Joel 3:15

¹⁴Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the Day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision. ¹⁵The sun and moon will grow dark, and the stars will no longer shine. ¹⁶The LORD will roar from Zion and raise His voice from Jerusalem; heaven and earth will tremble. But the LORD will be a refuge for His people, a stronghold for the people of Israel.

Sermons

Atlantic Lyman conf.1972-02 Studies in Daniel 12

Joseph Balsan

704

Summary

Joel 3:15 describes a scene of cosmic upheaval and divine judgment, with the sun and moon growing dark, and the stars no longer shining. This imagery signifies the Day of the Lord, a time of reckoning and justice when God will intervene in human affairs. The verse serves as a warning of the consequences of sin and rebellion against God, urging repentance and obedience. Ultimately, it points to the sovereignty and power of God over all creation, emphasizing the need for humility and reverence before Him.

Commentary

Keil-Delitzsch
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
John Gill

Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

"Sun and moon have become black, and the stars have withdrawn their shining. Joe 3:16. And Jehovah roars out of Zion, and He thunders out of Jerusalem; and heaven and earth quake: but Jehovah is a refuge to His people, and a stronghold to the sons of Israel. Joe 3:17. And ye will perceive that I Jehovah am your God, dwelling upon Zion, my holy mountain: and Jerusalem will be a sanctuary, and strangers will not pass through it any more." On the forebodings of the judgment in Joe 3:15, see at Joe 2:10. Out of Zion, the place of His throne, will Jehovah cause His thunder-voice to sound, will roar like a lion which is rushing upon its prey (Hos 5:14; Amo 3:4), so that heaven and earth tremble in consequence. But it is only to His enemies that He is terrible; to His people, the true Israel, He is a refuge and strong tower. From the fact that He only destroys His enemies, and protects His own people, the latter will learn that He is their God, and dwells upon Zion in His sanctuary, i.e., that He there completes His kingdom, that He purifies Jerusalem of all foes, all the ungodly through the medium of the judgment, and makes it a holy place which cannot be trodden any more by strangers, by Gentiles, or by the unclean of either Gentiles or Israelites (Isa 35:8), but will be inhabited only by the righteous (Isa 60:21; Zac 14:21), who, as Rev 21:27 affirms, are written in the Lamb's book of life. For Zion or Jerusalem is of course not the Jerusalem of the earthly Palestine, but the sanctified and glorified city of the living God, in which the Lord will be eternally united with His redeemed, sanctified, and glorified church. We are forbidden to think of the earthly Jerusalem or the earthly Mount Zion, not only by the circumstance that the gathering of all the heathen nations takes place in the valley of Jehoshaphat, i.e., in a portion of the valley of the Kidron, which is a pure impossibility, but also by the description which follows of the glorification of Judah.