A day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness. As the dawn spreading on the mountains, a great and strong people; there has never been the like, neither will there be any more after them, even to the years of many generations.
Joel 2:1 Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of Yahweh comes, for it is close at hand:
Joel 2:2 A day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness. As the dawn spreading on the mountains, a great and strong people; there has never been the like, neither will there be any more after them, even to the years of many generations.
Joel 2:3 A fire devours before them, and behind them, a flame burns. The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them, a desolate wilderness. Yes, and no one has escaped them.
Joel 2:4 Their appearance is as the appearance of horses, and as horsemen, so do they run.
The verse centers on "darkness", "gloominess", "clouds", "thick", "dawn", "spreading", and "mountains". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "darkness" and "gloominess", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.
The nearby context moves from verse 1's "Blow the trumpet in Zion and sound..." into verse 3's "A fire devours before them and behind...", so "darkness" and "gloominess" belong inside that flow. In Joel context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.
A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "darkness" and "gloominess" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.