Daniella Ishai-Rosenboim, «Is yh MwOy (the Day of the Lord) a Term in Biblical Language?», Vol. 87 (2006) 395-401
The collocation yh MwOy in the Biblical language is not a term, as it does not answer
the criterion of being a term: one, specific and unchanged expression referring to
one, specific and unchanged concept: Rather, this collocation may be replaced by
other ones (e.g. yhl Mwy, yh P) Mwy, yhl Mq@n Mwy,
Kp)/wp) Mwy) and on the other hand the
concept is referred to also (mostly!) by another expression ( )whh Mwyh); nor does it
refer exclusively to the concept of ‘The Day of the Lord’. None of the cultures
continuing the Biblical one refer to the concept by this collocation or by a
translation of it.
400 Daniella Ishai-Rosenboim
God’, translating the Hebrew collocation ùh µ/y, but rather other collocations
are used: ‘The day of tribulation, torment’ (Henoch, 1,1); ‘The day of
judgment’ (Henoch 81,4), (equivalent to the Tannaitic Hebrew collocation
ˆydh µwy); ‘The great day of judgment’ (Henoch 19,1; 84,4) (equivalent to the
Tannaitic Hebrew collocation lwdgh ˆydh µwy); ‘The day of tumult and curse and
wrath and anger’ (Jubilees 36,10); ‘The posterior day [lit. ‘The posterior of
the days’] (Henoch 27,3). In the example from Jubilees 36,10 — “The day of
tumult and curse and wrath and anger†— the attribute wrath (which is the
equivalent of the Latin ‘ira’), is only one among several attributes qualifying
the day.
*
**
What is inferred from what was said above, is that the collocation ùh µ/y
has none of the characteristics of a term: 1) The literal meaning of the
collocation is so amorphous, that it is unreasonable that it should become a
term. 2) The collocation is not fixed but rather, variable; it is frequently
modified and appears in different variations. 3) The concept is referred to also
(and mostly!) by ways of expression other than ùh µ/y. 4) In later times, in none
of the cultures continuing the Biblical one, the concept under discussion is not
referred to by a collocation which is a translation of the phrase ùh µ/y.
It stems from all these that ùh µ/y is not a term in the Biblical language, i.e.
a native speaker of Hebrew of the Bible time, when he would hear the
collocation ùh µ/y, would not necessarily think about the concept today termed
by this collocation (10), unless it were in an appropriate context — without that
context the hearer would not have had that concept in mind.
If this is the case, what is then, the meaning of the collocation ùh µ/y? The
answer, again, stems from the function of the nomen rectum which is an
attribute. ùh (God) is an attribute of µ/y (day) as in ‘wonderful day’ or ‘day of
disaster’, ‘wonderful’ and ‘of disaster’ are attributes of ‘day’; and as
‘wonderful’ and ‘of disaster’ do not specify why the day is wonderful —
because of its weather, because of the activity carried on on it, because of
good news — or of disaster, similarly in the constructive ùh µ/y, the nomen
rectum, ùh (God) qualifies the nomen regens µ/y, by saying that it is somehow
connected to God, but does not specify how. Apparently, God did/will do
something in that day, did/will interfere somehow in the course of the history,
but the collocation by no means says what He did/will do; it may be in the
past or in the future, it may be good or bad, it may be for the whole universe
or only for one nation or a special group, etc. etc.
And, indeed, as the collocation ùh µ/y is not a term, not limited to one
specific day of one specific nature, it may refer to several different days, and
it does exactly that: it refers to the eschatological day in the future (called
today ‘The Day of the Lord’), as well as to a day in the past (Ezek 13,6, Lam
1,12; 2,1,21,22); the hearers of Amos (5,18, 20) could think about a day of
(10) Hoffmann is right when he says: “The term did not have roots in the popular
language†(“The Day of the Lordâ€, 49), in other words, the collocation was not a term; as
for the end of his sentence “and was limited to the prophetic circlesâ€, it is difficult to take
that the prophets used words or terms foreign to the language of their audience.