Yesaya 13:10

13:10 Indeed the stars in the sky and their constellations

no longer give out their light; ¹ 

the sun is darkened as soon as it rises,

and the moon does not shine. ² 

Yesaya 34:4

34:4 All the stars in the sky will fade away, ³ 

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. ⁴ 

Yehezkiel 30:3

30:3 For the day is near,

the day of the Lord is near;

it will be a day of storm clouds, ⁵ 

it will be a time of judgment ⁶  for the nations.

Yoel 2:2

2:2 It will be ⁷  a day of dreadful darkness, ⁸ 

a day of foreboding storm clouds, ⁹ 

like blackness ¹⁰  spread over the mountains.

It is a huge and powerful army ¹¹  –

there has never been anything like it ever before,

and there will not be anything like it for many generations to come! ¹² 

Yoel 2:31

2:31 The sunlight will be turned to darkness

and the moon to the color of blood, ¹³ 

before the day of the Lord comes –

that great and terrible day!

[13:10]  ¹ tn Heb “do not flash forth their light.”

[13:10]  ² tn Heb “does not shed forth its light.”

[34:4]  ³ tc Heb “and all the host of heaven will rot.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a 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]  ⁴ tn Heb “like the withering of a leaf from a vine, and like the withering from a fig tree.”

[30:3]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ tn Heb “a time.” The words “of judgment” have been added in the translation for clarification (see the following verses).

[2:2]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ tn Heb “a day of cloud and darkness.”

[2:2]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² tn Heb “it will not be repeated for years of generation and generation.”

[2:31]  ¹³ 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.