يوئيل ٢:٣١

For Joe 2:31, see at Joe 2:1, Joe 2:11. But it is only by the world and its children that the terrible day of the Lord is to be feared; to the children of God it brings redemption (Luk 21:28). Whoever calls upon the name of Jehovah, i.e., the believing worshippers of the Lord, will be exempted from the judgment. "Calling upon the name of Jehovah" signifies not only the public worship of God, but inward worship also, in which the confession of the mouth is also an expression of the heart. Upon Mount Zion will be pelētâh, i.e., not deliverance, but that which has escaped, or, in a collective sense, those who have escaped the judgment, as the synonym serı̄dı̄m, which follows, clearly shows. Mount Zion and Jerusalem are not mentioned here as the capital of the kingdom of Judah, but, according to their spiritual significance, as the place where the Lord was enthroned in the sanctuary in the midst of His people; that is to say, as the central spot of the kingdom of God. Consequently it is not "to the whole nation of Judah as such that deliverance is promised, on the assumption that in those times of distress the population of the land would have streamed to Jerusalem" (Hitzig), but only to those who call upon the name of the Lord, i.e., to the true worshippers of God, upon whom the Spirit of God is poured out. The words כּאשׁר אמר יי are not synonymous with נאם יי or כּי יי דּבּר (Joe 3:8; Isa 1:20; Isa 40:5, etc.), but point to a prophetic word already known, viz., to Oba 1:17, where the saying of the Lord, that in the midst of the judgment there would be rescued ones upon Mount Zion, occurs word for word. וּבשּׂרידים also depends תּהיה ... כּי: "and among those that remain will be those whom Jehovah calls." Sârı̄d is one who is left after a judgment or a battle; hence in…

In this chapter we have, I. A further description of that terrible desolation which should be made in the land of Judah by the locusts and caterpillars (Joe 2:1-11). II. A serious call to the people, when they are under this sore judgment, to return and repent, to fast and pray, and to seek unto God for mercy, with directions how to do this aright (Joe 2:12-17). III. A promise that, upon their repentance, God would remove the judgment, would repair the breaches made upon them by it, and restore unto them plenty of all good things (Joe 2:18-27). IV. A prediction of the setting up of the kingdom of the Messiah in the world, by the pouring out of the Spirit in the latter days (Joe 2:28-32). Thus the beginning of this chapter is made terrible with the tokens of God's wrath, but the latter end of it made comfortable with the assurances of his favour, and it is in the way of repentance that this blessed change is made; so that, though it is only the last paragraph of the chapter that points directly at gospel-times, yet the whole may be improved as a type and figure, representing the curses of the law invading men for their sins, and the comforts of the gospel flowing in to them upon their repentance.