A SOLEMN ASSEMBLY — a formal convocation of the whole community, from atsar, 'to restrain, hold back' (so: a day on which ordinary work stops). It normally names the closing day of a festival (Leviticus 23:36; Deuteronomy 16:8). ⚠ Joel reassigns the machinery of CELEBRATION to catastrophe: 'sanctify a fast, call an atzarah' (1:14, repeated almost word for word at 2:15) — the same summons that gathers the nation for a feast, used to gather it to cry out. Isaiah 1:13 uses the word the other way, as something God cannot bear. → first discussed at Joel 1:14