Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the aged, gather the children, even those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber.
Proclaim, he says, a meeting עצרה otsare is not properly an assembly, but the deed itself: That is, restraint. Literally it is, Proclaim a restraint. And as it means a restraint generally from labor as well as from food, it is applied to designate a feast-day, when men are detained or restrained from labor. — Ed. hence also the word is transferred to festivals.
We have here an earnest exhortation to repentance, inferred from that desolating judgment described and threatened in the foregoing verses: Therefore now turn you to the Lord. 1. "Thus you must answer the end and intention of the judgment; for it was sent for this end, to convince you of your sins, to humble you for them, to reduce you to your right minds and...
Commenting on Joel 2:12-17
Gather the people,.... The common people, all the inhabitants of the land, Joe 1:14; summon them to meet together in the temple, in order to humble themselves before God for their sins, and implore his mercy, and seek his face to remove his judgments, or avert them: sanctify the congregation; see that they are sanctified and prepared for a fast, as the law directs in...