Amos 5:18

The Day of the LORD

18 Woe to you who long for the day of the LORD! Why do you long for the day of the LORD? That day will be darkness, not light.

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Amos 5:18 in Other Translations

KJV

18 Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light.

ESV

18 Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD! Why would you have the day of the LORD? It is darkness, and not light,

NLT

18 What sorrow awaits you who say, “If only the day of the LORD were here!” You have no idea what you are wishing for. That day will bring darkness, not light.

MSG

18 Woe to all of you who want God's Judgment Day! Why would you want to see God, want him to come? When God comes, it will be bad news before it's good news, the worst of times, not the best of times.

CSB

18 Woe to you who long for the Day of the Lord! What will the Day of the Lord be for you? It will be darkness and not light.

Amos 5:18 Meaning and Commentary

Amos 5:18

Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord
Either the day of Christ's coming in the flesh, as Cocceius interprets it; and which was desired by the people of Israel, not on account of spiritual and eternal salvation, but that they might be delivered by him from outward troubles and enemies, and enjoy temporal felicity; they had a notion of him as a temporal Saviour and Redeemer, in whose days they should possess much outward happiness, and therefore desired his coming; see ( Malachi 3:1 Malachi 3:2 ) ; or else the day of the Lord's judgments upon them, spoken of by the prophet, and which they were threatened with, but did not believe it would ever come; and therefore in a scoffing jeering manner, expressed their desire of it, to show their disbelief of it, and that they were in no pain or fear about it, like those in ( Isaiah 5:19 ) ; to what end [is] it for you?
why do you desire it? what benefit do you expect to get by it? the day of the Lord [is] darkness, and not light;
it will bring on affliction, calamities, miseries, and distress, which are often in Scripture expressed by "darkness", and not prosperity and happiness, which are sometimes signified by "light"; see ( Isaiah 5:30 ) ( 8:22 ) ( Esther 8:16 ) ; and even the day of the coming of Christ were to the unbelieving Jews darkness, and not light; they were blinded in it, and given up to judicial blindness and darkness; they hating and rejecting the light of Christ, and his Gospel, and which issued in great calamities, in the utter ruin and destruction of that people, ( John 3:19 John 3:20 ) ( 9:39 ) .

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Amos 5:18 In-Context

16 Therefore this is what the Lord, the LORD God Almighty, says: “There will be wailing in all the streets and cries of anguish in every public square. The farmers will be summoned to weep and the mourners to wail.

17 There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst,” says the LORD.

18 Woe to you who long for the day of the LORD! Why do you long for the day of the LORD? That day will be darkness, not light.

19 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.

20 Will not the day of the LORD be darkness, not light— pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?