Joel 3:4b MT [2:31b LXX] is identical to Mal 3:23 MT [4:4b
LXX]; Joel has borrowed directly from Malachi, but he has gone significantly
beyond him. In 3:4 MT [2:31 LXX], by combining Malachi’s “great and terrible
day” with “who will endure it?”
together with the sun and the moon upheaval, taken up and adapted from Joel
2:10-11, Joel has emphasized that the great and terrible Day of the Lord of
which the prophets spoke is inescapable. The pairing of “great and terrible”
and “who will endure it” occurs only in Joel 2:11b in all of the OT. While not
slavishly rendering Malachi 3:2, 23 MT, Joel has combined his two distinct
ideas into one aspect of his own description of the Day. This pairing heightens
the catastrophic nature of the Day. There is more than a rhetorical arousal of
the audience in this allusion. Joel 2:10-11 prepares the way for Joel 3:4-5 MT,
where the prophet, using the adapted descriptions from both Isaiah and Malachi,
illustrates that the great and terrible Day can be endured by a faithful
remnant. The combining of these allusions with the mention of those rescued in
place of the disturbing query of “who can hear it” suggests that Joel intends
to say that a faithful Israel can escape the wrath of the Lord. Joel borrowed
specific language and typical imagery associated with the Day of the Lord as
they were set out by the prophetic tradition before him. In 2:10-11 and again
in 3:4-5 MT Joel has combined the cosmic imagery of Isaiah 13 with Malachi’s
Day of the Lord material in order to suit his theology of reversal. Joel wished
to convey by means of adapted allusions that it is possible to endure the great
and terrible day if Israel turns to the Lord wholeheartedly.
In 3:4-5 MT [2:31-32
LXX], Joel further develops his emphasis on the chaos and upheaval of the Day
by adapting anew his allusion to Isa 13:10. Instead of declaring that the “sun
and moon are darkened, and the stars withhold their brightness,” as in Joel
2:10 and again in 4:15-16, Joel 3:4 MT [2:31 LXX] proclaims that “the sun will
be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood.” Joel’s mention of the moon
turning to blood is unique in all of the OT. (Susan F. Matthews, “The Power to
Endure and Be Transformed: Sun and Moon Imagery in Joel and Revelation 6,” in Imagery
and Imagination in Biblical Literature: Essays in Honor of Aloysius Fitzgerald,
F.S.C. [The Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series 27; The Catholic
Biblical Association of America; repr., Eugene, Oreg.: Pickwick Publications, 2023], 41)