Day

Day in Scripture has several meanings. The ordinary civil day ran from sunset to sunset following the Genesis pattern ("evening and morning," Genesis 1:5), a reckoning confirmed in Leviticus 23:32 where the Day of Atonement runs from one evening to the next. The daylight hours were divided into the first, third, sixth, and ninth hours, and the night into four watches. In prophetic literature, "the day of the LORD" (yom YHWH) refers to a decisive moment of divine intervention — initially conceived as a day of national triumph and later recast by the prophets as a day of judgment on Israel and the nations alike (Amos 5:18–20; Isaiah 2:12; Joel 2:1–11; Zephaniah 1:14–18). The New Testament frames Christ's return as "the day of the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 5:2; 2 Peter 3:10), giving the prophetic theme its ultimate fulfillment.