The Meaning of Joel 1:15 Explained

Joel 1:15

KJV: Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.

YLT: And cry unto Jehovah, 'Alas for the day! For near is a day of Jehovah, And as destruction from the mighty it cometh.

Darby: Alas for the day! for the day of Jehovah is at hand, and as destruction from the Almighty shall it come.

ASV: Alas for the day! for the day of Jehovah is at hand, and as destruction from the Almighty shall it come.

KJV Reverse Interlinear

Alas  for the day!  for the day  of the LORD  [is] at hand,  and as a destruction  from the Almighty  shall it come. 

What does Joel 1:15 Mean?

Verse Meaning

The locust plague had destroyed (Heb. shadad) the fields and fruits of Judah, but Joel announced that things would get worse. Another day of destruction (Heb. shod) would come from the Lord, the Almighty (Heb. shadday). A locust plague was not only an evidence of God"s judgment (cf. Deuteronomy 28), but it had been a harbinger of future worse destruction in the past. A locust plague had preceded the plagues of darkness and death in Egypt (cf. Exodus 10-11). Thus, rather than seeing the locust plague as the end of the people"s troubles, Joel saw it as a prelude to something worse.
The day of the Lord is a term that appears frequently in the Old Testament, especially in the Prophets. It refers to a day in which the Lord is working obviously, in contrast to other days, the day of Prayer of Manasseh , in which man works without any apparent divine intervention. Specifically, it is a day in which the Lord intervenes to judge His enemies. Gerhard von Rad argued that this term was originally associated with the Israelite concept of holy war, [1] but other scholars have disputed this aetiology. Most agree, however, that it had early associations with battles and conquest. Here the day of the Lord is obviously one of destruction, though elsewhere it also refers to a day of blessing. The eschatological day of the Lord that the prophets anticipated includes both judgment (in the Tribulation) and blessing (in the Millennium and beyond). Here Joel spoke of an imminent day of the Lord; it was coming on Judah relatively soon (cf. Isaiah 13:6; Ezekiel 30:2-3; Amos 5:18-20; Zephaniah 1:7-13).

Context Summary

Joel 1:1-20 - A Summons To Penitence
We know nothing of Joel beyond this book. He was content to be God's mouthpiece and remain unknown. His message was one of unparalleled woe. The memory of God's loving kindness ought to have kept His people faithful and loyal, but since grace and love had failed to affect them awful judgments were announced. A small insect, the locust, was to prostrate man's boasted power. The four kinds of locusts here described and which doubtless devastated the country, were also symbols of the four world-empires, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, and Rome, which were to lay waste the Holy Land. Such judgments call for acts of repentance, such as fasting, humiliation, and intercession. There are days in national experience when it becomes us to gird ourselves and lament. The ministers and elders of the Church should lead the way. Where there has been infidelity to the great Lover of souls, when the visible Church or the individual member has turned from Christ to the wanton world, then joy withers away, Joel 1:12, spiritual worship ceases, Joel 1:9, and there can be neither peace nor safety until there has been repentance and return. [source]

Chapter Summary: Joel 1

1  Joel, declaring various judgments of God, exhorts to observe them,
8  and to mourn
14  He prescribes a solemn fast to deprecate those judgments

What do the individual words in Joel 1:15 mean?

Alas for the day for [is] at hand the day of Yahweh and as destruction from the Almighty it shall come
אֲהָ֖הּ ! לַיּ֑וֹם כִּ֤י קָרוֹב֙ י֣וֹם יְהוָ֔ה וּכְשֹׁ֖ד מִשַׁדַּ֥י‪‬ יָבֽוֹא

אֲהָ֖הּ  Alas 
Parse: Interjection
Root: אֲהָהּ  
Sense: alas!, oh!, ah!.
! לַיּ֑וֹם  for  the  day 
Parse: Preposition-l, Article, Noun, masculine singular
Root: יׄום 
Sense: day, time, year.
קָרוֹב֙  [is]  at  hand 
Parse: Adjective, masculine singular
Root: קָרֹוב  
Sense: near.
י֣וֹם  the  day 
Parse: Noun, masculine singular construct
Root: יׄום 
Sense: day, time, year.
יְהוָ֔ה  of  Yahweh 
Parse: Proper Noun, masculine singular
Root: יהוה 
Sense: the proper name of the one true God.
וּכְשֹׁ֖ד  and  as  destruction 
Parse: Conjunctive waw, Preposition-k, Noun, masculine singular
Root: שֹׁד  
Sense: havoc, violence, destruction, devastation, ruin.
מִשַׁדַּ֥י‪‬  from  the  Almighty 
Parse: Preposition-m, Proper Noun, masculine singular
Root: שַׁדַּי  
Sense: almighty, most powerful.
יָבֽוֹא  it  shall  come 
Parse: Verb, Qal, Imperfect, third person masculine singular
Root: בֹּוא 
Sense: to go in, enter, come, go, come in.