Exodus 10:22-23

10:22 So Moses extended his hand toward heaven, and there was absolute darkness ¹  throughout the land of Egypt for three days. ²  10:23 No one ³  could see ⁴  another person, and no one could rise from his place for three days. But the Israelites had light in the places where they lived.

Joel 2:2

2:2 It will be ⁵  a day of dreadful darkness, ⁶ 

a day of foreboding storm clouds, ⁷ 

like blackness ⁸  spread over the mountains.

It is a huge and powerful army ⁹  –

there has never been anything like it ever before,

and there will not be anything like it for many generations to come! ¹⁰ 

Amos 5:18

The Lord Demands Justice

5:18 Woe ¹¹  to those who wish for the day of the Lord!

Why do you want the Lord’s day of judgment to come?

It will bring darkness, not light.

Matthew 27:45

Jesus’ Death

27:45 Now from noon until three, ¹²  darkness came over all the land. ¹³ 

Acts 27:20

27:20 When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and a violent ¹⁴  storm continued to batter us, ¹⁵  we finally abandoned all hope of being saved. ¹⁶ 

Revelation 16:10

16:10 Then ¹⁷  the fifth angel ¹⁸  poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast so that ¹⁹  darkness covered his kingdom, ²⁰  and people ²¹  began to bite ²²  their tongues because ²³  of their pain.

[10:22]  ¹ tn The construction is a variation of the superlative genitive: a substantive in the construct state is connected to a noun with the same meaning (see GKC 431 §133.i).

[10:22]  ² sn S. R. Driver says, “The darkness was no doubt occasioned really by a sand-storm, produced by the hot electrical wind…which blows in intermittently…” (Exodus, 82, 83). This is another application of the antisupernatural approach to these texts. The text, however, is probably describing something that was not a seasonal wind, or Pharaoh would not have been intimidated. If it coincided with that season, then what is described here is so different and so powerful that the Egyptians would have known the difference easily. Pharaoh here would have had to have been impressed that this was something very abnormal, and that his god was powerless. Besides, there was light in all the dwellings of the Israelites.

[10:23]  ³ tn Heb “a man…his brother.”

[10:23]  ⁴ tn The perfect tense in this context requires the somewhat rare classification of a potential perfect.

[2:2]  ⁵ tn The phrase “It will be” does not appear in the Hebrew, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of smoothness and style.

[2:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “darkness and gloom.” These two terms probably form a hendiadys here. This picture recalls the imagery of the supernatural darkness in Egypt during the judgments of the exodus (Exod 10:22). These terms are also frequently used as figures (metonymy of association) for calamity and divine judgment (Isa 8:22; 59:9; Jer 23:12; Zeph 1:15). Darkness is often a figure (metonymy of association) for death, dread, distress and judgment (BDB 365 s.v. חשֶׁךְ 3).

[2:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “a day of cloud and darkness.”

[2:2]  ⁸ tc The present translation here follows the proposed reading שְׁחֹר (shÿkhor, “blackness”) rather than the MT שַׁחַר (shakhar, “morning”). The change affects only the vocalization; the Hebrew consonants remain unchanged. Here the context calls for a word describing darkness. The idea of morning or dawn speaks instead of approaching light, which does not seem to fit here. The other words in the verse (e.g., “darkness,” “gloominess,” “cloud,” “heavy overcast”) all emphasize the negative aspects of the matter at hand and lead the reader to expect a word like “blackness” rather than “dawn.” However, NIrV paraphrases the MT nicely: “A huge army of locusts is coming. They will spread across the mountains like the sun when it rises.”

[2:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “A huge and powerful people”; KJV, ASV “a great people and a strong.” Many interpreters understand Joel 2 to describe an invasion of human armies, either in past history (e.g., the Babylonian invasion of Palestine in the sixth century b.c.) or in an eschatological setting. More probably, however, the language of this chapter referring to “people” and “armies” is a hypocatastic description of the locusts of chapter one. Cf. TEV “The great army of locusts advances like darkness.”

[2:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “it will not be repeated for years of generation and generation.”

[5:18]  ¹¹ tn The term הוֹי (hoy, “woe”) was used when mourning the dead (see the note on the word “dead” in 5:16). The prophet here either engages in role playing and mourns the death of the nation in advance or sarcastically taunts those who hold to this misplaced belief.

[27:45]  ¹² tn Grk “from the sixth hour to the ninth hour.”

[27:45]  ¹³ sn This imagery has parallels to the Day of the Lord: Joel 2:10; Amos 8:9; Zeph 1:15.

[27:20]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “no small storm” = a very great storm.

[27:20]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “no small storm pressing on us.” The genitive absolute construction with the participle ἐπικειμένου (epikeimenou) has been translated as parallel to the previous genitive absolute construction (which was translated as temporal). BDAG 373 s.v. ἐπίκειμαι 2.b states, “of impersonal force confront χειμῶνος ἐπικειμένου since a storm lay upon us Ac 27:20.” L&N 14.2, “‘the stormy weather did not abate in the least’ or ‘the violent storm continued’ Ac 27:20.” To this last was added the idea of “battering” from the notion of “pressing upon” inherent in ἐπίκειμαι (epikeimai).

[27:20]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “finally all hope that we would be saved was abandoned.” The passive construction has been converted to an active one to simplify the translation. This represents a clearly secular use of the term σῴζω (swzw) in that it refers to deliverance from the storm. At this point those on board the ship gave up hope of survival.

[16:10]  ¹⁷ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.

[16:10]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “the fifth”; the referent (the fifth angel) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[16:10]  ¹⁹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so that” to indicate the implied result of the fifth bowl being poured out.

[16:10]  ²⁰ tn Grk “his kingdom became dark.”

[16:10]  ²¹ tn Grk “men,” but this is a generic use of ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") and refers to both men and women.

[16:10]  ²² tn On this term BDAG 620 s.v. μασάομαι states, “bite w. acc. τὰς γλώσσας bite their tongues Rv 16:10.”

[16:10]  ²³ tn The preposition ἐκ (ek) has been translated here and twice in the following verse with a causal sense.