Albert Barnes Commentary Joel 3:14

"Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! for the day of Jehovah is near in the valley of decision." — Joel 3:14 (ASV)

The prophet continues, as if in amazement at the great throng pressing one against another, “multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision.” It is as though, wherever he looked, there were still more of these “tumultuous masses,” so that there was nothing else besides them. It was one living, surging, boiling sea: throngs upon throngs, mere throngs!

The word translated as “multitudes” also suggests the hum and din of these masses thronging onward, blindly, to their own destruction. They all tumultuously rage together, and imagine a vain thing, against the Lord and against His Christ (Psalms 2:1–2).

But the place where they are gathered (although they do not know it) is the “valley of decision,” that is, of “sharp, severe judgment.” This valley is the same as the one previously called “the valley of Jehoshaphat”; but while that name only signifies “God judges,” this further name denotes the strictness of God’s judgment.

The word signifies “cut,” then “decided”; then it is used for severe punishment, or destruction decided and decreed by God.

For the Day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. Their gathering against God will be a sign of His coming to judge them. They come to fulfill their own ends, but His ends will be fulfilled on them. They are left to bring about their own doom; and, being abandoned by Him, they rush on all the more blindly because it is near. When their last sin is committed, their last defiance of God spoken or acted against Him, it has come.

At all times, indeed, the Lord is at hand (Philippians 4:5). It may be that we are told that the whole future revealed to us must shortly come to pass (Revelation 1:1), to show that all time is merely nothing, a moment, a dream, when it is gone. Yet here it is said, relatively, not in relation to us but to the things foretold, that it is near to come.