Job 18:5-6

18:5 “Yes, ¹  the lamp ²  of the wicked is extinguished;

his flame of fire ³  does not shine.

18:6 The light in his tent grows dark;

his lamp above him is extinguished. ⁴ 

Job 18:12

18:12 Calamity is ⁵  hungry for him, ⁶ 

and misfortune is ready at his side. ⁷ 

Job 18:18

18:18 He is driven ⁸  from light into darkness

and is banished from the world.

Ecclesiastes 11:8

11:8 So, if a man lives many years, let him rejoice in them all,

but let him remember that the days of darkness ⁹  will be many – all that is about to come is obscure. ¹⁰ 

Joel 2:2

2:2 It will be ¹¹  a day of dreadful darkness, ¹² 

a day of foreboding storm clouds, ¹³ 

like blackness ¹⁴  spread over the mountains.

It is a huge and powerful army ¹⁵  –

there has never been anything like it ever before,

and there will not be anything like it for many generations to come! ¹⁶ 

Amos 5:20

5:20 Don’t you realize the Lord’s day of judgment will bring ¹⁷  darkness, not light –

gloomy blackness, not bright light?

Zephaniah 1:15

1:15 That day will be a day of God’s anger, ¹⁸ 

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,

Hebrews 10:27

10:27 but only a certain fearful expectation of judgment and a fury ¹⁹  of fire that will consume God’s enemies. ²⁰ 

[18:5]  ¹ tn Hebrew גַּם (gam, “also; moreover”), in view of what has just been said.

[18:5]  ² sn The lamp or the light can have a number of uses in the Bible. Here it is probably an implied metaphor for prosperity and happiness, for the good life itself.

[18:5]  ³ tn The expression is literally “the flame of his fire,” but the pronominal suffix qualifies the entire bound construction. The two words together intensify the idea of the flame.

[18:6]  ⁴ tn The LXX interprets a little more precisely: “his lamp shall be put out with him.”

[18:12]  ⁵ tn The jussive is occasionally used without its normal sense and only as an imperfect (see GKC 323 §109.k).

[18:12]  ⁶ tn There are a number of suggestions for אֹנוֹ (’ono). Some take it as “vigor”: thus “his strength is hungry.” Others take it as “iniquity”: thus “his iniquity/trouble is hungry.”

[18:12]  ⁷ tn The expression means that misfortune is right there to destroy him whenever there is the opportunity.

[18:18]  ⁸ tn The verbs in this verse are plural; without the expressed subject they should be taken in the passive sense.

[11:8]  ⁹ tn The phrase “the days of darkness” refers to the onset of old age (Eccl 12:1-5) and the inevitable experience of death (Eccl 11:7-8; 12:6-7). Elsewhere, “darkness” is a figure of speech (metonymy of association) for death (Job 10:21-22; 17:13; 18:18).

[11:8]  ¹⁰ tn The term הֶבֶל (hevel) here means “obscure,” that is, unknown. This sense is derived from the literal concept of breath, vapor or wind that cannot be seen; thus, the idea of “obscure; dark; difficult to understand; enigmatic” (see HALOT 236–37 s.v. I הֶבֶל; BDB 210–11 s.v. I הֶבֶל). It is used in this sense in reference to enigmas in life (6:2; 8:10, 14) and the future which is obscure (11:8).

[2:2]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ tn Heb “a day of cloud and darkness.”

[2:2]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ 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]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “it will not be repeated for years of generation and generation.”

[5:20]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Will not the day of the Lord be.”

[1:15]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “a day of wrath.” The word “God’s” is supplied in the translation for clarification.

[10:27]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “zeal,” recalling God’s jealous protection of his holiness and honor (cf. Exod 20:5).

[10:27]  ²⁰ tn Grk “the enemies.”