Sometime between 500 and 350 B.C., post-exilic Israel experienced a devastating locust plague, followed by a drought. That experience is described in Joel chapter 1. And certainly the people suffered under the dreadful effects of those disasters. But the message of the prophet Joel — prompted not by the natural disasters, but given him as a revelation from the Lord — is that the Israelites face a still more terrible disaster if they do not repent and return to their God. “The day of the Lord is coming, it is near” (2:1).

The Day of the Lord is one of the most familiar concepts found throughout the Bible. It arose in the time of the tribal federation and of the Judges, when God fought on behalf of Israel against their enemies. Because the Lord defeated Israel’s foes in those days, the idea a…