Attributed commentary excerpt
Barnes' Notes on Joel 2:11
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Notes on the Whole Bible
Albert Barnes (1798–1870) · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
And the Lord shall utter His voice - The prophet had described at length the coming of God’s judgments, as a mighty army. But lest amid the judgments, people should, (as they often do) forget the Judge, he represents God, as commanding this His army, gathering, ordering, marshalling, directing them, giving them the word, when and upon whom they should pour themselves. Their presence was a token of His. They should neither anticipate that command, nor linger. But as an army awaits the command to move, and then, the word being given, rolls on instantly, so God’s judgments await the precise moment of His Will, and then fall. “The voice of the Lord” is elsewhere used for the thunder; because in it He seems to speak in majesty and terror to the guilty soul. But here the voice refers, not to us, but to the army, which He is imaged as marshalling; as Isaiah, referring perhaps to this place, says “The Lord of hosts mustereth the host of the battle” Isaiah 13:4. God had spoken, and His people had not obeyed; now He speaks not to them anymore, but to their enemies. He calls the Medes and Persians, “My sanctified ones, My mighty ones” Isaiah 13:3, when they were to exercise His judgments on Babylon; and our Lord calls the Romans His armies. “He sent forth His armies and destroyed those murderers and burned up their city” Matthew 22:7. Then follow as threefold ground of terror. “For His camp is very great.” All the instruments wherewith God punishes sin, are pictured as His one camp, each going, as He commands, “Who bringeth forth the host of heaven by number: He calleth them all by names, by the greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power; not one faileth” Isaiah 40:26. For he is “strong, that executeth His word,” or, “for” it (His camp) is “strong, executing His word.” Weak though His instruments be in themselves, they are mighty when they do His commands, for He empowers them, as Paul saith, “I can do all things through Christ instrengthening me” Philippians 4:13. “For the Day of the Lord is great,” great, on account of the great things done in it. As those are called evil days, “an evil time,” in which evil comes; as it is called “an acceptable time;” in which we may be accepted; so the Day of God’s judgment is “great and very terrible,” on account of the great and terrible acts of His justice done in it. who can abide it? The answer is implied in the question. “No one, unless God enable him.” This is the close of the threatened woe. The close, so much beyond any passing scourge of any created destroyer, locusts or armies, suggests the more what has been said already, that the prophet is speaking of the whole aggregate of God’s judgments unto the Day of Judgment. : “The Lord saith, that He will send an Angel with the sound of a trumpet, and the Apostle declares that the resurrection of the dead shall take place amid the sound of a trumpet. In the Revelation of John too, we read that the seven Angels received seven trumpets, and as they sounded in order, that was done which Scripture describes. The priests and teachers accordingly are here bidden to lift up their voice like a trumpet in Zion, that is, the Church, that so all the inhabitants of the earth may be troubled or confounded, and this confusion may draw them to Salvation. “By the Day of the Lord,” understand the Day of judgment, or the day when each departeth out of the body. For what will be to all in the Day of judgment, this is fulfilled in each in the day of death. It i…
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