The Great Day of Yahweh Is Near
14 The great day of Yahweh is near. It is near and hurries greatly, the voice of the day of Yahweh. The mighty man cries there bitterly. 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, 16 a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fortified cities and against the high battlements. 17 I will bring such distress on men that they will walk like blind men because they have sinned against Yahweh. Their blood will be poured out like dust and their flesh like dung. 18 Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them in the day of Yahweh’s wrath, but the whole land will be devoured by the fire of his jealousy; for he will make an end, yes, a terrible end, of all those who dwell in the land.
The most concentrated description of that day in Scripture, piled up without relief — and its point is that nothing purchased can buy an exemption.
The great day of Yahweh is near, near and hurrying. Then the piling begins: a day of wrath, of distress and anguish, of trouble and ruin, of darkness and gloom, of clouds and blackness, of trumpet and alarm. Six pairs in two verses, with no verbs to slow them. Joel and Amos use the same darkness Joel 2:2 Amos 5:18, but nowhere is it stacked like this.
Verse 17 gives the reason in one clause — because they have sinned against Yahweh — and the effect in another: men walking like the blind. The picture is of people who cannot find their way in a city they know.
Verse 18 closes on money, which is where the chapter has been heading since the silver-laden merchants of verse 11. Neither silver nor gold will be able to deliver them. And then the phrase that will return at Zephaniah 3:8 to close the whole judgment: the land devoured by the fire of his jealousy.
settled What this mark means