Joel 2:10
8 They do not jostle one another; each of them marches straight ahead. They burst through the city defenses and do not break ranks. 9 They rush into the city; they scale its walls. They climb up into the houses; they go in through the windows like a thief. 10 The earth quakes before them; the sky reverberates. The sun and the moon grow dark; the stars refuse to shine. 11 The voice of the Lord thunders as he leads his army. Indeed, his warriors are innumerable; Surely his command is carried out! Yes, the day of the Lord is great and terrible42—who can survive it? 12 “Yet even now,” the Lord says, “return to me with all your heart—with fasting, weeping, and mourning.
Isaiah 13:10
8 They panic—cramps and pain seize hold of them like those of a woman who is straining to give birth. They look at one another in astonishment; their faces are flushed red. 9 Look, the Lord’s day of judgment is coming; it is a day of cruelty and savage, raging anger, destroying the earth and annihilating its sinners. 10 Indeed the stars in the sky and their constellations no longer give out their light; the sun is darkened as soon as it rises, and the moon does not shine. 11 I will punish the world for its evil and wicked people for their sin. I will put an end to the pride of the insolent, I will bring down the arrogance of tyrants. 12 I will make human beings more scarce than pure gold and people more scarce than gold from Ophir.
Notes and References
"... These verses stand in a venerable tradition, one that informed the thinking of the author of such texts as Isaiah 13 and Ezekiel 32 ... The differences between Joel's formulation of theophanic occurrences and this description from Isaiah 13 are noteworthy: (1) the application of the verbs to earth and to heaven, whereas the opposite is true in Joel 2:10; (2) the verbal use in Isaiah 13:10 and its nominal form in Joel 2:10; (3) the absolute use of 'stars' in Joel, but 'stars of heaven' in Isaiah 13:10, with 'their constellations'; (4) the use of negations in Isaiah 13:10 with regard to stars and constellations and to moon, whereas Joel employs the idiom, 'gather their light,' to mean 'withdraw' with respect to stars and the verb to convey the idea that sun and moon became obscure; (5) the definite forms for 'heaven,' 'sun,' and 'earth' in Isaiah 13:10, 13 (contrast 'heaven' in 13:13 and 'moon' in 13:10), and the consistently indefinite forms in Joel 2:10; (6) Isaiah 13 addresses Babylon; Joel refers to Zion. Such stylistic affinities as the chiasmus in the sequence of subject and verb in Joel 2:10 and Isaiah 13:13 do little to alter the impression that Joel's manner of expression owes nothing to these verses from Isaiah 13, although the two authors share a common vocabulary and tradition ..."
Crenshaw, James L. Joel (p. 126) Doubleday, 1995