Zephaniah 1:14

1:14 The Lord’s great day of judgment ¹  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. ² 

Isaiah 2:12

2:12 Indeed, the Lord who commands armies has planned a day of judgment, ³ 

for ⁴  all the high and mighty,

for all who are proud – they will be humiliated;

Isaiah 13:6

13:6 Wail, for the Lord’s day of judgment ⁵  is near;

it comes with all the destructive power of the sovereign judge. ⁶ 

Ezekiel 7:7

7:7 Doom is coming upon you who live in the land! The time is coming, the day ⁷  is near. There are sounds of tumult, not shouts of joy, on the mountains. ⁸ 

Ezekiel 7:10

7:10 “Look, the day! Look, it is coming! Doom has gone out! The staff has budded, pride has blossomed!

Joel 2:1-2

The Locusts’ Devastation

2:1 Blow the trumpet ⁹  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, ¹⁰  it is near! ¹¹ 

2:2 It will be ¹²  a day of dreadful darkness, ¹³ 

a day of foreboding storm clouds, ¹⁴ 

like blackness ¹⁵  spread over the mountains.

It is a huge and powerful army ¹⁶  –

there has never been anything like it ever before,

and there will not be anything like it for many generations to come! ¹⁷ 

Joel 2:11

2:11 The voice of the Lord thunders ¹⁸  as he leads his army. ¹⁹ 

Indeed, his warriors ²⁰  are innumerable; ²¹ 

Surely his command is carried out! ²² 

Yes, the day of the Lord is awesome ²³ 

and very terrifying – who can survive ²⁴  it?

Joel 2:31

2:31 The sunlight will be turned to darkness

and the moon to the color of blood, ²⁵ 

before the day of the Lord comes –

that great and terrible day!

Amos 5:18-20

The Lord Demands Justice

5:18 Woe ²⁶  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.

5:19 Disaster will be inescapable, ²⁷ 

as if a man ran from a lion only to meet a bear,

then escaped ²⁸  into a house,

leaned his hand against the wall,

and was bitten by a poisonous snake.

5:20 Don’t you realize the Lord’s day of judgment will bring ²⁹  darkness, not light –

gloomy blackness, not bright light?

Malachi 4:1

4:1 (3:19) ³⁰  “For indeed the day ³¹  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 ³²  will not leave even a root or branch.

Philippians 4:5

4:5 Let everyone see your gentleness. ³³  The Lord is near!

Philippians 4:2

4:2 I appeal to Euodia and to Syntyche to agree in the Lord.

Philippians 3:10-12

3:10 My aim is to know him, ³⁴  to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings, ³⁵  and to be like him in his death, 3:11 and so, somehow, ³⁶  to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Keep Going Forward

3:12 Not that I have already attained this – that is, I have not already been perfected – but I strive to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also laid hold of me. ³⁷ 

[1:14]  ¹ 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]  ² 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.

[2:12]  ³ tn Heb “indeed [or “for”] the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts] has a day.”

[2:12]  ⁴ tn Or “against” (NAB, NASB, NRSV).

[13:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “the day of the Lord” (so KJV, NAB).

[13:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “like destruction from the sovereign judge it comes.” The comparative preposition (כְּ, kÿ) has here the rhetorical nuance, “in every way like.” The point is that the destruction unleashed will have all the earmarks of divine judgment. One could paraphrase, “it comes as only destructive divine judgment can.” On this use of the preposition in general, see GKC 376 §118.x.

[7:7]  ⁷ sn The day refers to the day of the Lord, a concept which, beginning in Amos 5:18-20, became a common theme in the OT prophetic books. It refers to a time when the Lord intervenes in human affairs as warrior and judge.

[7:7]  ⁸ tc The LXX reads “neither tumult nor birth pains.” The LXX varies at many points from the MT in this chapter. The context suggests that one or both of these would be present on a day of judgment, thus favoring the MT. Perhaps more significant is the absence of “the mountains” in the LXX. If the ר (resh) in הָרִים (harim, “the mountains” not “on the mountains”) were a ד (dalet), which is a common letter confusion, then it could be from the same root as the previous word, הֵד (hed), meaning “the day is near – with destruction, not joyful shouting.”

[2:1]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ tn Or “for.”

[2:1]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “a day of cloud and darkness.”

[2:2]  ¹⁵ 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]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “it will not be repeated for years of generation and generation.”

[2:11]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the Lord gives his voice.”

[2:11]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “before his army.”

[2:11]  ²⁰ tn Heb “military encampment.”

[2:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “very large.”

[2:11]  ²² tn Heb “he makes his word powerful.”

[2:11]  ²³ tn Or “powerful.” Heb “great.”

[2:11]  ²⁴ tn Heb “endure.” The MT and LXX read “endure,” while one of the Qumran manuscripts (4QXXII^c) has “bear.”

[2:31]  ²⁵ 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.

[5:18]  ²⁶ 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.

[5:19]  ²⁷ tn The words “Disaster will be inescapable” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[5:19]  ²⁸ tn Heb “went” (so KJV, NRSV).

[5:20]  ²⁹ tn Heb “Will not the day of the Lord be.”

[4:1]  ³⁰ 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]  ³¹ 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]  ³² tn Heb “so that it” (so NASB, NRSV). For stylistic reasons a new sentence was begun here in the translation.

[4:5]  ³³ tn Grk “let your gentleness be seen by all.” The passive voice construction has been converted to active voice in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[3:10]  ³⁴ tn The articular infinitive τοῦ γνῶναι (tou gnwnai, “to know”) here expresses purpose. The words “My aim is” have been supplied in the translation to emphasize this nuance and to begin a new sentence (shorter sentences are more appropriate for English style).

[3:10]  ³⁵ tn Grk “to know him, the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings.”

[3:11]  ³⁶ tn On εἰ πῶς (ei pws) as “so, somehow” see BDAG 279, s.v. εἰ 6.n.

[3:12]  ³⁷ tn Grk “that for which I also was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.” The passive has been translated as active in keeping with contemporary English style.