Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD comes, for it is near at hand;
All Commentaries on Joel 2:1 Go To Joel 2
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
The terror of the strict inquest, which Zephaniah calls “the trumpet,” blessed Job designates “thundering.” Joel, also viewing it, says, “Let all the inhabitants of the land be troubled, for the Day of the Lord comes; for it is nigh at hand, a day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of cloud and whirlwind.” For the Day of the Lord is great and very terrible, and who shall sustain it? But how incomprehensible and unimaginable that greatness with which he shall come in his second coming! In some degree we estimate correctly if we consider with heedful reflection the momentous circumstances of his first advent. Surely the Lord came to die, and the impoverishment and punishments of our flesh he underwent in his own body that he might redeem us from death. Before he came to the stock of the cross he suffered to be bound, to be spit on, to be mocked and to be beaten with blows on his cheek. Observe to what disgraceful treatment he consented to come for our sakes, and yet, before he permitted himself to be laid hold of, he questioned his persecutors, saying, “Whom do you seek?” To that they answered, “Jesus of Nazareth.” And when he said to them directly, “I am he,” he only uttered a voice of the mildest answer, and at once prostrated his armed persecutors to the earth. What then shall he do when he comes to judge the world, if by one utterance of his voice he struck down his enemies even when he came to be judged? What is that judgment which he exercises as immortal, that a single utterance of it could not be endured when he was about to die? Who may sustain his wrath when his very mildness even could not be sustained? So then, let the holy man consider it and say, “And while we scarcely hear a little drop of his words, who shall be able to look on the thundering of his majesty?” Morals on the Book of Job.
