Day of the Lord, Death of the Gods

Judgment has been decreed on the gods. We just don’t know when the sentence will be carried out. Jesus said it’s not for us to know the times or seasons,^[1] but to watch for the signs of the changing of the seasons.^[2]

We do, however, know the name of the day when time runs out on the temporary dominion of Satan and his colleagues.^[3] It’s called the Day of the Lord, or the Day of Yahweh, a phrase used by the Hebrew prophets for the time of God’s judgment on an unrepentant world.

Behold, the day of the LORD comes,
cruel, with wrath and fierce anger,
to make the land a desolation
and to destroy its sinners from it.

For the stars of the heavens and their constellations
will not give their light;
the sun will be dark at its rising,
and the moon will not shed its light.

I will punish the world for its evil,
and the wicked for their iniquity;
I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant,
and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless.

I will make people more rare than fine gold,
and mankind than the gold of Ophir.

Therefore I will make the heavens tremble,
and the earth will be shaken out of its place,
at the wrath of the LORD of hosts
in the day of his fierce anger.

Isaiah 13:9–13 (ESV)

The Day of the Lord, also referred to by the phrase “on that day,” is the judgment on an unrepentant world that’s been described by many of the prophets. Specifically, Ezekiel, in the aftermath of the Gog-Magog war; John, following Armageddon; Jesus (of course), in the promises of His return in the clouds with glory; and others, such as:

• Isaiah 13:4–13; 27:1, 12–13
• Jeremiah 30:5–9; 46:10
• Zechariah 14
• Joel 2 and 3
• Amos 5
• Obadiah 1:15–18
• Zephaniah 1:7–18
• Malachi 4
• Paul (1 Thessalonians 5:1–11)
• Peter (2 Peter 3:10)

The descriptions of the Day of Yahweh are consistent: When God’s patience runs out, sinners pay a heavy price for their rebellion against His authority. But there’s an aspect of that day usually not discussed by prophecy teachers—the death of the gods. 

Sure, the Bible prophesies the final defeat of Satan, the beast, and the false prophet after God’s thousand-year reign on earth,^[4] but the gods we’ve been discussing throughout this book are generally overlooked.

As we noted in the introduction, these gods are already under a death sentence. We’re just waiting for sentence to be carried out.

God has taken his place in the divine council; 
in the midst of the gods he holds judgment: …

I said, “You are gods, 
sons of the Most High, all of you; 
nevertheless, like men you shall die, 
and fall like any prince.”

Psalm 82:1, 6–7 (ESV)

Bible commentators over the years have suggested that the “gods” of Psalm 82 were the ruling class of Israel—human princes, judges, and magistrates. This is another example of the bias against “g-o-d” meaning anything other than Yahweh.

That’s not how the Jewish prophets, psalmists, and apostles understood the word elohim. In singular form, it can mean Yahweh, but in plural form, it refers to the other denizens of the spirit realm. Psalm 82:1 clearly refers to both, since Elohim (“God”) would not be in the midst of Himself. In short, the gods are real, and Psalm 82 describes a heavenly courtroom with God as judge.

So, what does punishment of the gods look like?

On that day the LORD will punish
the host of heaven, in heaven,
and the kings of the earth, on the earth.

They will be gathered together
as prisoners in a pit;
they will be shut up in a prison,
and after many days they will be punished.

Then the moon will be confounded
and the sun ashamed,
for the LORD of hosts reigns
on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
and his glory will be before his elders.

Isaiah 24:21-23 (ESV)

That’s a clear picture of the aftermath of the final battle described by Ezekiel, John, Zechariah, Joel, and others. Isaiah prophesied that this reckoning takes place “on that day,” the day of the Lord.

When reading that God would punish the host of heaven, and that “the moon will be confounded and the sun ashamed,” it’s understandable that many Christians assume the prophet was engaging in a little hyperbole, exaggerating to make a point. We don’t think so. When Moses reminded Israel that they were not to worship the gods Yahweh allotted to the rest of the nations, he used exactly the same terms Isaiah used seven hundred years later.

And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.

Deuteronomy 4:19 (ESV)

God identified the gods of the nations as the sun (Shemesh, Hebrew name for the sun-god), the moon (Yerakh, Hebrew name for the moon-god), and the host of heaven. Isaiah really meant that these supernatural entities—fallen angels, if you prefer—who conned the nations into worshiping them as the sun, moon, and stars will be imprisoned on the Day of the Lord. Their ultimate destiny is the sentence that was handed down during the courtroom scene described in Psalm 82—death.

There is precedent in the Bible for gods under the judgment of Yahweh. The angels who sinned at Mount Hermon, whom we’ve identified as the Hebrew Watchers and Greek Titans, were tartaroō (“thrust down to Tartarus”), where they’re chained “under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.”^[5]

The angels who created the Nephilim are called Watchers in the Book of First Enoch. You’d be forgiven for assuming that that those were the Watchers—the only ones, ever, because we never hear about Watchers in church. Not so. Watcher-class angels were still active in human affairs in the time of Daniel, because one of them delivered a message in a dream to Nebuchadnezzar.

I saw in the visions of my head as I lay in bed, and behold, a watcher, a holy one, came down from heaven. He proclaimed aloud and said thus: “Chop down the tree and lop off its branches, strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit. Let the beasts flee from under it and the birds from its branches. But leave the stump of its roots in the earth, bound with a band of iron and bronze, amid the tender grass of the field. Let him be wet with the dew of heaven. Let his portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth. Let his mind be changed from a man’s, and let a beast’s mind be given to him; and let seven periods of time pass over him. The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones, to the end that the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men.”

Daniel 4:13–17 (ESV, emphasis added)

Not only did a Watcher deliver the message of punishment for the king’s pride, it was decreed by the Watchers.

As in Enoch, this brief mention in Daniel suggests that Watchers have power and authority. This authority comes from God, and it seems that the Watchers in Daniel were faithful in carrying out His will. We’ve seen what happens to those who rebel—chains and gloomy darkness.

So, OK. We’ve found the only other Watchers in the Bible, right?

Not exactly. We’ll explore that next week.

^[1] Acts 1:7.

^[2] Luke 21:29–31.

^[3] Luke 4:5, which refers to the division of the nations described in Deuteronomy 32:8 (ESV and NET Bibles capture this sense, basing their translations “sons of God” and “heavenly assembly,” respectively, rather than “sons of Israel”) on the Septuagint and Dead Sea scrolls texts.

^[4] Revelation 20:7–10.

^[5] Jude 6 (ESV).