pit.om marks an event, arrival, or calamity as occurring abruptly and without warning.

Across the supplied verses, the adverb marks the abrupt onset of an action or event: attacks and arrivals, disasters and destruction, death and dread, and acts attributed to God. The same timing emphasis occurs whether the surrounding clause is threatening, as in calamity and devastation, or anticipatory, as in Joshua’s approach and the coming to the temple.

1. Abrupt occurrence or arrival · dominant

   The form is tagged as an adverb in every cited occurrence and qualifies events that break into the scene without advance notice. In Joshua 10:9 the APB renders Joshua’s approach to his opponents as “suddenly,” while in Isaiah 30:13 it renders the breaking of the wall as coming “suddenly, in an instant”; Jeremiah 51:8 similarly presents Babylon’s fall as abrupt. The same use marks the LORD’s command in Numbers 12:4 and the arrival at the temple in Malachi 3:1.

   Joshua 10:9Isaiah 30:13Jeremiah 51:8Numbers 12:4Malachi 3:1Ecclesiastes 9:12

In the Anselm Project Bible: The APB commonly expresses the timing with “suddenly,” as in Joshua 10:9, Numbers 12:4, and Jeremiah 51:8, and sometimes combines it with “in an instant” in Isaiah 30:13. Wording in individual clauses cannot by itself fix the term’s precise English equivalent.