that have happened on the city of Jerusalem, Babylon, Rome, multiple waves. But yet this one is going to be the worst ever. And yet God is going to come in and take away these invading armies and deliver Jerusalem. That's the point of the chapter. And oftentimes people just talk about one thing or the other in different contexts. We have to read the entire word of God. In the next section, Joel gives a very emotional and graphic description of the invading army being like locusts that cover the ground. Steve, can you start at verse 3 and read down to verse 11?

SPEAKER_00 11:03

A fire consumes before them, and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the Garden of Eden before them, but a desolate wilderness behind them, and nothing at all escapes them. Their appearance is like the appearance of horses, and like war horses, so they run. With a noise as of chariots, they leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of a flame of fire consuming the stubble, like a mighty people arranged for battle. Before them the people are in anguish, all faces turn pale, they run like mighty men, they climb the wall like soldiers, and they each march in line, nor do they deviate from their paths. They do not crowd each other, they march everyone in his path. When they burst through the defenses, they do not break ranks, they rush on the city, they run on the wall, they climb into the houses, they enter through the windows like a thief. Before them the earth quakes, the heavens tremble, the sun and the moon grow dark, and the stars lose their brightness. The Lord utters his voice before his army. Surely his camp is very great, for strong is he who carries out his sword. The day of the Lord is indeed great and very awesome, and who can endure it?

Locust Metaphor And Military Reality

SPEAKER_01 12:32

In this section, again, very emotional, very graphic description. Verse 3, the land of Israel is likened to the Garden of Eden prior to the invasion, then afterwards it is a desolate wilderness. It says, quote, nothing escapes them, unquote. Again, the day of the Lord will be total destruction. The language here is suggestive of both a locust plague and a military invasion, simply because the, again, the context is this locust plague mentioned in the previous chapter, but verses one and eleven of chapter two talk about the day of the Lord and very clearly destroying the land that he was speaking of here, the land of Israel. God is using language in this section we just read that tells us there's going to be a military invasion of Israel. Verse 4, they look like horses, war horses, sounds of chariots, it said, people arranged for battle, mighty men and soldiers marching in a line, bursting through the defenses. Verse 11, the Lord's army, it says. So the language here, I think, is both speaking of locust invasion and a military invasion. Verses 7 through 9, note how the pace of the language here speeds up. Again, it's a true word of God, but it's also just great literature. The invaders come in quickly and cover everything, destroying everything in their pass. You can almost hear the sound of the soldiers coming in. They come faster and faster. They burst through the defenses. They don't break ranks. They rush the city. They run on the wall, they climb in the houses, they enter through the windows. It's just bam, bam, bam, faster and faster. It is just a great emotional linguistic description of this destruction. You can almost hear the drumbeats and feel the sound of the invasion. And Steve, I just find this to be a very, very severe description in the Word of God.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Verse eight also speaks to me of a disciplined and organized army. They don't crowd each other. They march everyone in their path, meaning that they're disciplined. They're just not scattering everywhere. When they burst through the defenses, they don't break ranks. They have specific areas of the city that they're supposed to attack and they don't deviate from that. So this tells me that this army that is invading Jerusalem is a disciplined and organized army, besides being one of great numbers and strength.

Discipline, Speed, And Strategy Of The Army

SPEAKER_01 15:17

The idea here in Joel chapter two is it's going to happen suddenly and quick and rapid. The other reason why we would hold the Rome in 70 AD doesn't fit the prophecy is simply because if you read the history of that invasion, Rome had spent many months building up to the attack on Jerusalem. It was quite obvious that they were going to come in and attack. And even then, the attack took a quite a long time. So the invasion of 70 AD doesn't fit the specific prophecy of Joel II. If we look at the first half of verse 11 here, who is in charge of the destruction during the day of the Lord?

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Well, the first two words, the Lord, which the Hebrew word behind that is Yahweh, Y-H-W-H. So he is the one that is in charge of this.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Do we find it amazing or hard to believe that God would cause destruction? Some people teach that God only does things that feel good. And yet, here we've been emphasizing massive, severe, sudden destruction. And yet it very clearly in verse 11 says this is caused by the Lord. How can we explain that?

God’s Sovereignty In Judgment

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Well, a main example of the Lord Yahweh using another nation to discipline Israel is Babylon. He's very direct in saying that I am going to send Babylon to you because you have disobeyed. And he tells us that in Jeremiah, he tells us that in Ezekiel. And he even gives a specific time range in Jeremiah. 70 years. One reason is because you didn't let the land lay fallow like you were supposed to every seventh year for 490 years. I'm going to get that time. Therefore, you're going to be in captivity for 70 years, one year for every year that you didn't let it lay fallow. So God tells us there, I don't think it's just there, but that's a main period of time when he tells us he's using another nation to bring about destruction in Jerusalem because of what they had done. And when you go through Ezekiel, you can see how disobedient the people were worshiping idols. And not only the people, but the priests themselves were worshiping other idols. They're on the temple compound itself. We invite you to go listen to our study in the book of Ezekiel, and you'll see how rebellious they were. They're described as a stiff-necked people. So, no, I don't think it's out of the norm for us to see that God disciplines the nation of Israel with other nations, and he also disciplines other nations with other nations. And I think it's clear that this is what's going on here, that this destruction is being brought about by God through another nation or group of nations on the city itself. So that's how we can say that God is in charge of it, yet we see the nations themselves making decisions to come and attack Jerusalem.

Holding God’s Love And Justice Together

Who Can Endure The Day

SPEAKER_01 18:38

When we read the scriptures, we see many passages where it speaks very lovingly of God. He is very gentle and forgiving. He showers down blessings on his children. All that's true. There's many passages that talk about the love and forgiveness and blessings and wonderfulness of God towards his children. We also have passages that talk about God as a righteous judge. And we must study these passages back here in the dark corners of the Old Testament, or we do not have a fully explained view of God. If all we do is study the passages that make us feel good and don't study the passages where God judges sin, then we will have an incomplete view. We will have a caricature of God and not the true image of God. He is the one in charge, and he is in charge of the armies that invade Israel. It becomes very clear as we study these prophets over and over again. God says, I am the one that raises up nations, and I'll take them down again. It's very important for us to realize that God is sending judgment on Israel during the day of the Lord. Steve, you mentioned Ezekiel. Well, one of the descriptions that God gave through the prophet Ezekiel was he was calling Israel a prostitute that was paying her suitors to come in and do the prostitution. Usually, at least a prostitute is trying to make money out of this thing. But here he was saying, you're so bad as a prostitute. You're paying them. And the reason he said that is because the people of Israel would go worship Yahweh in the temple, and then they'd go across town and pay offerings to the pagan idols, and often with sex worship. So Israel was very severely in rebellion over and over again. And he uses the terms adulteresses to refer to them. So here we have the severeness of God's judgment on a hard-hearted, stiff-necked, unbelieving people. God is both loving and just. If we only hold one or the other, then we have an incomplete caricature of God. Note at the phrase here at the end of verse 11, the statement says, quote, the day of the Lord is indeed great and terrible. Who can endure it? Well, Steve, who can endure it? When the Bible speaks of the day of the Lord, it speaks of a day of great and terrible destruction that the world has never seen. Can we endure it?

70 AD Judgment Versus Joel 2

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Well, the people that are going to endure it are the ones that have faith and trust in Yahweh, the God of Israel, and of course, Jesus Christ, Jesus, the Messiah of Israel. And we believe that Jesus is God. He's God incarnate. He is God that dwelt among us, as it talks about in the Gospel of John. So those that believe and put their trust and faith in Jesus Christ are the ones who have the hope of eternal life. They're the ones who have the hope of death not being over them anymore. So, in a way, Those who have faith and trust in Jesus are the ones that are going to endure in a situation that's going on at this particular point in time. Now, Glenn, we've established that this time frame that it's talking about here couldn't have been 70 A.D. because it mentions in verse 2 that this is something that's going to happen and is such a calamity that it's going to never happen again. So we know that Jerusalem has been taken over several times and things like that have happened. We've established that. But we don't want to dismiss that 70 A.D. was a judgment on Israel and a judgment on Jerusalem. It was one that was predicted by Jesus as the disciples and himself were coming out of the Jerusalem area and they were remarking about how great the temple was and how ornate it was. In his Olivet Discourse, as it's called, he predicted that not one stone of the temple would stand upon another. So that was a time of judgment, 70 AD, on the people in Jerusalem and the temple itself and the Levitical priesthood system, because they had rejected Jesus as their Messiah. So yes, this was a time of judgment. And we don't dismiss that. I wanted to make that clear, but all we're saying is that that is not the depiction of the great day of the Lord that's being talked about in these first verses of chapter two of Joel.

Cross-References: Matthew 24 And Malachi 4

SPEAKER_01 23:35

And I would refer our listeners to when we went through Matthew chapter 24 and 25, we took our time and went through that in detail and pointed out where those passages were fulfilled, whether it be in the future, first century, whatever. But some of those passages remind us of what's going on here in Ezekiel. Let me read one for you here. Jesus in Matthew 24 said this, quote, for then there will be a great tribulation, such as not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will be again, unquote. That's in Matthew 24, 21. So here in Joel and in Matthew 24, the Bible brings out the fact that there's going to be a calamity that is as the worst that has ever happened to the nation Israel. So we take that, that it is still future. I also want to point out Malachi 4, verses 5 and 6, the last two verses in the Old Testament say this: quote, Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and strike the land with complete destruction. So we have here this idea that the day of the Lord is a great and terrible day. It's a severe day, but it's a day that God is in control of.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

So you and I hold that John the Baptist came in the spirit of Elijah to lead the way of the Messiah, but yet Elijah himself is going to come. It is an event that is still waiting to happen sometime in the future.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

With that, we've talked about some of the most severe judgments in the Word of God. These next verses, God gives a glimmer of hope.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.