A theological concept first found in Amos 5:18 -20, the Day of the Lord (yom YHWH) was a future event to which ancient Israelites looked forward, "longed for." It specific signification is uncertain. Amos used it in a manner that suggests it was a widely understood concept with clearly understood significance, as a day of vindication for Israel. Amos, though, turned that widely understood significance upside-down. From a day to be "looked forward" to, Amos declared that it would instead be a day of dread and terror, of "darkness, not light . . . pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness," "it will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him." Amos's point was that, contrary to the people's false perception, the Day of the Lord would be a day of judgement.
Amos's understanding of the "day of the Lord was picked up by the other prophets and used similarly to denote a day of terror: Isaiah calls on the Israelites, e.g., to "wail, for the day of the Lord is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty. Because of this, all hands will go limp, every man's heart will melt. Terror will seize them, pain and anguish will grip them; they will writhe like a woman in labour. They will look aghast at each other, their faces aflame. See, the day of the Lord is coming—a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger—to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it. The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. (Isa 13:6-9). Joel speaks of it as "a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness. Like dawn spreading across the mountains a large and mighty army comes, such as never was of old nor ever will be in ages to come. Before them fire devours, behind them a flame blazes. Before them the land is like the garden of Eden, behind them, a desert waste—nothing escapes them. . . . it is dreadful. Who can endure it?" (2:2-11).
Several Old Testament scholars have suggested different backgrounds from which the concept might have originated; none, however, has garnered wide acceptance.
It has often been asked whether the Day of the Lord was eschatological. That depends, of course, on what we mean by the adjective. If eschatology is defined as a more or less developed doctrine about the "last things" that looks for the end of this present world order and the ushering in of a new suprahistorical world order, then the answer is obviously no. If eschatology is defined more broadly as an orientation towards a future and a hope that God would bring all things to a triumphant conclusion, even if only this-worldly, then the Day of the Lord is eschatological.
The OT concept of the day of YHWH is clearly picked up in the NT. Here it first appears in Peter's speech to the crowd gathered and amassed at the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples, where he explains to the crowd that what they were witnessing was the fulfilment of Joel's oracle about what would happen on the day of the Lord. At the same time, however, the NT also understand the day of the Lord will also find expression in a clearly defined future occurrence, so that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was only the inauguration of the chain of events that would lead to that future day of the Lord (which Paul refers to also as 'the day of the Lord Jesus,' in 1 Cor 1:8 & 2 Cor 1:14). Paul, e.g., calls the Corinthian Christians to "hand this man [a sexually immoral man referred to in v1] over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord. Generally, it is clear that the NT understands that day to be what we call "the Great Eschaton," that great day of divine reckoning.
Open Concordance
Resources:
Jason DeRouchie, "The Day of the Lord," The Gospel Coalition, US.
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F.C. Fensham, "A Possible Origin of the Concept of the Day of the Lord," Neotestamentica (1966): 90-97.
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Walter C. Kaiser Jr., "The promise of the arrival of Elijah in Malachi and the Gospels," Grace Theological Journal 3.2 (Fall 1982): 221-233.
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Richard Mayhue, "The prophet's watchword: Day of the Lord,"> Grace Theological Journal 6.2 (1985): 231-246.
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Richard D. Patterson, "Wonders In The Heavens and on the Earth: Apocalyptic Imagery in the Old Testament," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 43:3 (March 2000): 385-403.
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Phil Piccolo, "Day of the Lord Precursor?" Calvary Baptist Theological Journal 7.2 (Fall 1991):56-65.
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