Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Joel · About this commentary
Who Can Endure It?
Joel 2:10-11
10 The earth quakes before them. The heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. · WEB
The sky goes dark, and then the army is identified: it is his, and he is at the head of it.
The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble, the sun and moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. A locust swarm dense enough to dim daylight is a real phenomenon, and the verse begins there. But the language has already left agriculture behind — the same four signs recur at Joel 3:15 and belong to the day of Yahweh wherever Scripture describes it Isaiah 13:10.
Verse 11 makes the identification the chapter has withheld. Yahweh thunders his voice before his army. The swarm is not a natural misfortune God is responding to; it is his force, and he is in front of it giving the order. The book will say this outright later, calling the locusts my great army, which I sent among you Joel 2:25.
Then the question that ends the section: the day of Yahweh is great and very awesome — who can endure it? It is asked without an answer, and it is the same question Malachi asks of the coming refiner Malachi 3:2. What follows in the next verse is not a reply to the question but an interruption of it.
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