Joel’s Army 

by Douglas Corrupting the Image 2

Appendix 8: Joel’s Army 

Joel received a similar message concerning what is coming and explained the incredible fear people will experience. “Before them the people writhe in pain; All faces are drained of color” (Joel 2:6). Jesus told us that the end will involve “men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken” (Luke 21:26). Joel’s prophecy, in fact, pins the timing of the hearts failing and “faces drained of color” to the arrival of the creatures from the Abyss. Joel says: 

Blow the trumpet in Zion, And sound an alarm in My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; For the day of the LORD is coming, For it is at hand: A day of darkness and gloominess, A day of clouds and thick darkness, Like the morning clouds spread over the mountains. A people come, great and strong, The like of whom has never been; Nor will there ever be any such after them, Even for many successive generations. A fire devours before them, And behind them a flame burns; The land is like the Garden of Eden before them, And behind them a desolate wilderness; Surely nothing shall escape them (Joel 2:1–3). 

At the end of the chapter, he speaks of an army of locusts: “… the swarming locust has eaten… my great armycclxxviii which I sent among you.” (Joel 2:25). We know that this army is related to locusts, which reminds us of the army related to locusts in Revelation 9. These armies are composed of locusts, but they are not locusts. How does that work?  

Joel calls them locusts but describes them as horses, just like John did in Revelation 9. “Their appearance is like the appearance of horses, and like war horses they run” (Joel 2:4). They are apparently locusts that do not look like locusts, but like horses.  

The noise they make is like the “rumbling of chariots” (Joel 2:5). These creatures can “leap on the tops of the mountains” (Joel 2:5). That means that they have the capacity to fly or at least to jump exceedingly high—to the tops of mountains! It is a leap so big that it is equivalent to flying.  

They evoke the image and sound of a fire, “like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring the stubble, like a powerful army drawn up for battle” (Joel 2:5). Their movement is like a spark jumping out of the fire; they leap like bits of a combusting log ablaze in flames They are very powerful. As they spread out over the earth, “Before them peoples are in anguish; all faces grow pale (Joel 2:6). These creatures are like nothing the world has ever seen before:  

Like warriors they charge; like soldiers they scale the wall. They march each on his way; they do not swerve from their paths. They do not jostle one another; each marches in his path; they burst through the weapons and are not halted. ​They leap upon the city, they run upon the walls, they climb up into the houses, they enter through the windows like a thief (Joel 2:7–9). 

If they can leap to the top of a mountain, then naturally, they can scale walls. Man’s weapons have no effect on them; they just burst through the weapons and are not halted! That means that people are presumably trying to stop the beings in this army, and they are not able to slow the creatures. These beings are able to just burst through the defensive weapons.  

The earth quakes before them; the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining (Joel 2:10).  

This is an important clue regarding the timing, and it is going to help us see that the events in Revelation, chapter 9 are the same events being described in Joel.  

And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit (Rev 9:2). 

We want to find two or three witnesses to a particular event in order to understand it better. When we find several references to the same event, we need to match up the information, in what I call biblical triangulation. It is similar to using cell towers to track a phone’s location by measuring the time delay that a signal takes to return back to the towers from the phone. This delay is then calculated into distance and gives a fairly accurate location of the phone. We can use the information about the sun and the moon and the stars growing dark from Joel and Revelation and even, Isaiah 13:10 speaks of the event. When we triangulate using the parallel information, we get clues about the details and timing of the event. 

Something pretty radical is happening. Let us just do a quick comparison. I summarized the information from Joel, chapter 2 and Revelation, chapter 9 in an outline (Next page). 

Page Break 

Joel 2 Revelation 9 
Timing Markers & Great Army,  the same in both passages 
Earthquake, Sun, Moon, stars do not shine Powerful army Sun, moon, stars diminished by smoke Army of 200 million 
Joel’s Description of creatures John’s Description of creatures 
look like horses running to war loud like chariots / fire capacity to fly / jump exceedingly high people’s hearts failing them able to go over walls march in formation, do not deviate weapons have no effect  Like a horse running to battle Lion’s head Man’s face Something like crowns Woman’s hair Lion’s teeth Something like breastplates of iron  Noisy wings  Scorpion’s tail with stingers Serpent-head tails Fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow iron-like breastplate Fire and brimstone from mouth 

Table 9 Comparison of Joel Ch. 2 & Revelation Ch, 9 

In Joel’s description, we get a long-distance view of the scene which focuses on the coordinated movements of the horse-like creatures pressing forward in troops. Joel describes the people’s collective reactions to the invasion. He focuses on the disciplined movements of the army of beasts that blasts quickly and forcefully upon a whole city. Joel notes how the beasts are not limited by gravity or deterred by walls or weaponry.  

In Revelation, John describes the same horse-like creatures who are running to battle, but John gives a closer camera view. John describes the colors of the breastplates of the beasts. He gives a close-up sketch of individual beasts by describing the faces, crown, hair and even the teeth. He notes that the beasts can expel fire from their mouths. John and Joel are describing the same creatures, but Joel is viewing them at a distance, while John is up close.   

The precursor to the explosion of charging beasts in both accounts, is the diminished or darkened moon and sun. John explains that the cause of the darkening is the smoke from the pit. The Abyss is opened with voluminous smoke which darkens the sky by blocking the luminaries. Both Joel and John agree that this is the time that the horse-like creatures appear and go to battle. Here, we have two witnesses to the event which agree that it begins with the opening of the Abyss and culminates with the launch of these muscular creatures invading and terrorizing people.