1. And it shall happen afterward. Rashi, Kimchi, and most modern interpreters take this to be an indication of the end-time, but it is a rather quotidian expression, as if one were to say “the day after tomorrow” or “in a month or so.” Could it be an indication that Joel thought the end-time was very close?

2. And even upon male slaves and slavegirls. There is, then, to be no social limitation to the gift of prophecy—it will envelop all.

3. blood and fire and columns of smoke. What begins as an ostensibly benign vouchsafing of prophecy to all here turns violent and, indeed, ominous.

4. The sun shall turn into darkness. Even though this seems to be the prediction of a solar eclipse, it is clearly represented as a frightening supernatural event.

and the moon into blood. Under certain atmospheric conditions, the moon does have a reddish appearance, but, again this is imagined as a supernatural occurrence—blood in the sky answering to the blood and fire on earth, harbinger of the terrifying “day of the LORD” that is invoked in the next line of poetry.

5. And all who call in the name of the LORD shall escape. The vision becomes properly apocalyptic, a reflection of Joel’s Late Biblical location. As in the conclusion of the Book of Daniel, there will be a great cataclysm in which many will perish and only the elect who cling to God will be saved.

the survivors whom the LORD calls. Some interpreters, with an eye to the beginning of the verse, understand this as “the survivors who call to the LORD.” The verb, however, is in the singular, and the prophet is probably registering a familiar biblical idea that when people call sincerely to God, He will call to them in return.