distant; and its being spoken of as _at hand_ is a necessary consequence of the saying, "Whereseover the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together,"--a declaration founded upon the divine nature, and therefore ever true. (Compare my _Commentary on the Apocalypse_ i. 1.) This designation is first found in i. 15: "Alas! for the day, for the day of the Lord is _at hand_, and as a destruction from the Almighty does it come." Here, two expedients for evasion have been tried. _Justi_ maintained that "the day is at hand" was equivalent to "the day is there,"--an opinion which does not deserve any further refutation. _Holzhausen_, _Credner_, and _Hitzig_ suppose that, by "the day of the Lord," we are not to understand the devastation by the locusts, but some severe judgment, to which that served as a prelude. This supposition is, however, opposed, first of all, by the verbal parallel passage in Isa. xiii. 6: "Howl ye, for the day of the Lord is at hand; it cometh as a destruction from the Almighty,"--where the day of the Lord cannot be any other than that which is described in the preceding context. But this opinion is further opposed by the circumstance, that, in the subsequent context, there is not the slightest trace of any other judgment than that of the devastation by the locusts; on the contrary, with its termination, the whole period of suffering comes to an end, as regards the Covenant-people, and the time of blessing upon them and of judgment upon their enemies begins. But the necessity for understanding, by "the day of the Lord at hand," the devastation by the locusts, and hence, for viewing the latter as still future, is even more clearly seen from the second passage, chap. ii. 1, 2: "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain; let all the [Pg 304] inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord _hath come_, for _nigh at hand_, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and fogs, as the morning-red spread upon the mountains, a people numerous and strong; there hath not been the like from eternity, neither shall there be any more after it, even through the years of all generations." That, by "the day of the Lord," which the prophet, from the standing-point of his inward vision, here speaks of as having already come, and as being in reality nigh at hand, we must understand the same day as that which is minutely described in the preceding and subsequent context, viz., the devastation by the locusts, appears, in the first place, from the verbal parallel passage, Ezek. xxx. 2, which likewise speaks of one day only: "Thou son of man, prophesy and say. Thus saith the Lord, Howl ye, woe for the day! For the day is near, a day to the Lord, a day of clouds, the time of the heathen it shall be." But what places the matter beyond all doubt are the words: "A people numerous and strong." These words, by which, according to what follows, the locusts only can be understood, form an