Joel 1:15

“Alas for the day! for the day of the Lord [is] at hand, etc.] A time of severer and heavier judgments than these of the locusts, caterpillars, etc. which were a presage and emblem of greater ones, even of the total destruction of their city, temple, and nation, either by the Chaldeans, or by the Romans, or both: and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come; unawares, suddenly, and irresistibly: there is in the Hebrew text an elegant play on words, which may be rendered, as “wasting from the waster”, or “destruction from the destroyer, shall it come” F22; even from the almighty God, who is able to save and destroy, and none can deliver out of his hands; (see <231306>Isaiah 13:6); the…”

“day of the Lord-- (Joe 2:1, Joe 2:11); that is, the day of His anger (Isa 13:9; Oba 1:15; Zep 1:7, Zep 1:15). It will be a foretaste of the coming day of the Lord as Judge of all men, whence it receives the same name. Here the transition begins from the plague of locusts to the worse calamities (Joe 2:1-11) from invading armies about to come on Judea, of which the locusts were the prelude.”

“Alas for the day! for the Day of the Lord is at hand - The judgment of God, then, which they were to deprecate, was still to come. : “All times and all days are God’s. Yet they are said to be our days, in which God leaves us to our own freedom, to do as we will,” and which we may use to repent and turn to Him. “Whence Christ saith, ‘O Jerusalem - if thou hadst known in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace’ Luke 19:42. That time, on the contrary, is said to be God’s Day, in which He doth any new, rare, or special thing, such as is the Day of Judgment or vengeance.” All judgment in time is an image of the Judgment for eternity. “The Day of the Lord” is, then, each “day of…”

“The day of the Lord - A day of greater trouble than yet they felt, troubles which God will heap upon them. Shall it come - Unless fasting, prayers and amendment prevent. Joel 1:16”

“1:15 The locust plague was not simply a natural event, but a sign that the day of the Lord was near. Beginning with Amos in the 700s BC (Amos 5:18), the prophets had spoken of a future time when God would intervene in human history to judge the wicked and vindicate the righteous. • destruction . . . from the Almighty: The Hebrew text highlights the similar sounds of the word destruction (shod) and the title the Almighty (shadday).”

“Alas: Joe 2:2; Jer 30:7; Amo 5:16-18 the day of: Joe 2:1; Psa 37:13; Isa 13:6-9; Eze 7:2-12, Eze 12:22-28; Zep 1:14-18; Luk 19:41-44; Jam 5:9; Rev 6:17 Joel 1:16”

“"Alas for the day! for the day of Jehovah is near, and it comes like violence from the Almighty." This verse does not contain words which the priests are to speak, so that we should have to supply לאמר, like the Syriac and others, but words of the prophet himself, with which he justifies the appeal in Joe 1:13 and Joe 1:14. ליּום is the time of the judgment, which has fallen upon the land and people through the devastation by the locusts. This "day" is the beginning of the approaching day of Jehovah, which will come like a devastation from the Almighty. Yōm Yehōvâh is the great day of judgment upon all ungodly powers, when God, as the almighty ruler of the world, brings down and destroys…”