Won’t the day of Yahweh be darkness, and not light? Even very dark, and no brightness in it?
Parallel Translations
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Won’t the day of Yahweh be darkness, and not light? Even very dark, and no brightness in it?
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Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?
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Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? Even very dark, and no brightness in it?
Cross-references (9)
Passages linked to Amos 5:20 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Isaiah 13:10 For the stars of the sky and its constellations will not give their light. The sun will be darkened in its going out, and the moon will not cause its light to shine.
- Ezekiel 34:12 As a shepherd seeks out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered abroad, so I will seek out my sheep. I will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.
- Zephaniah 1:15 That day is a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness,
- Job 10:21-22 before I go where I will not return from, to the land of darkness and of the shadow of death; the land dark as midnight, of the shadow of death, without any order, where the light is as midnight.’ ”
- Job 3:4-6 Let that day be darkness. Don’t let God from above seek for it, neither let the light shine on it. Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own. Let a cloud dwell on it. Let all that makes black the day terrify it. As for that night, let thick darkness seize on it. Let it not rejoice among the days of the year. Let it not come into the number of the months.
- Nahum 1:8 But with an overflowing flood, he will make a full end of her place, and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
- Matthew 22:13 Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and throw him into the outer darkness. That is where the weeping and grinding of teeth will be.’
- Jude 1:13 wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever.
- Revelation 16:10 The fifth poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was darkened. They gnawed their tongues because of the pain,
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (8 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain “You have no reason,” he says, “to hope for…
“You have no reason,” he says, “to hope for any light from the day of Jehovah.” Why? “For Jehovah will not come, except when armed; for, as ye conduct yourselves in a hostile manner towards him, he must necessarily take vengeance. He will, therefore, bring with him no light, except it may be to fulminate against you: but his appearance will be dreadful, even darkness and thick darkness; and then, when he ceases to pursue you in one way, he will assail you in another; and, when foreign enemies spare you, God will find means by which he may destroy you in your own land without the agency of men; for ye have already found what the sterility of the land is, and what pestilence is: the Lord then has all such modes of vengeance in his own hand. Think not, therefore, that there will be any alleviation to you, were the world to change a hundred times, and were the condition of the country wholly different.”
But the Prophet did not intend here to drive all those indiscriminately into despair, who were guilty of grievous offenses, but his design was to shake off from hypocrites their self-flatteries, that by such proofs they might be led to know that God would be ever like himself. If, then, they wished to return into favor with him, he shows that a change was needful: when they put off their perverse conduct, God would be instantly ready to give them pardon; but, if they proceeded in their vices and obstinate wickedness, and always continued in that hardness, in which they had hitherto indulged, he declares, that the day of Jehovah would be ever to them dark and gloomy, and that, though the Lord does not always use the same kind of rod, he yet has means innumerable, by which he can destroy a perverse nation, such as the Israelites then were.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Amo 5:20 [Shall] not the day of the LORD…
Amo 5:20 [Shall] not the day of the LORD [be] darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?
Ver. 20. Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, &c.] q.d. How say ye now; when thus beset with mischief on all hands, such as ye can neither avoid nor abide, must ye not needs subscribe to the truth of what I said, Amo 5:18, and do here again repeat (that you may the better observe it) with greater emphasis and earnestness? you shall not have the least glimmering of comfort, ease, direction, or good counsel. To what end, then, should you desire this dreadful day of the Lord? Are you in haste to be undone?
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain All these things considered, ye secure, profane, and atheistical…
All these things considered, ye secure, profane, and atheistical scoffers, speak yourselves, will not that day be as dark as I have described, and as little to your comfort?
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness,…
Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light?.... The design of such a question is strongly to affirm, that, in this day of the Lord spoken of, there should be nothing but misery and distress, and no prosperity and happiness, at least to the wicked Israelites, or the unbelieving Jews:
even very dark, and no brightness in it? signifying that there should be no deliverance, nor the least glimmering view or hope of it; that the calamity should be so very great, and the destruction so entire, that there should be no mixture of mercy, nor the least appearance of relief.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Shall not the Day of the Lord be darkness?…
Shall not the Day of the Lord be darkness? - He had described that Day as a day of inevitable destruction, such its man’s own conscience and guilty fears anticipate, and then appeals to their own consciences, “is it not so, as I have said?” People’s consciences are truer than their intellect. However, they may employ the subtlety of their intellect to dull their conscience, they feel, in their heart of hearts, that there is a Judge, that guilt is punished, that they are guilty. The soul is a witness to its own deathlessness, its own accountableness, its own punishableness . Intellect carries the question out of itself into the region of surmising and disputings. Conscience is compelled to receive it back into its own court, and to give the sentence, which it would fain withhold. Like the god of the pagan fable, who changed himself into all sorts of forms, but when he was still held fast, gave at the last, the true answer, conscience shrinks back, twists, writhes, evades, turns away, but, in the end, it will answer truly, when it must. The prophet then, turns quick round upon the conscience, and says, “tell me, for you know.”
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 20. An emphatic repetition of the thought of Amo_5:18,…
20. An emphatic repetition of the thought of Amo_5:18, after the illustration of Amo_5:19.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (20) Darkness.—In the form of an interrogative, the condemnation…
(20) Darkness.—In the form of an interrogative, the condemnation contained in Amo_5:18 is emphatically reasserted. The term rendered “very dark” is that used to denote the gross Egyptian darkness that might be felt (Exo_10:22), the awful gloom, such as fell on Jerusalem at the Crucifixion, which is always accompanied by the sense of confusion, terror, and intolerable suspense. (Comp. the graphic metaphorical language of Isa_5:30.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain The character of the day of the Lord is…
The character of the day of the Lord is enforced with reiterated earnestness (ver. 18) by an appeal to the conscience of e hearers. Do you not feel in your inmost hearts that in the case of such guilt as yours the Lord can visit but to punish?
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.