Jeffrey Glen Jackson
The phrase "the day of the LORD" and some variations will be used to illustrate some hermeneutical principals in the study of the Bible. It is important to take into account history, linguistics and context. When a phrase such as this has a technical meaning beyond the simple mean of the words and syntax involved, it is important to determine that the context demands the technical meaning and to determine if its usage in technical contexts didn't evolve over time, as language is never static: the Bible was written over a period of a millenium and a half in three different languages.
The phrase as typeset in the title is as it appears in the most English versions of Old Testament. In the New Testament, some variation will be seen and discussed later in this essay. Here, we will examine the individual words' meanings as well as the meaning contributed by the syntax in isolation of actual context.
The Hebrew word for "day" is yom (rhymes with dome). The basic meanings is the period of daylight (as opposed to night). When counting periods of time, it can refer to a full 24-hour day-night cycle. It can also be used for a more general period of time much like its English counterpart. Phrases like "day of ..." often mean not a particular day on the calendar, but rather something like "the time of" or "when". As time keeping became more precise, smaller units of time are used similarly (hour in Greek, minute, second, or even instant in modern idiom).
In Hebrew, this is actually the Divine Name: YHWH (Yahweh). Most translations follow the tradition of substituting the phrase "the Lord" for the name and printing the word "Lord" using small caps for the lower case letters. Thus the phrase is really the "day of Yahweh". In the New Testament, the Greek word for "Lord" is used (the tradition of substituting the word "Lord" for the Divine Name is pre-Christian) as well as reference to Jesus and/or Christ (Day of the Lord Jesus).
There is no word for "of" in Hebrew. The idea is expressed syntactically. The phrase X of Y is expressed by simply saying X' Y where X' is a (usually) shortened form of the word X called the Construct Form. X' also has the definate article prefix stripped off too, so the word "the" isn't actually present either. It is added by the translator to English because of the demands of English Style. Thus in Hebrew, the phrase is only two words: YOM YHWH.
What does it mean to say "the day of the LORD"? It is surprisingly ambiguous statement. It can express the simple possessive: the day that He owns. Ultimately everyday belongs to God of course, so unless that is the point of the context, the phrase probably means something beyond that. In English, we refer to the Sabbath as the Lord's Day. That is, a day the especially belongs to God, or is dedicated to God. However, that, as we shall see, isn't the point of the context it is used in in the Old Testament.
"Of" can also specify origin. Of course, every day is from God. So unless that is the specific point of the context, "of" as origin must mean that a day that is from God in some special way. It is in this later sense that most occurances of the phrase will mean. However in what way the day is specially of God can only be determined by context. The phrase in isolation does not denote the meaning that precisely.
Although the language is univeral in scope, the next of Isaiah 13:6-9 is an "oracle concerning Babylon" (Isaiah 13:1 NASB). Verse 6 says the day is "near" and describes it as a time of destruction. As we saw in a previous study, these prophecies concerning Babylon are already fulfilled.
Lamentations is a collection of laments concerning the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon in 586 BC. Lamentations 2:21-22 refers to this past event as "the day of Your/the Lord's anger".
In Ezekiel 13:1-7, the day of the LORD is the then current situation (the Babylonian conquest) that the false prophets had done nothing to protect Israel from (esp. Ezekiel 1:5). Ezekiel 30:1-10 describes the day of the LORD as near (Ezekiel 30:1) and explicitly identifies it with the "hand of Nebuchnezzar" (Ezekiel 30:10).
Joel's prophecy opens with a description of a recent foreign invastion (Joel 1:6), which is metaphorically described as a series of locust invasions (Joel 1:4). In Joel 1:15, he proclaims the nearness of the day of the LORD, whose destruction will be even worse than what has come so far. Joel 2:1-2 also proclaims its nearness and that it will be worse than anything that has happened before then, and than anything that will happen for many generations to come. Thus we see that the day of the LORD that Joel proclaims is something of his own time, and not eschatological: it is near, and there will be many generations afterwards. Further, Joel 2:28-32 makes a prophecy regarding "after all of this" that Peter, in Acts 2:16-21 proclaims as fulfulled at Pentecost.
In Amos 5:18-20, the day of the LORD is a day some people are mistakenly looking forward too. Amos proclaims that it will be a day of "darkness and not light", but gives no indication that an eschatological judgment is in view.
Obadiah 15 repeats the common refrain that the day of the LORD is drawing near.
Zephaniah 1:7 also proclaims the day of the LORD to be near. Although Zephaniah 1:2-3 makes this sound like an eschatological judgment ("I will destroy everything from the face of the earth ... people and animals ... the birds ... and the fish in the sea ... I will remove humanity from the face of the earth"), comparision against Zephaniah 2:3, 7, which holds out hope of a remnant surviving, shows that Zephaniah 1:2-3 is typical prophetic-poetic hyperbole.
Malachi 4:5-6, one of the latest of the prophets, shows some hint of an eschatological meaning. In this passage, it is loaded with superlatives, "the great and terrible day of the LORD", and is an event that is said to be after Elijah is sent to Israel. Jesus proclaimed this later prophecy to be fulfilled in the person of John (Mt 11:14). But even at that, Malaci 4:6 indicates that "Elijah's" ministry will avert the judgment, presumably to a much more distant time.
When the Old Testament was translated into Greek, the divine name YHWH (Yahweh) was translated by the Greek word for "lord". In the New Testament, this title is applied to Jesus and the phrase "the day of the Lord Jesus Christ, and permutations thereof" take on a different technical meaning that is eschatological.
Jesus himself does not appear to have used the phrase "day of the Lord", but some of his sayings may have influenced later usage of the term in the New Testament.
In a parable in Matthew 24:42-44, Jesus says "you do not know which day your Lord is coming". Here the use of the word "day" is idiomatic for "when"... see verse 44 where the word "hour" is used similarly. Nonetheless, the phrasing does call to mind the Old Testament phrase in a possibly eschatological context.
In Luke 17:22-37, Jesus uses the phrase "days of the Son of Man" in an interesting context:
Lk 17:22Then he said to the disciples, “The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.
The phrase appears to refer to the time of Jesus' earthly ministry before the crucifixion and resurrection, as the next verse then warns to not go after false messiahs as a result of their longing.
Lk 17:23Then people will say to you, ‘Look, there he is!’ or ‘Look, here he is!’ Do not go out or chase after them.
In the next two verses, Jesus refers to "his [the Son of Man's] day" as a future event that comes after his suffers and is rejected.
Lk 17:24For just like the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. 17:25But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.
The exact meaning of "his day" is not obvious, but it is suggestive of the Old Testment phrase "day of the LORD". The following verses use the phrases "days of Noah" and "days of Lot" meaning their earthly lifetimes, analogous to the "days of the Son of Man" above, which also occurs in this passage. The temporal horizon in verse 22 and 25 is the lifetimes of the disciples being addressed.
Lk 17:26Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the Son of Man. 17:27People were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage—right up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. 17:28Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot, people were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building; 17:29but on the day Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.
Although the days of Noah and Lot led up to destruction, the destruction itself is incidental to his point. The point of these verses is the event took people by surprise... they were not expecting it. So, too, the Son of Man ... in his day" (v. 24) will be something unexpected.
Lk 17:30It will be the same on the day the Son of Man is revealed.
This is commonly taken as a reference to the second coming, but this makes no sense of what the "days of the Son of Man" would mean. The revelation of the Son of Man that will take people, even the disciples, by surprise, his his suffering, rejection (v. 25), crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection. The conquering Messiah that the people had expected, or at least hoped for, was one who would defeat the Romans and set up a political kingdom, not the Messiah who conquered death and ruled from heaven, as Jesus told the High Priest...
Mt 26:64Jesus said to him, “You have said it yourself. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” [Underline added for emphases]
Admittedly this leaves the following verses even more enigmatic that they were to begin with.
Lk 17:31On that day, anyone who is on the roof, with his goods in the house, must not come down to take them away, and likewise the person in the field must not turn back. 17:32Remember Lot’s wife! 17:33Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it. 17:34I tell you, in that night there will be two people in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 17:35There will be two women grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.”
Who is being taken? the sinner in judgment? the saved to heaven? some of each taken by an invading army? The disciples were equally perplexed, but Jesus' response was even more enigmatic.
Lk 17:37Then the disciples said to him, “Where, Lord?” He replied to them, “Where the dead body is, there the vultures will gather.”
As enigmatic as this is, it certainly sounds as if those who are "taken" are not taken someplace pleasant. I suggest that the import of these verses is actually evangelistic, and those who are taken are those who die without accepting Jesus. The image of the vultures (or, eagles, the word means both in Greek), may be evocative of the Romans destroying Jerusalem in AD 70 after the Christians had fled the city.
In John 8:56, Jesus refers to "my day", but the meaning there is clearly the time of his earthly minisitry.
We've seen in these passages that Jesus did not use a phrase analogous to the "day of the LORD". There is the idea of a day that is uniquely his, but this seems to refer to the resurrection. However, there is also a passage where he refers to the "last day" when the general resurrection will occur:
Jn 6:39Now this is the will of the one who sent me—that I should not lose one person of every one he has given me, but raise them all up at the last day. 6:40For this is the will of my Father—for everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him to have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
He also used the phrase "day of judgment" similarly: Mt 10:15, 11:22-24, 12:36.
In what may be the earliest epistles, Paul applies the Greek phrase "day of the Lord" (the usual translation of the Hebrew phrase "day of the LORD") to the day of judgment (1 Thess. 5:2, 4, 2 Thess. 2:2-3). In the latter letter, he refutes a false letter going around claiming that the day of the Lord had already come. What was meant by that is not clear since a literal judgment had not taken place (such as the destruction of Jerusalem). Perhaps a spiritual resurrection in contrast to a physical resurrection, as Paul had refutted in 1 Corinthians 15, was the nature of the false teaching.
In latter letters, Paul expands the phrase familiar expression from the LXX to include the name Jesus and/or the title Christ. In 1 Corinthians 1:8, "[Jesus] who will also confirm you to the end, blamess in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ". Referring back to this day in 1 Corinthians 3:13, "each man's work will become evident; for the day will show it...". 1 Corinthians 5:5, "... so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." (See also 2 Corinthians 1:14). The eschatological meaning is particularly clear in Philippians 1:6, 10: "For I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus... so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ". In Romans, 2:5, 16, Paul describes this day as a day of judgment.
Peter also uses the phrase eschatologically: "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass way with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works wll be burned up." (2 Peter 3:10).
The phase "day of the Lord" is not in its self eschatological. It tends to be a technical term whose usage changed between the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament, is is nearly always described as a day that was "near" and even associated explictly with then contemporaneous foreign incurssions. Only in the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, does it take on a hint of eschatological meaning.
Jesus himself did not use the term, but he did use the phrases "last day" and "day of judgment" eschatologically. When the title "Lord" was approriated to Jesus, the phrase "day of the Lord" with "Jesus" and/or "Christ" was adapted and used applied to eschatology by both Paul and Peter.
While Old Testament descriptions of the day of the Lord may be applied typologically to the eschatological judgment, their primary meaning is always to history. Those passages should not be taken as prophetic of eschatology.