Joel uses a rhetorical question to emphasize the unendurable terror of God’s judgment day, compelling his audience to recognize their helplessness apart from divine mercy. By asking rather than declaring, he invites self-examination and drives listeners toward the repentance call that follows in verse 12.

Joel provides the answer in verses 12-14, where the LORD calls for wholehearted repentance with fasting, weeping, and mourning, offering hope that God may relent from sending calamity. The people are directed to return to the LORD who is gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

Joel’s question stands at the climax of his locust plague prophecy, pivoting from description of divine judgment to urgent appeal for repentance. The Hebrew word kul (endure, abide, sustain) implies not merely surviving but standing firm under the weight of God’s presence. By framing this as a question rather than a declaration, Joel creates rhetorical space for his audience to feel their own inability before he offers hope. The cumulative force of “great” and “very terrible” intensifies the impossibility of self-reliance. This question functions as a hinge, behind it lies certain judgment, before it stretches the possibility of mercy through repentance. The theological weight is enormous: no human righteousness can withstand the consuming holiness of God when He comes in judgment, making divine grace humanity’s only hope.