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Amos 5:20

in Amos 5

Will not the Day of the LORD be darkness and not light, even gloom with no brightness in it?

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV

ASV

Shall not the day of Jehovah be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

KJV

Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

This verse in Amos 5

Commentary

5 notes on this verse
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.

This site's exposition

Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord

on Amos 5:18-20

Israel expected the day of the Lord as a day of vindication against her enemies, and Amos overturns the expectation flatly, to what end is it for you, the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light. The bench reads the three pictures of verse 19, the lion escaped only to meet a bear, the bear escaped only to meet a snake in one's own house, as a deliberate ladder of relief that keeps collapsing, no refuge proving safe. This is the earliest text in Scripture to name the day of the Lord as a technical phrase, and the darkness Amos gives it here becomes the note Joel, Zephaniah and the rest of the prophets carry forward.

The record, by era

The Church Fathers1 voice

A commentator

Jerome

Commentary on Amos · Written before 420.

proposed

(Verse 18-20.) Woe to those who long for the day of the Lord! Why do you long for it? That day will be darkness, not light. 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. Will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light— pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness? Woe to those who long for the day of the Lord! Why do you long for the day of the Lord?

The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

proposed

Do not your own consciences tell you that it will be so, that it will be very dark, and no brightness in it? " Note, The day of the Lord will be a dark, dismal, gloomy day to all impenitent sinners; the day of judgment will be so; and sometimes the day of their present trouble.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — odd-straight-quotes

Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light?....

The words behind it

10 Hebrew words

Every Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

  • הֲלֹא־¿ not

    halo'-H38085168 times

  • חֹ֛שֶׁךְ[be] darkness

    choshekhH2822

  • י֥וֹם[will] [the] day of

    yomH31172304 times

  • יְהוָ֖הYahweh

    yahwehH30686520 times

  • וְלֹא־and not

    velo'-H38085168 times

  • א֑וֹרlight

    ʾorH216121 times

  • וְאָפֵ֖לand gloomy

    veafelH651

  • וְלֹא־and not

    velo'-H38085168 times

  • נֹ֥גַֽהּbrightness

    nogahH5051

  • לֽוֹ׃[will belong] to it

    lo

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

The walk

8 stops

Each card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.

  • Through

    Ezekiel 34:12

    As a shepherd looks for his scattered sheep when he is among the flock, so I will look for My flock. I will rescue them from all the places to which they were scattered…

    it leads to

    • Isaiah 40:11

      He tends His flock like a shepherd; He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart. He gently leads the nursing ewes.

    • John 10:11–12

      I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.

    • Luke 19:10

      For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

  • Through

    Isaiah 13:10

    For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light. The rising sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light.

    it leads to

    • Joel 2:31

      The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and awesome Day of the LORD.

    • Matthew 24:29

      Immediately after the tribulation of those days: ‘The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will…

    • Mark 13:24

      But in those days, after that tribulation: ‘The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light;

    • Ezekiel 32:7–8

      When I extinguish you, I will cover the heavens and darken their stars. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light.

  • Through

    Revelation 16:10

    And the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness, and men began to gnaw their tongues in anguish

    it leads to

    • Revelation 9:2

      The star opened the pit of the Abyss, and smoke rose out of it like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the…

Where this verse is studied

About Amos

The Prophet Amos, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.
The Prophet Amos, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.

This page draws on Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Jerome, Commentary on Amos; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.