Whosoever shall call, &c.— This expression seems to have a double meaning in the sacred writings. Sometimes it signifies to call oneself by or to be called by the name of Jehovah: thus, Genesis 4:26. As it is in the margin of our Bibles; Then began men to call themselves by the name of the Lord; that is to say, to be called the sons of God, in opposition to those who were called the sons of men. See Genesis 6:2.Judges 18:29. Isaiah 44:5; Isaiah 48:1. In other places, the expression unquestionably signifies solemn invocation or worship of God; and in whatever sense you understand it, the meaning is, that all Christians, who are named from Christ their Lord, or all the true worshippers of God, should escape the calamities of this dreadful day. It is added, In mount Sion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance. This terrible day was to fall on mount Sion and Jerusalem; nevertheless the true worshippers of God should escape thence, and not share in the common calamity. Nor should this be the case only of those who dwelt in Jerusalem; but of all the rest whom Jehovah should call: the remainder of all the true worshippers and obedient and faithful followers of God, not only in Jerusalem, but in all other places, should, according to the promise of God, have a merciful escape, and a gracious deliverance afforded them. See Matthew 24:21-22. All these predictions were abundantly accomplished in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. See Chandler.
REFLECTIONS.—1st, The heavy judgment coming upon the people of Israel is here set forth.
1. The alarm is spread. Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain, to give notice of the invading foe, and to prepare them for the approaching danger. This was the priest's office, who, as the watchman upon Zion's walls, must warn sinners of the wrath of God ready to light upon them, and urge them, while there is hope, to flee from it. The judgments at the door should make the people tremble, and the fatal day is nigh, to punish the transgressors, a day of darkness, &c. when the very sun should be obscured with clouds of locusts; or, as their phrases may signify, the deepest calamities would overtake them; as the morning spread upon the mountains, coming suddenly, and spreading universally and irresistibly; or the air should be so darkened with the swarms of insects, that at mid-day the light should not exceed the dawning of the morning.
2. The army is marshalled in battle array. A great people and a strong, supplying by multitude what they singly want in might; nor were there ever before, nor shall there be hereafter, such ravages committed by them in Judaea. As they advanced, they swept the land as with the besom of destruction; and behind them the country looked black and barren as if fire had devoured it; so that what was as the garden of Eden before them, quickly appeared as a desolate wilderness, nothing escaping their devouring jaws. Swift and bold as horses, they rushed on; and, as rattling chariots over the rugged mountains, the sound of them was heard afar off, leaping as they advanced, and terrible as the roaring of devouring fire, which spreads resistless on every side; marching firm, embodied in exact battalion, as soldiers keep their ranks. In vain against them the sword is drawn; they elude the stroke, or those that fall are not found wanting, so vast is their multitude. Not only the country is devoured by them, but the cities are covered, the houses are filled with them; and these were the forerunners and emblems of the Chaldean armies, which should in like manner spread desolations on every side, destroy the country; sack the cities, plunder and make captive the inhabitants, and leave Judaea a wilderness without man or beast. Note; (1.) There is no fence against God's judgments. (2.) The sound of them in other lands should be to us loud calls to repentance.
3. Great would be the terror spread through the had by these invaders. The people, seized with pangs as a woman in travail, would be in the deepest consternation, and every face gather blackness, livid as the corpse from which the spirit is fled. The very earth shall quake before them, the heavens tremble, and the luminaries thereof be darkened, obscured by the locusts; or figuratively, it bespeaks the deep distress of the inhabitants, from the king upon the throne to the lowest of the people. And well indeed may they tremble who see the wrath of God thus revealed against them. For,
4. This is his doing. It is his army, that marches under his direction, animated by his voice, who, as their captain, leads them on to victory, too numerous to be opposed, too strong to be resisted, since they are sent to execute his word. For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible, and who can abide it? Note; The impenitent sinner must needs perish, unable to oppose the arm of Omnipotence, or bear up under the strokes of his fierce anger.
2nd, To oppose these desolating judgments, when they came, were vain; to avert them, before they arrived, was yet possible; and the way is prescribed:
1. By a penitent return to God.
[1.] Let a solemn fast be proclaimed, (see chap. Joel 1:14.) and all summoned to appear before God, from the highest to the lowest, from the hoary head to the babe that sucks the breast; the universal judgment called for deep and universal abasement: nor must the bridegroom or bride be absent. In public calamities all private joys must be swallowed up.
[2.] Let the priests, with deepest mourning and most fervent supplications, pour forth their complaints to God, and, standing between the porch and the altar, on which now no sacrifices smoked, with tears of heartfelt woe cry unto God, if mercy yet is to be found, Spare thy people, O Lord: they plead that relation which, though an aggravation of their sin, yet ministers a ground for hope that yet the Lord would not utterly cast them off; and give not thine heritage to reproach, by driving them into strange countries to seek for food, or suffering them, thus impoverished, to fall an easy prey into the hands of their enemies, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God? Not only their lives and characters but God's glory was concerned; and for his own great name's sake, though they deserved no favour, they must plead for his interposition. Note; (1.) The ministers of God must themselves be deeply affected, if they would affect the hearts of their people. (2.) Mercy is all that a miserable sinner can ask at God's hand.
[3.] Let the people join their ministers with prayers and tears, and heartfelt humiliation, and (without which every outward expression of distress is but hypocrisy) turn unto the Lord their God in simplicity and truth, deeply convinced of the evil of their sins, and truly abhorring themselves in the view of them; putting away the accursed thing, and cleaving to the Lord with full purpose of heart, through his grace, to approve henceforward their unshaken fidelity to him. In this way, sinners as we are, a door of hope will yet be opened for us.
2. The most powerful arguments are suggested to engage them hereunto. He is called the Lord your God, who has not yet disclaimed his relation to them, for he is gracious and merciful; and, though highly provoked, he is not inexorable; he delights not in the death of a sinner; slow to anger, unwilling, even after repeated offences, to destroy the guilty; waiting with astonishing patience; and of great kindness, ready to receive him the moment he relents and returns; and repenteth him of the evil, changing the afflictive dispensations of his providence towards the penitent, and, instead of wrath, thinketh upon mercy: and surely nothing can break the obdurate heart, if such tender pity and undeserved compassion lead us not to repentance. Who knoweth if he will return and repent, averting the heavy temporal calamities threatened, of which they might entertain good hope if they turned truly to him, and have a blessing behind him, not as departing from them, but as coming to their rescue, and staying the ravages of the locusts; even a meat-offering and a drink-offering unto the Lord our God? for their desires were more intent on having God's altar supplied than their own tables covered; and this was a gracious evidence of the truth of their repentance.
3. God gives them the strongest assurance that he will hear their prayer, and will both help them and glorify himself. He will be jealous for his land, for his great name's sake, and pity his people in their deep distress. Their plenty shall be restored, their reproach be removed, and their devourers destroyed, and cast in heaps into the sea, filling the air with the stench of their putrid carcases; because he hath done great things, because of the mischief they have occasioned; or, for he will do great things, God will make bare his arm for their rescue, and do for them the great things promised in this and the following verses. Some apply this to the destruction of Sennacherib's army; and probably these locusts, both in their invasion and destruction, were a figure of the Assyrians. Note; God will assuredly hear when his believing people cry; and their enemies and his shall know the fierceness of his wrath.
3rdly, Many great and precious promises are here added, for the comfort and joy of the faithful people of God.
1. Their fears shall be all removed. The Lord will do great things for them; rescuing them wonderfully from the hands of every enemy, whether the locusts or Chaldeans; as he will also save the souls of sincere believers in Christ Jesus from every spiritual foe, and deliver them from the fears of guilt, and the powers of corruption.
2. Their joys shall be restored. Their temporal comforts shall abound; the devastations of the locusts shall be repaired; the pastures which had been devoured shall spring afresh, watered with the dew of heaven. The rain, moderately descending in its season, shall fertilize the soil, and cause their corn, their vineyards, their olive and fig-trees, to shoot vigorously, and bring forth fruit abundantly; so that their garners should be filled, and their fats overflow. And, what is far better than even their restored plenty, he will give them spiritual consolation, and the sanctified enjoyment of their comforts. They shall rejoice in the Lord their God, ascribing to him the praise of all their mercies, and happy in a sense of his love and favour. By experience now they shall be brought to know God's gracious presence in the midst of them, and that he alone is God, even their God, and none else; all idols being utterly rejected by them, and his great name alone adored and exalted: and this will be most eminently the case, when that teacher of righteousness (as the words may be rendered, instead of the former rain moderately) whom God would send, even the divine Messiah, should come, and by his own obedience unto death work out, and in his Gospel direct us to, that great atonement and redemption, which is the grand source of every believer's joy.
3. They shall never be ashamed; never have cause to be so, through want of food, as before: or rather, the Lord their confidence will never disappoint the hope of his faithful people; he will be their rock and refuge in every time of need.
4. The very beasts that groaned and cried to God, shall have the cause of their fears and cries removed. The pastures of the wilderness do spring; even to them hath God respect, for his mercies are over all his works, Jonah 4:11.
4thly, The promises from Joel 2:28 to the conclusion of the chapter, evidently look forward, in the first place, to the introduction of the Gospel, and its establishment in the world; and, secondly, to those last and glorious days which shall precede and usher in the universal reign of Christ: and in all the former troubles of the people of God, the prospect of these blessed days was a great support under their afflictions.
1. There shall be a most plenteous effusion of the Spirit, as on the apostles at the day of Pentecost, to which this prophesy is expressly applied, Acts 2:16-17 and afterwards upon all flesh, Gentiles as well as Jews, who should be made partakers of the Holy Ghost, both of his miraculous powers, as well as the ordinary gifts and graces that he bestows; the latter of which still continue, though the former have ceased, yet perhaps not for ever. Old and young, persons of both sexes, should alike partake of this blessing, and even the meanest servants and hand-maidens not be excluded from this unspeakable gift. Thus they should be enabled to prophesy; either to foretel things to come, as Agabus, the daughters of Philip, and others, Acts 11:28; Acts 13:1; Acts 21:9-10.; or to speak the truths of God to the edification of others; or to join in his praises with enlarged hearts; in all of which senses the word prophesy is used.
2. A scene of dreadful prodigies shall follow, which had their primary accomplishment in the dreadful ravages of the Roman army in Judaea, and the strange sights and appearances in the air which ushered in the destruction of Jerusalem, and will also precede the final coming of the eternal Judge, and usher in the great and the terrible day of the Lord. Happy would it he for the sinner, if the tremendous views of that awful day's approach might alarm his conscience, and awaken his concern, to fly to the bosom of Jesus for shelter from the wrath to come, that he may be hidden there in the day of the Lord's fierce anger.
3. The faithful in that great day are secured from fear of evil. It shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered, as those were who believed in Jesus, and fled to Pella on the approaching siege of Jerusalem. And, more generally, this must be extended to all Christ's faithful people, who in and through him find salvation from all the great enemies of their souls; and, waiting upon him by faith in ceaseless prayer, obtain from him help in every time of need. For in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, in the gospel church, shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, who is faithful to all his promises; and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call, when he collects his ancient people from all their dispersions, cuts off all the obstinately impenitent, and brings in the fulness of the Gentiles. Blessed and happy are they who have a part in this salvation: may my lot be with them!