2:1–11 In 1:15, Joel announced the imminence of the day of the Lord. He now tells what that day will be like. Some scholars have maintained that this section does not concern God’s final judgment and is instead a description of the invasion of the locusts of chapter 1. In such a view, the locust plague would be not a past event, but a present one.

Several features of this passage would, on the face of it, seem to support such a position. It describes a large and mighty army, verse 2 (cf. v. 11), and that would seem to fit in with the characterization of the locusts as a “nation,” “powerful and without number,” in 1:6. The reference to clouds and blackness in 2:2 fits locust hordes, which are often so large that they block out the sun. The shape of locusts could be compared to that of hors…