Isaiah 5:30

5:30 At that time ¹  they will growl over their prey, ² 

it will sound like sea waves crashing against rocks. ³ 

One will look out over the land and see the darkness of disaster,

clouds will turn the light into darkness. ⁴ 

Isaiah 9:19

9:19 Because of the anger of the Lord who commands armies, the land was scorched, ⁵ 

and the people became fuel for the fire. ⁶ 

People had no compassion on one another. ⁷ 

Isaiah 24:11-12

24:11 They howl in the streets because of what happened to the wine; ⁸ 

all joy turns to sorrow; ⁹ 

celebrations disappear from the earth. ¹⁰ 

24:12 The city is left in ruins; ¹¹ 

the gate is reduced to rubble. ¹² 

Jeremiah 30:7

30:7 Alas, what a terrible time of trouble it is! ¹³ 

There has never been any like it.

It is a time of trouble for the descendants of Jacob,

but some of them will be rescued out of it. ¹⁴ 

Joel 1:15

1:15 How awful that day will be! ¹⁵ 

For the day of the Lord is near;

it will come as destruction from the Divine Destroyer. ¹⁶ 

Joel 2:1-2

The Locusts’ Devastation

2:1 Blow the trumpet ¹⁷  in Zion;

sound the alarm signal on my holy mountain!

Let all the inhabitants of the land shake with fear,

for the day of the Lord is about to come.

Indeed, ¹⁸  it is near! ¹⁹ 

2:2 It will be ²⁰  a day of dreadful darkness, ²¹ 

a day of foreboding storm clouds, ²² 

like blackness ²³  spread over the mountains.

It is a huge and powerful army ²⁴  –

there has never been anything like it ever before,

and there will not be anything like it for many generations to come! ²⁵ 

Joel 2:10

2:10 The earth quakes ²⁶  before them; ²⁷ 

the sky reverberates. ²⁸ 

The sun and the moon grow dark;

the stars refuse to shine. ²⁹ 

Joel 2:31

2:31 The sunlight will be turned to darkness

and the moon to the color of blood, ³⁰ 

before the day of the Lord comes –

that great and terrible day!

Zephaniah 1:14-15

1:14 The Lord’s great day of judgment ³¹  is almost here;

it is approaching very rapidly!

There will be a bitter sound on the Lord’s day of judgment;

at that time warriors will cry out in battle. ³² 

1:15 That day will be a day of God’s anger, ³³ 

a day of distress and hardship,

a day of devastation and ruin,

a day of darkness and gloom,

a day of clouds and dark skies,

Malachi 4:1-2

4:1 (3:19) ³⁴  “For indeed the day ³⁵  is coming, burning like a furnace, and all the arrogant evildoers will be chaff. The coming day will burn them up,” says the Lord who rules over all. “It ³⁶  will not leave even a root or branch. 4:2 But for you who respect my name, the sun of vindication ³⁷  will rise with healing wings, ³⁸  and you will skip about ³⁹  like calves released from the stall.

Malachi 3:10

3:10 “Bring the entire tithe into the storehouse ⁴⁰  so that there may be food in my temple. Test me in this matter,” says the Lord who rules over all, “to see if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until there is no room for it all.

[5:30]  ¹ tn Or “in that day” (KJV).

[5:30]  ² tn Heb “over it”; the referent (the prey) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[5:30]  ³ tn Heb “like the growling of the sea.”

[5:30]  ⁴ tn Heb “and one will gaze toward the land, and look, darkness of distress, and light will grow dark by its [the land’s?] clouds.”

[9:19]  ⁵ tn The precise meaning of the verb עְתַּם (’ÿtam), which occurs only here, is uncertain, though the context strongly suggests that it means “burn, scorch.”

[9:19]  ⁶ sn The uncontrollable fire of the people’s wickedness (v. 18) is intensified by the fire of the Lord’s judgment (v. 19). God allows (or causes) their wickedness to become self-destructive as civil strife and civil war break out in the land.

[9:19]  ⁷ tn Heb “men were not showing compassion to their brothers.” The idiom “men to their brothers” is idiomatic for reciprocity. The prefixed verbal form is either a preterite without vav (ו) consecutive or an imperfect used in a customary sense, describing continual or repeated behavior in past time.

[24:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “[there is] an outcry over the wine in the streets.”

[24:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “all joy turns to evening,” the darkness of evening symbolizing distress and sorrow.

[24:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the joy of the earth disappears.”

[24:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and there is left in the city desolation.”

[24:12]  ¹² tn Heb “and [into] rubble the gate is crushed.”

[30:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “Alas [or Woe] for that day will be great.” For the use of the particle “Alas” to signal a time of terrible trouble, even to sound the death knell for someone, see the translator’s note on 22:13.

[30:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “It is a time of trouble for Jacob but he will be saved out of it.”

[1:15]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Alas for the day!”

[1:15]  ¹⁶ tn There is a wordplay in Hebrew here with the word used for “destruction” (שׁוֹד, shod) and the term used for God (שַׁדַּי, shadday). The exact meaning of “Shaddai” in the OT is somewhat uncertain, although the ancient versions and many modern English versions tend to translate it as “Almighty” (e.g., Greek παντοκράτωρ [pantokratwr], Latin omnipotens). Here it might be rendered “Destroyer,” with the thought being that “destruction will come from the Divine Destroyer,” which should not be misunderstood as a reference to the destroying angel. The name “Shaddai” (outside Genesis and without the element “El” [“God”]) is normally used when God is viewed as the sovereign king who blesses/protects or curses/brings judgment. The name appears in the introduction to two of Balaam’s oracles (Num 24:4, 16) of blessing upon Israel. Naomi employs the name when accusing the Lord of treating her bitterly by taking the lives of her husband and sons (Ruth 1:20-21). In Ps 68:14, Isa 13:6, and the present passage, Shaddai judges his enemies through warfare, while Ps 91:1 depicts him as the protector of his people. In Ezek 1:24 and 10:5 the sound of the cherubs’ wings is compared to Shaddai’s powerful voice. The reference may be to the mighty divine warrior’s battle cry which accompanies his angry judgment.

[2:1]  ¹⁷ tn The word translated “trumpet” here (so most English versions) is the Hebrew שׁוֹפָר (shofar). The shophar was a wind instrument made from a cow or ram’s horn and used as a military instrument for calling people to attention in the face of danger or as a religious instrument for calling people to occasions of communal celebration.

[2:1]  ¹⁸ tn Or “for.”

[2:1]  ¹⁹ sn The interpretation of 2:1-11 is very difficult. Four views may be mentioned here. (1) Some commentators understand this section to be describing a human invasion of Judah on the part of an ancient army. The exact identity of this army (e.g., Assyrian or Babylonian) varies among interpreters depending upon issues of dating for the book of Joel. (2) Some commentators take the section to describe an eschatological scene in which the army according to some is human, or according to others is nonhuman (i.e., angelic). (3) Some interpreters argue for taking the section to refer to the potential advent in the fall season of a severe east wind (i.e., Sirocco) that would further exacerbate the conditions of the land described in chapter one. (4) Finally, some interpreters understand the section to continue the discussion of locust invasion and drought described in chapter one, partly on the basis that there is no clear exegetical evidence in 2:1-11 to suggest a shift of referent from that of chapter one.

[2:2]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ 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]  ²² tn Heb “a day of cloud and darkness.”

[2:2]  ²³ 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]  ²⁴ 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]  ²⁵ tn Heb “it will not be repeated for years of generation and generation.”

[2:10]  ²⁶ sn Witnesses of locust invasions have described the visual effect of large numbers of these creatures crawling over one another on the ground. At such times the ground is said to appear to be in motion, creating a dizzying effect on some observers. The reference in v. 10 to the darkening of the sun and moon probably has to do with the obscuring of visibility due to large numbers of locusts swarming in the sky.

[2:10]  ²⁷ tn Heb “before it.”

[2:10]  ²⁸ tn Heb “trembles.”

[2:10]  ²⁹ tn Heb “gather their brightness.”

[2:31]  ³⁰ 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.

[1:14]  ³¹ tn Heb “The great day of the Lord.” The words “of judgment” are supplied in the translation here and later in this verse for clarity. See the note on the expression “day of judgment” in v. 7.

[1:14]  ³² tn Heb “the sound of the day of the Lord, bitter [is] one crying out there, a warrior.” The present translation does four things: (1) It takes מַר (mar, “bitter”) with what precedes (contrary to the accentuation of the MT). (2) It understands the participle צָרַח (tsarakh, “cry out in battle”) as verbal with “warrior” as its subject. (3) It takes שָׁם (sham, “there”) in a temporal sense, meaning “then, at that time.” (4) It understands “warrior” as collective.

[1:15]  ³³ tn Heb “a day of wrath.” The word “God’s” is supplied in the translation for clarification.

[4:1]  ³⁴ sn Beginning with 4:1, the verse numbers through 4:6 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 4:1 ET = 3:19 HT, 4:2 ET = 3:20 HT, etc., through 4:6 ET = 3:24 HT. Thus the book of Malachi in the Hebrew Bible has only three chapters, with 24 verses in ch. 3.

[4:1]  ³⁵ sn This day is the well-known “day of the Lord” so pervasive in OT eschatological texts (see Joel 2:30-31; Amos 5:18; Obad 15). For the believer it is a day of grace and salvation; for the sinner, a day of judgment and destruction.

[4:1]  ³⁶ tn Heb “so that it” (so NASB, NRSV). For stylistic reasons a new sentence was begun here in the translation.

[4:2]  ³⁷ tn Here the Hebrew word צְדָקָה (tsÿdaqah), usually translated “righteousness” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT; cf. NAB “justice”), has been rendered as “vindication” because it is the vindication of God’s people that is in view in the context. Cf. BDB 842 s.v. צְדָקָה 6; “righteousness as vindicated, justification, salvation, etc.”

[4:2]  ³⁸ sn The point of the metaphor of healing wings is unclear. The sun seems to be compared to a bird. Perhaps the sun’s “wings” are its warm rays. “Healing” may refer to a reversal of the injury done by evildoers (see Mal 3:5).

[4:2]  ³⁹ tn Heb “you will go out and skip about.”

[3:10]  ⁴⁰ tn The Hebrew phrase בֵּית הָאוֹצָר (bet ha’otsar, here translated “storehouse”) refers to a kind of temple warehouse described more fully in Nehemiah (where the term לִשְׁכָּה גְדוֹלָה [lishkah gÿdolah, “great chamber”] is used) as a place for storing grain, frankincense, temple vessels, wine, and oil (Neh 13:5). Cf. TEV “to the Temple.”