Discovery BoxEzekiel 30:3
Context30:3 For the day is near,
the day of the Lord is near;
it will be a day of storm clouds, 1
it will be a time of judgment 2 for the nations.
Ezekiel 30:18
Context30:18 In Tahpanhes the day will be dark 3
when I break the yoke of Egypt there.
Her confident pride will cease within her;
a cloud will cover her, and her daughters will go into captivity.
Exodus 10:21-23
Context10:21 4 The Lord said to Moses, “Extend your hand toward heaven 5 so that there may be 6 darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness so thick it can be felt.” 7
10:22 So Moses extended his hand toward heaven, and there was absolute darkness 8 throughout the land of Egypt for three days. 9 10:23 No one 10 could see 11 another person, and no one could rise from his place for three days. But the Israelites had light in the places where they lived.
Isaiah 13:10
Context13:10 Indeed the stars in the sky and their constellations
no longer give out their light; 12
the sun is darkened as soon as it rises,
and the moon does not shine. 13
Isaiah 34:4
Context34:4 All the stars in the sky will fade away, 14
the sky will roll up like a scroll;
all its stars will wither,
like a leaf withers and falls from a vine
or a fig withers and falls from a tree. 15
Jeremiah 13:16
Context13:16 Show the Lord your God the respect that is due him. 16
Do it before he brings the darkness of disaster. 17
Do it before you stumble 18 into distress
like a traveler on the mountains at twilight. 19
Do it before he turns the light of deliverance you hope for
into the darkness and gloom of exile. 20
Joel 2:2
Context2:2 It will be 21 a day of dreadful darkness, 22
a day of foreboding storm clouds, 23
like blackness 24 spread over the mountains.
It is a huge and powerful army 25 –
there has never been anything like it ever before,
and there will not be anything like it for many generations to come! 26
Joel 2:31
Context2:31 The sunlight will be turned to darkness
and the moon to the color of blood, 27
before the day of the Lord comes –
that great and terrible day!
Joel 3:15
Context3:15 The sun and moon are darkened;
the stars withhold 28 their brightness.
Amos 8:9
Context8:9 In that day,” says the sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun set at noon,
and make the earth dark in the middle of the day. 29
Matthew 24:29
Context24:29 “Immediately 30 after the suffering 31 of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. 32
Revelation 6:12-13
Context6:12 Then 33 I looked when the Lamb opened the sixth seal, and a huge 34 earthquake took place; the sun became as black as sackcloth made of hair, 35 and the full moon became blood red; 36 6:13 and the stars in the sky 37 fell to the earth like a fig tree dropping 38 its unripe figs 39 when shaken by a fierce 40 wind.
[30:3] 1 tn Heb “a day of clouds.” The expression occurs also in Joel 2:2 and Zeph 1:15; it recalls the appearance of God at Mount Sinai (Exod 19:9, 16, 18).
[30:3] 2 tn Heb “a time.” The words “of judgment” have been added in the translation for clarification (see the following verses).
[30:18] 3 sn In Zeph 1:15 darkness is associated with the day of the
[10:21] 4 sn The ninth plague is that darkness fell on all the land – except on Israel. This plague is comparable to the silence in heaven, just prior to the last and terrible plague (Rev 8:1). Here Yahweh is attacking a core Egyptian religious belief as well as portraying what lay before the Egyptians. Throughout the Bible darkness is the symbol of evil, chaos, and judgment. Blindness is one of its manifestations (see Deut 28:27-29). But the plague here is not blindness, or even spiritual blindness, but an awesome darkness from outside (see Joel 2:2; Zeph 1:15). It is particularly significant in that Egypt’s high god was the Sun God. Lord Sun was now being shut down by Lord Yahweh. If Egypt would not let Israel go to worship their God, then Egypt’s god would be darkness. The structure is familiar: the plague, now unannounced (21-23), and then the confrontation with Pharaoh (24-27).
[10:21] 5 tn Or “the sky” (also in the following verse). The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.
[10:21] 6 sn The verb form is the jussive with the sequential vav – וִיהִי חֹשֶׁךְ (vihi khoshekh). B. Jacob (Exodus, 286) notes this as the only instance where Scripture says, “Let there be darkness” (although it is subordinated as a purpose clause; cf. Gen 1:3). Isa 45:7 alluded to this by saying, “who created light and darkness.”
[10:21] 7 tn The Hebrew term מוּשׁ (mush) means “to feel.” The literal rendering would be “so that one may feel darkness.” The image portrays an oppressive darkness; it was sufficiently thick to possess the appearance of substance, although it was just air (B. Jacob, Exodus, 286).
[10:22] 8 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] 9 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] 10 tn Heb “a man…his brother.”
[10:23] 11 tn The perfect tense in this context requires the somewhat rare classification of a potential perfect.
[13:10] 12 tn Heb “do not flash forth their light.”
[13:10] 13 tn Heb “does not shed forth its light.”
[34:4] 14 tc Heb “and all the host of heaven will rot.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsaa inserts “and the valleys will be split open,” but this reading may be influenced by Mic 1:4. On the other hand, the statement, if original, could have been omitted by homoioarcton, a scribe’s eye jumping from the conjunction prefixed to “the valleys” to the conjunction prefixed to the verb “rot.”
[34:4] 15 tn Heb “like the withering of a leaf from a vine, and like the withering from a fig tree.”
[13:16] 16 tn Heb “Give glory/respect to the
[13:16] 17 tn The words “of disaster” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation to explain the significance of the metaphor to readers who may not be acquainted with the metaphorical use of light and darkness for salvation and joy and distress and sorrow respectively.
[13:16] 18 tn Heb “your feet stumble.”
[13:16] 19 tn Heb “you stumble on the mountains at twilight.” The added words are again supplied in the translation to help explain the metaphor to the uninitiated reader.
[13:16] 20 tn Heb “and while you hope for light he will turn it into deep darkness and make [it] into gloom.” The meaning of the metaphor is again explained through the addition of the “of” phrases for readers who are unacquainted with the metaphorical use of these terms.
[2:2] 21 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] 22 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] 23 tn Heb “a day of cloud and darkness.”
[2:2] 24 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] 25 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
[2:2] 26 tn Heb “it will not be repeated for years of generation and generation.”
[2:31] 27 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.
[8:9] 29 tn Heb “in a day of light.”
[24:29] 30 tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.
[24:29] 31 tn Traditionally, “tribulation.”
[24:29] 32 sn An allusion to Isa 13:10, 34:4 (LXX); Joel 2:10. The heavens were seen as the abode of heavenly forces, so their shaking indicates distress in the spiritual realm. Although some take the powers as a reference to bodies in the heavens (like stars and planets, “the heavenly bodies,” NIV) this is not as likely.
[6:12] 33 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.
[6:12] 34 tn Or “powerful”; Grk “a great.”
[6:12] 35 tn Or “like hairy sackcloth” (L&N 8.13).
[6:12] 36 tn Grk “like blood,” understanding αἷμα (aima) as a blood-red color rather than actual blood (L&N 8.64).
[6:13] 37 tn Or “in heaven” (the same Greek word means both “heaven” and “sky”). The genitive τοῦ οὐρανοῦ (tou ouranou) is taken as a genitive of place.
[6:13] 38 tn Grk “throws [off]”; the indicative verb has been translated as a participle due to English style.
[6:13] 39 tn L&N 3.37 states, “a fig produced late in the summer season (and often falling off before it ripens) – ‘late fig.’ ὡς συκὴ βάλλει τοὺς ὀλύνθους αὐτῆς ὑπὸ ἀνέμου μεγάλου σειομένη ‘as the fig tree sheds its late figs when shaken by a great wind’ Re 6:13. In the only context in which ὄλυνθος occurs in the NT (Re 6:13), one may employ an expression such as ‘unripe fig’ or ‘fig which ripens late.’”
