Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Amos · About this commentary
The Day of Yahweh Is Darkness
Amos 5:18-20
18 “Woe to you who desire the day of Yahweh! Why do you long for the day of Yahweh? It is darkness, and not light. · WEB
The people are longing for the day of Yahweh, and the woe is pronounced on the longing itself.
The woe is aimed at an expectation, not a sin: woe to you who desire the day of Yahweh. They wanted it. In their reading it was the day their God settled accounts with the nations, and given the oracles that opened this book, they had reason to expect it would.
Amos answers with a question that dismantles the whole hope. Why do you long for it? It is darkness, and not light. The day is not canceled and its timing is not disputed. What is corrected is the assumption about which side of it they are standing on.
Verse 19 gives the picture, and it is almost comic in the way real nightmares are. A man flees from a lion and meets a bear. He escapes indoors, leans his hand on the wall to catch his breath — and a snake bites him. Three escapes, each one delivering him into the next thing, and the last one is at home with his hand on his own wall.
That is the passage's precision about the day. It is not described as an attack that can be resisted or fled. It is described as the removal of anywhere to go, which is the same claim the book made about the swift and the strong Amos 2:14–16 and will make again in its last vision Amos 9:2–3.
Verse 20 asks the question a second time and adds one word: not merely darkness, but darkness with no brightness in it. Nothing is left glowing at the edges.
settled What this mark means