Darkness or Blackness? A Semantic Study of חשך (Joel 3:4)

Abstract

Joel’s oracle proclaiming the day of the Lord concludes with the announcement of a series of wonders. The event that the prophet announces is not devoid of chromatism, since the language of color emerges in the prophecy through elements of nature that connote color (blood, fire, smoke [Joel 3:3–4; Eng. 2:30–31]). It is logical, then, to ask if חשך means “darkness” or, on the contrary, “color.” In order to determine if חשך has a chromatic meaning, I will apply a specific methodology based on cognitive linguistics. First, I will discuss the “encyclopedic knowledge” of the native speaker, describing the meaning of the color terms proposed in the main dictionaries and undertaking a comparative study of how the terms have been translated in the early versions of the Bible. I will then study the occurrences of the color terms in context and analyze the entity that describes the color term—the sun. In the light of this semantic analysis, I conclude that חשך expresses color in Joel 3:4, and this fact has great relevance for the interpretation of the prophecy.