The Day of the Lord. Revelation 19:16; Isa 2:10-22, 24:1-8; Obadiah 1-21
Jesus Christ is going to establish Himself as the King of kings and Lord of lords and conquer the nations. This is summarized in Revelation but what is behind it is a host of passages in the Old Testament, found in the prophets—Jeremiah, Ezekiel, many of the Minor Prophets which give us snapshots of these events. It is somewhat difficult at times to put all these together but that is what we will start doing.
The "day of the Lord" is a description of this whole judgment as a focus of God establishing His rule on the earth and how that plays into the prophecies related to Israel is the preliminary or introduction to the study on the details of the Armageddon campaign. There is no place in Scripture that gives a chronological flow that puts everything together so it takes some time and study to do this and to correlate these passages.
Revelation 19:16 NASB "And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, 'KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.'" This indicates that what He is doing at the Second Coming is establishing Himself as the true ruler over all of the nations on the earth. That fulfills Old Testament prophecy specifically related to the term "the day of the Lord." This is a term that is crucial for understanding what is happening during the end times. This phrase occurs in nineteen Old Testament verses. That is, in reference to a special time of divine judgment. It is complicated because it is not just that simple phrase "day of the Lord" that is of significance but there are additional phrases that allude to that—"that day, on that day, the day, the great day of the Lord (Zephaniah 1:14), the great day of God (2 Pet. 3:12; Revelation 16:14)." Then there is another group of terms that talk about the day of the Lord's wrath, the day of intense wrath, the day of the Lord's anger, the Lord's day of anger. These do not use the precise phrase "the day of the Lord" but they do seem to relate to this whole concept of a special time of divine judgment.
We must recognize that the term "the day of the Lord" refers to a time of God's special intervention into the course of world events to judge His enemies, to accomplish His purpose for history, and thereby demonstrate who He is as the sovereign God of the universe. That is why this fits within our study when we see Jesus returning as the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is establishing His rule, His reign as the Son of Man who has been given the kingdom by the Father. That is in a narrow sense the meaning of the term "the day of the Lord," but in a broader sense the term includes much more than just the immediate events surrounding the return of Christ to the earth, broader than the Armageddon campaign. Broadly speaking it includes the Tribulation period or Daniel's seventieth week. The term, or variations of it, are also used to refer to certain historical judgments that God brought against Israel in the Old Testament, such as in 586 BC when the southern kingdom was conquered by Nebuchadnezzar, but that was not the day of the Lord that we think of in terms of the future judgment related to the Second Coming. All of these references have as their fulfillment the return of the King of kings and Lord of lords to establish His kingdom on the earth in Revelation 19.
We will look at some of the passages where the term "day of the Lord" is used so that we can develop our understanding of this biblically. One of the first mentions of the day of the Lord is in Isaiah. Chapter two starts out talking about the Millennium and then about the day of the Lord. Verses 1-4 give indications of what the Millennium (the kingdom) will be like for Israel. This ties into Revelation 20:1-6. In those verses it is Mount Zion which is to become the focal point of all worship in the Millennial kingdom and all nations will come to it. Isaiah 2:2 NASB "Now it will come about that In the last days The mountain of the house of the LORD Will be established as the chief of the mountains, And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it." The "mountain" is not the present temple mount. The future temple is roughly one mile square, so it is going to be enormous. All of the Gentile nations will have as the focal point of their worship in the Millennial kingdom the temple in Jerusalem. [3] "And many peoples will come and say, 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways And that we may walk in His paths.' For the law will go forth from Zion And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. [4] And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war."
Verses 5-9 focus on the call to Jacob in terms of the present time in light of the future that will come; it is a call to obedience and to reject idolatry because there will be this future day of judgment. Then in verses 10-22 Isaiah looks beyond the immediate and into the distant future and to the judgment that occurs as the day of the Lord. He describes the day of the Lord as a time of judgment upon the nations, upon those who are proud, those who are arrogant, and God will display His power, omnipotence, and righteousness, and all of those who are in rebellion against Him will flee before Him in terror. The key verses we want to focus on are, first of all, vv. 10-13.
Isaiah 2:10 NASB "Enter the rock and hide in the dust From the terror of the LORD and from the splendor of His majesty.
Isaiah 2:12 NASB "For the LORD of hosts will have a day {of reckoning} Against everyone who is proud and lofty And against everyone who is lifted up, That he may be abased.
Isaiah 2:19 NASB "{Men} will go into caves of the rocks And into holes of the ground Before the terror of the LORD And the splendor of His majesty, When He arises to make the earth tremble.
Isaiah chapter thirteen deals with a judgment on Babylon, and this is described in Revelation 17 & 18. Isaiah 13:6 NASB "Wail, for the day of the LORD is near! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. [7] Therefore all hands will fall limp, And every man's heart will melt.
One of the questions that has been raised is the tendency to try to put all of these at the same time. In Joel chapter two we will see that Joel describes the same phenomenon as occurring right before the Lord returns. But of we try make all of these references refer to that same event we have a problem because we can't fit it all in chronologically. There are several times during the Tribulation period where the light from the sun and the moon are impacted by these judgments. All of this fits the increasing intensification of judgment that is known as the day of the Lord when the Lord will come to judge—Isaiah 13:11 NASB "Thus I will punish the world for its evil And the wicked for their iniquity; I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud And abase the haughtiness of the ruthless. [12] I will make mortal man scarcer than pure gold And mankind than the gold of Ophir."
In Isaiah 34 we see the emphasis on the judgment of the nations. This focuses on the fact that this is a judgment on the nations, the Gentiles; it is not national judgment, it is individual judgments of individual Gentiles, and because they make up nations that is how they are described. Verses 1-8 NASB "1 Draw near, O nations, to hear; and listen, O peoples! Let the earth and all it contains hear, and the world and all that springs from it.
That brings us to the book of Obadiah.
We really don't know who Obadiah was. There are some thirteen people in the Old Testament who have this name of Obadiah but we don't which of those is this Obadiah, and he may not even be one of the other twelve. There is no specific historical peg in these 21 verses that we can go to and identify exactly and precisely when this was written. There are a couple of things that indicate that it was early, and one of those is that it is placed early in the twelve, and these were the early pre-exilic prophets. When we study the issues on the date of Obadiah its content deals with a time when Edom had not helped Israel but had been allied with the enemies of Israel, and there is a partial destruction of Jerusalem. People either identify this time period as being early on, approximately 850 BC, during the time of the ministry of Elisha, or others try to place it at the time of the destruction in 586 by Nebuchadnezzar. The problem with the latter view is that when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem he did it by himself and he didn't need any help from Edom, and secondly, Nebuchadnezzar at the time of the Neo-Babylonian empire totally destroyed Jerusalem. Obadiah isn't talking about a total destruction, it is a partial destruction. On that basis it is probably an earlier date when there is an assault by the Philistines who invade into Judah and into Jerusalem, but it was not a time of total destruction. Edom did ally herself with the Philistines at that battle, during the same time as Elisha. If it is early it is supported by the fact that the Jews historically and traditionally placed Obadiah very early in the Old Testament. The focal point is a judgment on Edom.
Later on the Edomites are defeated by the Nabataens and they have to move from their traditional homeland. By the New Testament times the Edomites had all moved into the southern territory of Judah and are known as Idumeans and they tried to blend in with the Jews. Herod the Great was an Idumean. Edomites had historically been antagonistic to Israel during the time of the conquest, they refused to allow Moses to bring the Israelites through their land on the way to Canaan. During the early monarchy, during the period of Saul and David, they were hostile to Israel. They were eventually subdued and defeated by David and were under the control of the united kingdom. But by the time of Ahab's grandson Jehoram they are breaking loose from that control and by the time of Jehoshaphat in the southern kingdom they successfully rebel against the southern kingdom and have more of an independence. By the time of the fifth century BC the Nabataeans forced them out and they moved westward and eventually attempted to assimilate with the Jews.
The focus of Obadiah is that this is a judgment on the Edomites because they have failed to be their brother's keeper; they have failed to be a protector of the descendants of Esau's brother Jacob and because of that they are going to be judged by God and removed.
There are three basic divisions in Obadiah. There is a warning of approaching judgment in vv. 1-9. Their indictment is summarized in vv. 10-14. Then there is a shift from historical judgment on Edom to the eventual establishment of Israel's sovereignty in fulfillment of the promises of God to Israel, vv. 15-21. We see that there are a lot of similarities between God's judgment and the indictment on the Edomites and the indictment God brings against the nations in the day of the Lord at the end of history. In that sense we see that the Edomites are used as a type of all of the gentile nations that are in arrogant hostility toward God. So this book shows the destiny of all Gentile nations as enemies of God throughout history and how God will eventually bring a judgment against them and establish Israel as His people.
Obadiah 1:1 NASB "The vision of Obadiah. Thus says the Lord GOD concerning Edom— We have heard a report from the LORD, And an envoy has been sent among the nations {saying,} 'Arise and let us go against her for battle'— " The "her" here is Edom. It is a call to the nations that God is going to use in order to bring about His judgment on the Edomites. [2] 'Behold, I will make you small among the nations; You are greatly despised.
In verses 5-7 the emphasis is on the fact that thieves would come and may just steal a few things and may destroy a few things but in divine judgment everything would be destroyed. Obadiah 1:5 NASB "If thieves came to you, If robbers by night— O how you will be ruined!-- Would they not steal {only} until they had enough? If grape gatherers came to you, Would they not leave {some} gleanings?
Obadiah 1:10 NASB "Because of violence to your brother Jacob, You will be covered {with} shame, And you will be cut off forever.
Then in v. 15 we have the shift from the historical circumstance to the future day of the Lord. NASB "For the day of the LORD draws near on all the nations. As you have done, it will be done to you. Your dealings will return on your own head.
Then verse 17 shifts to Israel's ultimate triumph. NASB "But on Mount Zion there will be those who escape, And it will be holy. And the house of Jacob will possess their possessions.
Obadiah 1:19 NASB "Then {those of} the Negev will possess the mountain of Esau, And {those of} the Shephelah the Philistine {plain;} Also, possess the territory of Ephraim and the territory of Samaria, And Benjamin {will possess} Gilead.
Illustrations