Albert Barnes Commentary Joel 2:11

"And Jehovah uttereth his voice before his army; for his camp is very great; for he is strong that executeth his word; for the day of Jehovah is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?" — Joel 2:11 (ASV)

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 in the midst of the judgments, people should (as they often do) forget the Judge, he represents God as commanding this His army, gathering, ordering, marshaling, 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 depicted as marshaling; as Isaiah, referring perhaps to this place, says, The Lord of hosts musters the host of the battle (Isaiah 13:4).

God had spoken, and His people had not obeyed; now He no longer speaks to them, 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 follows a threefold ground of terror. For His camp is very great. All the instruments with which God punishes sin are depicted as His one camp, each going as He commands: Who brings forth the host of heaven by number: He calls them all by names, by the greatness of His might, because He is strong in power; not one fails (Isaiah 40:26).

For He is strong that executes His word, or, for it (His camp) is strong, executing His word. Though His instruments are weak in themselves, they are mighty when they do His commands, for He empowers them, as Paul says, 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 enables him.

This is the close of the threatened woe. The close, so much beyond any passing scourge of any created destroyer, locusts or armies, all the more suggests what has already been said: that the prophet is speaking of the whole aggregate of God’s judgments up to the Day of Judgment.

“The Lord says 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 amidst 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, what Scripture describes was done. The priests and teachers accordingly are here commanded to lift up their voice like a trumpet in Zion, that is, the Church, so that 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 departs from the body. For what will happen to all in the Day of Judgment, this is fulfilled for each in the day of death.

It is a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, because everything will be full of punishment and torment.

The great and strong people of the angels will come to render to each according to his works; and as the rising morning first seizes the mountains, so judgment shall begin with the great and mighty, so that mighty men shall be mightily tormented . There has not been ever the like, neither shall there be any more after it.

For all evils contained in ancient histories and which have happened to people—by inundation of the sea, or overflow of rivers, or by pestilence, disease, famines, wild beasts, ravages of enemies—cannot be compared to the Day of Judgment. A fire devours, or consumes, before this people, to consume in us hay, wood, stubble. From this it is said of God, your God is a consuming fire (Deuteronomy 4:24). And after him a flame burns, so as to leave nothing unpunished.

Whoever this people does not touch, nor finds in him what is to be burned, shall be likened to the garden of God, and the paradise of pleasure, that is, of Eden. If it burns any, it will reduce this (as it were) wilderness to dust and ashes, nor can any escape its fury.

For they shall run to and fro to torture those over whom they shall receive power, like horsemen flying here and there. Their sound shall be terrible, as chariots hurrying along level places, and upon the tops of the mountains they shall leap, longing to torment all who are lofty and set on high in the Church.

And since before them there is a devouring fire, they will destroy everything, as the fire devours the stubble. They shall come to punish, as a strong people in battle array.

Such will be the fear of all, such the conscience of sinners, that none shall shine or have any brightness of joy, but his face shall be turned into darkness. They shall not turn aside in fulfilling the office assigned to them, but each shall carry on the punishments on sinners entrusted to him.

At the presence of that people, the earth shall quake and the heavens tremble. For heaven and earth shall pass away, but the word of the Lord shall endure forever. The sun and moon also shall not endure to see the punishments of the miserable, and shall remove and, for bright light, shall be shrouded in terrible darkness. The stars also shall withdraw their shining, because even the holy shall not without fear behold the presence of the Lord.

Amidst all this, The Lord shall utter His voice before His army. For as the Babylonians, in punishing Jerusalem, are called the army of God, so the evil angels (of whom it is written, He cast upon them the fierceness of His anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels among them (Psalms 78:49)) are called the army of God and His camp, in that they do the Will of God.”

The Day of the Lord is great and terrible - Of which it is written elsewhere, to what end do you desire the Day of the Lord? It is darkness and not light and very terrible , and few or none can abide it, but each will furnish some ground of severity against himself.