Day of the Lord

Humans, however, were led astray and decided to define good and evil for themselves. What follows is the story of the death and destruction that their rebellion brings them. We see the Tower of Babel, where mankind tries to continue defining good and evil for themselves by elevating themselves as gods and we see the story of Egypt where Pharaoh tries to protect his own interests by enslaving the Israelite people.

After God liberates His people from this evil, though, they sing a song that talks about how God is their warrior, delivering them from evil. In this song, the Israelites refer to this liberation as "the day." This is the first mention of the day of the Lord Old Testament verses talk about. This day is something the Israelites would celebrate every year with the Feast of the Passover.

As time went on, however, new enemies of the Israelites arose. The remembrance of the Passover, though, gave the Israelites hope that their God would again bring "the day" and deliver them from evil.

Later in the story, we do indeed see the prophet Amos bring the news that the day of the Lord was coming again to crush evil, but this time that evil existed within Israel itself.

The day of the Lord comes upon Israel, and they are conquered and taken captive into exile. One after another, Israel is ruled by oppressive empires from this point forward, including the oppressive empire of Rome that Jesus was born into.