Scripture Daily

Context No. 398 of 4322 · Joel

Context · Reflection

Joel 2:1-16: in context

1Blow 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 close at hand: 2A day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness. As the dawn spreading on the mountains, a great and strong people; there has never been the like, neither will there be any more after them, even to the years of many generations. 3A fire devours before them, and behind them, a flame burns. The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them, a desolate wilderness. Yes, and no one has escaped them. 4Their appearance is as the appearance of horses, and they run as horsemen. 5Like the noise of chariots on the tops of the mountains, they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devours the stubble, like a strong people set in battle array. 6At their presence the peoples are in anguish. All faces have grown pale. 7They run like mighty men. They climb the wall like warriors. They each march in his line, and they don’t swerve off course. 8One doesn’t jostle another. They each march in their own path. They burst through the defenses and don’t break ranks. 9They rush on the city. They run on the wall. They climb up into the houses. They enter in at the windows like thieves. 10The earth quakes before them. The heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. 11The LORD thunders his voice before his army, for his forces are very great; for he is strong who obeys his command; for the day of the LORD is great and very awesome, and who can endure it? 12“Yet even now,” says the LORD, “turn to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.” 13Tear your heart and not your garments, and turn to the LORD, your God; for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and relents from sending calamity. 14Who knows? He may turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, even a meal offering and a drink offering to the LORD, your God. 15Blow the trumpet in Zion! Sanctify a fast. Call a solemn assembly. 16Gather the people. Sanctify the assembly. Assemble the elders. Gather the children, and those who nurse from breasts. Let the bridegroom go out of his room, and the bride out of her chamber.

Joel is describing something terrifying. An army is coming, pictured as a swarm of locusts but with the force of an invading horde, darkening the sky, devouring everything, scaling walls, entering houses through the windows, unstoppable, and behind it the day of the LORD itself, the earth quaking and the sun and moon going dark. The LORD thunders before his army, Joel says, and it is great and dreadful, and who can endure it? It is the kind of passage that leaves you bracing for the worst.

And then, right in the middle of the dread, comes a hinge of two words: yet even now. Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. The response God actually wants in the face of judgment is not despair or bracing, but return. And he adds a phrase that cuts straight through religious performance: rend your hearts and not your garments. Tearing your clothes was the standard outward sign of grief and repentance, the visible gesture that made you look appropriately sorry. God says he is not after the torn shirt. He is after the torn heart, the inward reality rather than the outward display. And the reason he gives for returning is his own character, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Who knows, Joel says, he may even turn and leave a blessing behind.

Two things in that are worth keeping. The first is the difference between rending the garment and rending the heart, between looking contrite and actually turning inside, and I know which one is easier to fake. The second is the yet even now, the door left open in the face of judgment because of who God is. Is my repentance a torn garment, the outward show of being sorry, or a torn heart, a real inward turning, and have I heard the yet even now, that it is not too late to return to a God who is still gracious?

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