Who Can Endure It?
10 The earth quakes before them. The heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. 11 Yahweh thunders his voice before his army, for his forces are very great; for he is strong who obeys his command; for the day of Yahweh is great and very awesome, and who can endure it?
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.
settled What this mark means