The contrast. And yet that day is (the day) of the Lord, Jehovah Sabdoth (the rendering of the Authorized Version, For this is the day, etc; is clearly a mistake). The "day of Jehovah" is an expression so familiar to us that we are in danger of losing a part of its sublime meaning.
It is, in brief, "that crisis in the history of the world when Jehovah will interpose to rectify the evils of the present, bringing joy and glory to the humble believer, and misery and shame to the proud and disobedient ….
This great crisis is called a day, in antithesis to the ages of the Divine long suffering: it is Jehovah's day, because, without a special Divine interposition, there would be no issue out of the perplexities and miseries of human life."
We may say, with equal truth, that there are many "days of the Lord," and that there is only one. Every great revolution is a fresh stage in the great judgment day; "die Weltgesehichte ist das Weltgericht" (Schiller).
The loci classici for the expression in the prophets are Amos 5:18, Amos 5:20; Zephaniah 1:7, Zephaniah 1:14; Joel 2:1, Joel 2:11; Isaiah 2:12; Isaiah 13:6, Isaiah 13:9 (in Isaiah 2:12, the phraseology closely resembles that of our passage—"for there is a day unto Jehovah Sabaoth;" Jehovah, that is, hath it in readiness in the supersensible world, where there is no time, and where all God's purposes have an ideal, but no less real existence.
We might, in fact, render our passage, "but that day (is the day that belongeth) unto the Lord," etc.). The Lord here, as generally elsewhere, is that expressive form which intimates the universal lordship of the God who has revealed himself to Israel.
The sword. A comparison with Isaiah 34:6 suggests that it is "the sword of the Lord" which is meant—a symbolic phrase for the Divine vengeance, which meets us again in Jeremiah 12:12; Jeremiah 47:6; Deuteronomy 32:41, Deuteronomy 32:42; 7:20 (comp.
Joshua 5:13); Isaiah 27:1; Isaiah 31:8; Isaiah 34:5, Isaiah 34:6; Isaiah 66:16; Zechariah 13:7. If Jehovah can be spoken of as having an Arm, a Hand, and a Bow, why not also as having a sword? Both expressions represent the self-revealing side of the Divine nature, and are not merely poetical ornaments, but correspond to awful objective realities.
Divine vengeance exists, and must exercise itself on all who oppose the Divine will. Hath a sacrifice. The same figurative expression occurs in Isaiah 34:6, and, developed at considerable length, in Ezekiel 39:17-20, where the slaughtered foes are described as fatted beasts, rams, lambs, he-goats, bullocks—animals employed in the Jewish sacrifices.
This, then, is the purpose for which this immense host "rolls up from Africa"—it is that it may fall by the Euphrates, at once as a proof of God's justice, and as a warning to transgressors.