Exodus 20:21

20:21 The people kept ¹  their distance, but Moses drew near the thick darkness ²  where God was. ³ 

Deuteronomy 4:11

4:11 You approached and stood at the foot of the mountain, a mountain ablaze to the sky above it ⁴  and yet dark with a thick cloud. ⁵ 

Deuteronomy 5:22

The Narrative of the Sinai Revelation and Israel’s Response

5:22 The Lord said these things to your entire assembly at the mountain from the middle of the fire, the cloud, and the darkness with a loud voice, and that was all he said. ⁶  Then he inscribed the words ⁷  on two stone tablets and gave them to me.

Psalms 105:28

105:28 He made it dark; ⁸ 

they did not disobey his orders. ⁹ 

Joel 2:2

2:2 It will be ¹⁰  a day of dreadful darkness, ¹¹ 

a day of foreboding storm clouds, ¹² 

like blackness ¹³  spread over the mountains.

It is a huge and powerful army ¹⁴  –

there has never been anything like it ever before,

and there will not be anything like it for many generations to come! ¹⁵ 

Joel 2:31

2:31 The sunlight will be turned to darkness

and the moon to the color of blood, ¹⁶ 

before the day of the Lord comes –

that great and terrible day!

Amos 4:13

4:13 For here he is!

He ¹⁷  formed the mountains and created the wind.

He reveals ¹⁸  his plans ¹⁹  to men.

He turns the dawn into darkness ²⁰ 

and marches on the heights of the earth.

The Lord, the God who commands armies, ²¹  is his name!”

Revelation 16:10

16:10 Then ²²  the fifth angel ²³  poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast so that ²⁴  darkness covered his kingdom, ²⁵  and people ²⁶  began to bite ²⁷  their tongues because ²⁸  of their pain.

[20:21]  ¹ tn Heb “and they stood”; the referent (the people) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[20:21]  ² sn The word עֲרָפֶל (’arafel) is used in poetry in Ps 18:9 and 1 Kgs 8:12; and it is used in Deut 4:11, 5:22 [19].

[20:21]  ³ sn It will not be hard to expound the passage on the Ten Commandments once their place in scripture has been determined. They, for the most part, are reiterated in the NT, in one way or another, usually with a much higher standard that requires attention to the spirit of the laws. Thus, these laws reveal God’s standard of righteousness by revealing sin. No wonder the Israelites were afraid when they saw the manifestation of God and heard his laws. When the whole covenant is considered, preamble and all, then it becomes clear that the motivation for obeying the commands is the person and the work of the covenant God – the one who redeemed his people. Obedience then becomes a response of devotion and adoration to the Redeemer who set them free. It becomes loyal service, not enslavement to laws. The point could be worded this way: God requires that his covenant people, whom he has redeemed, and to whom he has revealed himself, give their absolute allegiance and obedience to him. This means they will worship and serve him and safeguard the well-being of each other.

[4:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “a mountain burning with fire as far as the heart of the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

[4:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “darkness, cloud, and heavy cloud.”

[5:22]  ⁶ tn Heb “and he added no more” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); NLT “This was all he said at that time.”

[5:22]  ⁷ tn Heb “them”; the referent (the words spoken by the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[105:28]  ⁸ tn Heb “he sent darkness and made it dark.”

[105:28]  ⁹ tn Heb “they did not rebel against his words.” Apparently this refers to Moses and Aaron, who obediently carried out God’s orders.

[2:2]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² tn Heb “a day of cloud and darkness.”

[2:2]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “it will not be repeated for years of generation and generation.”

[2:31]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “to blood,” but no doubt this is intended to indicate by metonymy the color of blood rather than the substance itself. The blood red color suggests a visual impression here – something that could be caused by fires, volcanic dust, sandstorms, or other atmospheric phenomena.

[4:13]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “For look, the one who.” This verse is considered to be the first hymnic passage in the book. The others appear at 5:8-9 and 9:5-6. Scholars debate whether these verses were originally part of a single hymn or three distinct pieces deliberately placed in each context for particular effect.

[4:13]  ¹⁸ tn Or “declares” (NAB, NASB).

[4:13]  ¹⁹ tn Or “his thoughts.” The translation assumes that the pronominal suffix refers to God and that divine self-revelation is in view (see 3:7). If the suffix refers to the following term אָדַם (’adam, “men”), then the expression refers to God’s ability to read men’s minds.

[4:13]  ²⁰ tn Heb “he who makes dawn, darkness.” The meaning of the statement is unclear. The present translation assumes that allusion is made to God’s approaching judgment, when the light of day will be turned to darkness (see 5:20). Other options include: (1) “He makes the dawn [and] the darkness.” A few Hebrew mss, as well as the LXX, add the conjunction (“and”) between the two nouns. (2) “He turns darkness into glimmering dawn” (NJPS). See S. M. Paul (Amos [Hermeneia], 154), who takes שָׁחַר (shakhar) as “blackness” rather than “dawn” and עֵיפָה (’efah) as “glimmering dawn” rather than “darkness.”

[4:13]  ²¹ tn Traditionally, “God of hosts.”

[16:10]  ²² tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.

[16:10]  ²³ tn Grk “the fifth”; the referent (the fifth angel) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[16:10]  ²⁴ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so that” to indicate the implied result of the fifth bowl being poured out.

[16:10]  ²⁵ tn Grk “his kingdom became dark.”

[16:10]  ²⁶ tn Grk “men,” but this is a generic use of ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") and refers to both men and women.

[16:10]  ²⁷ tn On this term BDAG 620 s.v. μασάομαι states, “bite w. acc. τὰς γλώσσας bite their tongues Rv 16:10.”

[16:10]  ²⁸ tn The preposition ἐκ (ek) has been translated here and twice in the following verse with a causal sense.