Joel 2:9, commentary and pictures

The verse pictures swift agents pressing through the city, racing along the walls, climbing over the houses and slipping in through the windows like thieves. No wall, locked door, hidden room or human weapon can stop them, break their ranks or turn them back. They are the Lord's great army of the day of the Lord, with His angels sent to carry out His word, bringing ruin and judgment upon the wicked at Christ's coming and leaving them without shelter or defense. In its nearer sense the same description portrays literal locusts and other devouring insects advancing in vast ordered swarms over field, forest and town, and in its fullest application it embraces all the destructive agencies of the last days. It belongs to the terrible day of the Lord at the end of time, when the earth is laid desolate under increasing calamity just before the resurrection of the just, and therefore the alarm must be sounded for all to tremble and turn to God with all the heart in fasting and weeping and mourning.

Picture and Invading Army

The verse pictures agents rushing back and forth through the city, running upon the wall, climbing up upon the houses, and entering in at the windows like a thief. They move with swift, unstoppable speed through streets, over defenses, onto roofs, and inside dwellings, as a destructive invading force that rapidly overruns the city and penetrates houses through windows. No wall can obstruct their march, and no locked entrance, bolts, locks, doors, hidden room, or secret chamber can bar them or hide their objects from them. Their ranks cannot be broken and the sword cannot hurt them, so that all human safeguards, inventions, efforts, and weapons are utterly powerless against them and leave their targets helpless.

In one reading they are the Lord's great heavenly army, including angels commissioned to execute His word and will in the great and terrible day of the Lord at the second coming. They are the agents concerned in the great work of that day, a formidable army bringing ruin and judgment upon the wicked. They enter everywhere to carry out divine judgment, leaving the wicked without any human protection and helpless in the hands of executioners.

In another reading they are literal locusts and other devouring pests and destructive insects, not figurative human armies. They advance in ordered ranks in vast numbers, overcome human efforts to stop them, overwhelm forests, cross water, disrupt human activity, and force their way into towns and houses, leaving destruction in their path as the earth degenerates. They move through streets, scale walls and houses, cover the ground and even accumulate on houses, matching the picture of an invading army moving through a city. In a broader reading the prophecy refers to vast swarms of destructive insects such as grasshoppers and caterpillars but may in its fullest application include the various destructive agencies of the last days. That ancient army of pests that came as calamity upon Judah and Jerusalem is typical of far greater calamities when the great day of the Lord is near.

In yet another reading the verse gives a vivid picture of warring nations invading a city, rushing through its streets and scaling its walls and houses. Against the insect reading, the language of the description is held to be too elevated to apply to locusts or their known ravages, with insuperable objections to the locust interpretation.

Prophecy Timing and Signs

The verse belongs to the picture of the terrible day of the Lord and the army that brings ruin, a destructive visitation that leaves the land desolate and serves as visible evidence that the curse is weighing more heavily on the earth near the end. Its fulfillment begins at the commencement of the day of the Lord, before the resurrection of the just and the thousand years. The vision was given eight hundred years before the first advent of Christ and shows the final visitation of God's wrath at the end of time.

It pictures the unrivaled time of trouble and the seven last plagues that immediately precede the resurrection of the dead and the beginning of the thousand years, a devastation greater than all wars and ravages of men, so terrible in its withering effect that the prophet begged for the scene to be taken from his eyes. The army of pests came as calamity upon Judah and Jerusalem nearly eight hundred years before Christ, before Hosea, with marked coincidences with Amos, and that local calamity typifies far greater calamities when the great day of the Lord is near. The prophecy has a double application with a partial fulfillment at an earlier great crisis and a complete fulfillment in the world's final crisis, and its reference to the last days includes the very last day.

Its local illustrations describe calamities that typify the war and trouble preceding the great day of Jehovah and the close of earth's history. They stand with the great preparations made in the last days for universal war and with God's promise in the outpouring of His Spirit. Here it is applied to the destruction of the world under the sounding of the seventh trumpet. It is applied to the great army that accompanies the Lord at His coming when the wicked are destroyed, the same heavenly army that follows the King of kings in Revelation 19, and to invading armies associated with the final destruction that reaches throughout the city including its houses.

The present world is to be laid waste at Christ's second coming, but this is not its final end, for God will renew it as a home for the righteous. Reported plagues illustrate it as a coming scourge and sign of the approaching end: the locust plague in Syria and the threatened increase of destructive insects in the United States show troubles are near and people should be ready. Grasshopper damage is at least a beginning of that work before Christ's coming and the day of the Lord, against which human inventions and efforts are powerless. Their orderly advance in vast numbers overwhelms forests, crosses water, and disrupts human activity, and caterpillars covering the ground and accumulating on houses illustrate their destructive, unstoppable advance.

The verse is included among signs of physical devastation in the last days that show the earth growing old and facing change. It stands in a prophecy of signs in the sun, moon, and stars marking the nearness of Christ's coming and the end of the world, to appear immediately after the long tribulation of persecution from 538 to 1798. That was fulfilled when the sun was darkened at midday and became black as sackcloth of hair on May 19, 1780, when the full moon that night gave no light and then appeared as blood, and when the stars fell on November 30, 1833. When all these come to pass they prove He is near, even at the door, and the generation that sees them all will see the coming of Christ.

Joel 2 is cited with Joel 1:14-20 in connection with the desolation and drought that will accompany the persecution of those who keep God's commandments, when they will have to flee for their lives as Elijah did. It shows the last days and persecution amid the church's union with the world.

Warning and Christian Application

When the day of the Lord draws near an alarm is to be sounded in Zion, the people are to tremble, and even the meek are to seek meekness and righteousness in reform and holy living. Because men have made void the law of God it is time for the Lord to work, and it is fully time for the watchmen on the walls of Zion to cry aloud and spare not, lifting up the voice like a trumpet to show the people their transgressions and their sins. The prophecy predicts world-wide messages of warning and reform to prepare people for the second coming of Christ. In its warning to Zion, the church, the picture of invaders rushing through streets, scaling walls and houses, and entering through windows urges earnestness in view of the destruction that will overwhelm the world.

That day is no ordinary day, and meeting it requires no ordinary preparation but turning to God with all the heart with a deep sense of sin and contrition shown in fasting and weeping and mourning. Joel 2:1-23 sets forth the latter-rain work of the Holy Spirit upon the remnant people of God, sounding the trumpet in Zion and the alarm in the holy mountain because the day of the Lord is nigh at hand, and pleading turn ye even to me with all your heart. The promised result is that God has given the former rain moderately and will cause to come down the former rain and the latter rain in the first month, and Israel shall know that God is in their midst and His people shall never be ashamed. That outpouring will be as wonderful in power and results as the early-rain baptism on the day of Pentecost, bringing refreshing from the presence of the Lord, ripening of the harvest, and the end of the conflict, and it is received only when its conditions of return and faithfulness are fulfilled.

The same prophecy was applied at Pentecost to the disciples of Christ working under the gospel commission. In that application the gifts of the Spirit were given to women as well as men for the work of the ministry, so that the prophetic work of women was part of the gospel plan and not an exception. The image of entering through a window like a thief applies also to evil thoughts, for a bad thought slips into the heart like a thief and can open the way for many more.