The punishment God is going to bring is worse than natural disaster. A most cruel and utterly inescapable army is approaching. Such an army has never existed before and will never exist again. It is all-destructive. The plague of locusts from Joel 1:4–14, Joel 1:16–20 turns out to be even worse than it was portrayed there. This army is numerous like a swarm of locusts. It is perfectly organized. Nothing escapes its clout. Even death takes away nothing from their power. As an army, they just keep going. Defending against them is of no use. Fortresses do not stop them. Losses do not count. Their momentum is unstoppable. They attack you in the place where you feel the safest: your home (your private quarters, where you share love and grief). It is altogether an inescapable steamroller.
The enemy appears to be a combination of the number of locusts in a locust plague and the strength of a human army. It is near impossible to describe its destructive power; it is beyond our imagination. The sun, moon, and stars look down, so to speak, in bewilderment. They do not want to watch this any longer. That is how hideous the acts of this army are. They turn off their lights. It is more than earth-shattering, it is having an effect to the farthest corners of the universe. A greater catastrophe cannot be imagined. Creation is being reversed. When this army has passed through, the earth will again be desolate and void
(Genesis 1:1). There is no protection, defense, or shelter. It is like the conquest of Jericho (Joshua 6:1–27). Nothing could be worse than the day of the Lord
that is about to destroy Israel, God’s people.
Numerous times in the Bible we read the reassuring words, fear not.
But this time the message actually says, be afraid!
for it will be terrible, beyond imaginable!
2 a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people; their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations.