Yoel 1:15

1:15 How awful that day will be! ¹ 

For the day of the Lord is near;

it will come as destruction from the Divine Destroyer. ² 

Yesaya 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;

Yehezkiel 7:5-7

7:5 “This is what the sovereign Lord says: A disaster ⁵  – a one-of-a-kind ⁶  disaster – is coming! 7:6 An end comes ⁷  – the end comes! ⁸  It has awakened against you ⁹  – the end is upon you! Look, it is coming! ¹⁰  7:7 Doom is coming upon you who live in the land! The time is coming, the day ¹¹  is near. There are sounds of tumult, not shouts of joy, on the mountains. ¹² 

Yehezkiel 7:10

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

Yehezkiel 7:12

7:12 The time has come; the day has struck! The customer should not rejoice, nor the seller mourn; for divine wrath ¹³  comes against their whole crowd.

Yehezkiel 12:23

12:23 Therefore tell them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: I hereby end this proverb; they will not recite it in Israel any longer.’ But say to them, ‘The days are at hand when every vision will be fulfilled. ¹⁴ 

Amos 8:2

8:2 He said, “What do you see, Amos?” I replied, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me, “The end ¹⁵  has come for my people Israel! I will no longer overlook their sins. ¹⁶ 

Obaja 1:15

The Coming Day of the Lord

1:15 “For the day of the Lord ¹⁷  is approaching ¹⁸  for all the nations! ¹⁹ 

Just as you have done, so it will be done to you.

You will get exactly what your deeds deserve. ²⁰ 

Maleakhi 4:1

4:1 (3:19) ²¹  “For indeed the day ²²  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 ²³  will not leave even a root or branch.

Maleakhi 4:1

4:1 (3:19) ²⁴  “For indeed the day ²⁵  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 ²⁶  will not leave even a root or branch.

Maleakhi 1:2

1:2 “I have shown love to you,” says the Lord, but you say, “How have you shown love to us?”

“Esau was Jacob’s brother,” the Lord explains, “yet I chose Jacob

Yakobus 5:8

5:8 You also be patient and strengthen your hearts, for the Lord’s return is near.

Yakobus 5:1

Warning to the Rich

5:1 Come now, you rich! Weep and cry aloud ²⁷  over the miseries that are coming on you.

Pengkhotbah 4:7

Labor Motivated by Greed

4:7 So ²⁸  I again considered ²⁹  another ³⁰  futile thing on earth: ³¹ 

[1:15]  ¹ tn Heb “Alas for the day!”

[1:15]  ² 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.

[2:12]  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).

[7:5]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew term often refers to moral evil (see Ezek 6:10; 14:22), but in many contexts it refers to calamity or disaster, sometimes as punishment for evil behavior.

[7:5]  ⁶ tc So most Hebrew mss; many Hebrew mss read “disaster after disaster” (cf. NAB, NCV, NRSV, NLT).

[7:6]  ⁷ tn Or “has come.”

[7:6]  ⁸ tn Or “has come.”

[7:6]  ⁹ tc With different vowels the verb rendered “it has awakened” would be the noun “the end,” as in “the end is upon you.” The verb would represent a phonetic wordplay. The noun by virtue of repetition would continue to reinforce the idea of the end. Whether verb or noun, this is the only instance to occur with this preposition.

[7:6]  ¹⁰ tc For this entire verse, the LXX has only “the end is come.”

[7:6]  tn In each of the three cases of the verb translated with forms of “to come,” the form may either be a participle (“comes/is coming”) or a perfect (“has come”). Either form would indicate that the end is soon to arrive. This last form appears also to be feminine, although “end” is masculine. This shift may be looking ahead to the next verse, whose first noun (“Doom”) is feminine.

[7:7]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² 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.”

[7:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “wrath.” Context clarifies that God’s wrath is in view.

[12:23]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the days draw near and the word of every vision (draws near).”

[8:2]  ¹⁵ tn There is a wordplay here. The Hebrew word קֵץ (qets, “end”) sounds like קָיִץ (qayits, “summer fruit”). The summer fruit arrived toward the end of Israel’s agricultural year; Israel’s national existence was similarly at an end.

[8:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “I will no longer pass over him.”

[1:15]  ¹⁷ sn The term יוֹם (yom, “day”) is repeated ten times in vv. 11-14 referring to the time period when Judah/Jerusalem suffered calamity which Edom exploited for its own sinful gain. In each of those cases יוֹם was qualified by a following genitive to describe Judah’s plight, e.g., “in the day of your brother’s calamity” (v. 12). Here it appears again but now followed by the divine name to describe the time of God’s judgment against Edom for its crimes against humanity: “the day of the Lord.” In the present translation, the expression בְּיוֹם (bÿyom; literally, “In the day of”) was rendered “When…” in vv. 11-14. However, here it is translated more literally because the expression “the day of the Lord” is a well-known technical expression for a time of divine intervention in judgment. While this expression sometimes refers to the final eschatological day of God’s judgment, it may also refer occasionally to historical acts of judgment.

[1:15]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “near” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NCV “is coming soon.”

[1:15]  ¹⁹ sn God’s judgment would not be confined to Edom. Edom would certainly be punished in just measure for its wrongdoing, but “the day of the Lord” would also encompass judgment of the nations (v. 15).

[1:15]  ²⁰ tn Heb “your deed will return on your own head.” Verses 15 and 16 provide an example of ironic reversal, whereby the tables are turned and poetic justice is served. This is a motif that is common in prophetic oracles against foreign nations.

[4:1]  ²¹ 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]  ²² 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]  ²³ tn Heb “so that it” (so NASB, NRSV). For stylistic reasons a new sentence was begun here in the translation.

[4:1]  ²⁴ 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]  ²⁵ 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]  ²⁶ tn Heb “so that it” (so NASB, NRSV). For stylistic reasons a new sentence was begun here in the translation.

[5:1]  ²⁷ tn Or “wail”; Grk “crying aloud.”

[4:7]  ²⁸ tn The prefixed vav on וְשַׁבְתִּי (vÿshavti, vav + perfect 1st person common singular from שׁוּב, shuv, “to turn”) might be: (1) introductory (and left untranslated): “I observed again…”; (2) consequence of preceding statement: “So I observed again…”; or (3) continuation of preceding statement: “And I observed again….”

[4:7]  ²⁹ tn Heb “I turned and I saw…”; or “I again considered.” The Hebrew phrase וָאֶרְאֶה…וְשַׁבְתִּי (vÿshavti…va’er’eh, “I turned and I saw”) is a verbal hendiadys (the two verbs represent one common idea). Normally in a verbal hendiadys, the first verb functions adverbially, modifying the second verb which retains its full verbal force. The verb שׁוּב (shuv, “to turn”) is used idiomatically to denote repetition: “to return and do” = “to do again” (e.g., Gen 26:18; 30:31; 43:2) or “to do repeatedly” (e.g., Lam 3:3); see HALOT 1430 s.v. שׁוב 5; BDB 998 s.v. שׁוּב 8; GKC 386 §120.e: “I observed again” or “I repeatedly observed.” On the other hand, the shift from the perfect וְשַׁבְתִּי (vav + perfect 1st person common singular from שׁוּב, “to turn”) to the preterite וָאֶרְאֶה (vav + Qal preterite 1st person common singular from רָאָה, ra’ah, “to see”) might indicate a purpose clause: “I turned [my mind] to consider….” The preterite וָאֶרְאֶה follows the perfect וְשַׁבְתִּי. When a wayyiqtol form (vav + preterite) follows a perfect in reference to a past-time situation, the preterite also represents a past-time situation. Its aspect is based on the preceding perfect. In this context, the perfect and preterite may denote definite past or indefinite past action (“I turned and considered …” as hendiadys for “I observed again” or “I repeatedly observed”) or past telic action (“I turned [my mind] to consider…”). See IBHS 554-55 §33.3.1a.

[4:7]  ³⁰ tn The word “another” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[4:7]  ³¹ tn Heb “under the sun.”