The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and glorious day of the Lord comes.
Parallel Translations
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The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and glorious day of the Lord comes.
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The sunne shalbe turned into darknes and the mone into bloud before that greate and notable daye of the Lorde come.
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The Sunne shalbe turned into darkenesse, and the moone into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come.
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Science (1)
Historical claims about the natural world, weighed against the scientific record.
Cross-references (21)
Passages linked to Acts 2:20 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.
- Amos 8:9 It will happen in that day,” says the Lord Yahweh, “that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.
- Matthew 24:29 But immediately after the suffering of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken;
- Malachi 4:5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of Yahweh comes.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:2 For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night.
- Joel 2:1 Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of Yahweh comes, for it is close at hand:
- Joel 3:14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of Yahweh is near, in the valley of decision.
- Mark 13:24 But in those days, after that oppression, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light,
- Luke 21:25 There will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars; and on the earth anxiety of nations, in perplexity for the roaring of the sea and the waves;
- 2 Peter 3:7 But the heavens that exist now and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
- Isaiah 2:12-21 For there will be a day of Yahweh of Armies for all that is proud and arrogant, and for all that is lifted up; and it shall be brought low: for all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, for all the oaks of Bashan, for all the high mountains, for all the hills that are lifted up, for every lofty tower, for every fortified wall, for all the ships of Tarshish, and for all pleasant imagery. The loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the arrogance of men shall be brought low; and Yahweh alone shall be exalted in that day. The idols shall utterly pass away. Men shall go into the caves of the rocks, and into the holes of the earth, from before the terror of Yahweh, and from the glory of his majesty, when he arises to shake the earth mightily. In that day, men shall cast away their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which have been made for themselves to worship, to the moles and to the bats, to go into the caverns of the rocks, and into the clefts of the ragged rocks, from before the terror of Yahweh, and from the glory of his majesty, when he arises to shake the earth mightily.
- Revelation 6:12 I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became as blood.
- Revelation 16:8 The fourth poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was given to him to scorch men with fire.
- Isaiah 13:9 Behold, the day of Yahweh comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger; to make the land a desolation, and to destroy its sinners out of it.
- Isaiah 13:15 Everyone who is found will be thrust through. Everyone who is captured will fall by the sword.
- Isaiah 24:23 Then the moon will be confounded, and the sun ashamed; for Yahweh of Armies will reign on Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem; and glory will be before his elders.
- Isaiah 34:8 For Yahweh has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
- Jeremiah 4:23 I saw the earth, and, behold, it was waste and void, and the heavens, and they had no light.
- Zephaniah 2:2-3 before the appointed time when the day passes as the chaff, before the fierce anger of Yahweh comes on you, before the day of Yahweh’s anger comes on you. Seek Yahweh, all you humble of the land, who have kept his ordinances. Seek righteousness. Seek humility. It may be that you will be hidden in the day of Yahweh’s anger.
- Matthew 27:45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.
- 1 Corinthians 5:5 are to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (14 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and…
20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come:
Ver. 20. The sun shall be turned] He seems to set forth the great troubles of the world under the gospel.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the…
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood; this agrees with the other words in the forecited prophecy, Joe 2:31. How these amazing signs shall be fulfilled, whether literally, and by what means; or whether only that the consternation and dread upon men shall be so great, as expecting the change of the whole frame of nature, is not so material for us to know, as it is to be always prepared for it.
Great and notable day; epifanh, manifest and illustrious day; and it may be taken in a comfortable sense, and will be a comfortable day indeed, to all that preparedly wait for it; for it is the day of the Lord, it is Christ’s day, in which he will be magnified over his enemies, and in his friends, children, and servants.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain The sun shall be turned into darkness,.... As at…
The sun shall be turned into darkness,.... As at the death of Christ, by a total eclipse of it:
and the moon into blood; as at the opening of the sixth seal, Rev 6:12.
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before that great and notable day of the Lord come; when he shall come in power and great glory, as he did in a few years after this, to take vengeance on the Jews, and destroy their nation, city, and temple; in which there was a display of his greatness, and power, and which was awful and "terrible" to them, as in Joel it is called; see Gill on Mat 24:29.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain The moon shall be turned into blood - A…
The moon shall be turned into blood - A bloody colour: before the day of the Lord - Eminently the last day; though not excluding any other day or season, wherein the Lord shall manifest his glory, in taking vengeance of his adversaries.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 20. The sun shall be turned into darkness,…
Verse 20. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood] These are figurative representations of eclipses, intended most probably to point out the fall of the civil and ecclesiastical state in Judea: See Clarke on Mt 24:29. That the SUN is darkened when a total eclipse takes place, and that the MOON appears of a bloody hue in such circumstances, every person knows.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain The sun shall be turned into darkness - See…
The sun shall be turned into darkness - See the notes on Mat 24:29. The same images used here with reference to the sun and moon are used also there: They occur not infrequently, Mar 13:24; 2Pe 3:7-10. The shining of the sun is an emblem of prosperity; the withdrawing, the eclipse, or the setting of the sun is an emblem of calamity, and is often thus need in the Scriptures, Isa 60:20; Jer 15:9; Eze 32:7; Amo 8:9; Rev 6:12; Rev 8:12; Rev 9:2; Rev 16:8. To say that the sun is darkened, or turned into darkness, is an image of calamity, and especially of the calamities of war, when the smoke of burning cities rises to heaven and obscures his light. This is not, therefore, to be taken literally, nor does it afford any indication of what will be at the end of the world in regard to the sun.
The moon into blood - The word “blood” here means that obscure, sanguinary color which the moon has when the atmosphere is filled with smoke and vapor, and especially the lurid and alarming appearance which it assumes when smoke and flames are thrown up by earthquakes and fiery eruptions, Rev 6:12, “And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood,” Rev 8:8. In this place it denotes great calamities. The figures used are indicative of wars, and conflagrations, and earthquakes. As these things are Matt. 24 applied to the destruction of Jerusalem; as they actually occurred previous to that event (see the notes on Matt. 24), it may be supposed that the prophecy in Joel had an immediate reference to that. The meaning of the quotation by Peter in this place therefore is, that what occurred on the day of Pentecost was the beginning of the serges of wonders that was to take place during the times of the Messiah. It is not intimated that those scenes were to close or to be exhausted in that age. They may precede that great day of the Lord which is yet to come in view of the whole earth.
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That great and notable day of the Lord - This is called the great day of the Lord, because on that day he will be signally manifested, more impressively and strikingly than on other times. The word “notable,” ἐπιφανῆ epiphanē, means “signal, illustrious, distinguished.” In Joel the word is “terrible or fearful”; a word applicable to days of calamity, and trial, and judgment. The Greek word here rendered notable is also in the Septuagint frequently used to denote “calamity” or “times of judgment,” Deu 10:21; 2Sa 7:23. This will apply to any day in which God signally manifests himself, but particularly to a day when he shall come forth to punish people, as at the destruction of Jerusalem, or at the day of judgment. The meaning is, that those wonders would take place before that distinguished day should arrive when God would come forth in judgment.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 20. Sun… darkness—At the Saviour’s death.
20. Sun… darkness—At the Saviour’s death.
Moon… blood—The optical effect of the miracle of darkness. Yet physical wonders are but the visible signs and indexes of the spiritual and moral movements in the kingdom of God. And all these wonders had their type in the manifestations at Sinai. Again, Sinai and Pentecost are antithesis to each other.
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Notable day—Illustrious day, according to the Septuagint. The Hebrew may mean terrible day. Both were true. The same day has a bright and a dark side to it; the stern old prophet gives the dark side as for God’s enemies; the serene apostle gives to these Pentecostal hearers the side of brightness and promise. Nevertheless, for the persistent mockers (Act_2:13) the dark side remains true.
Day—The prophetic passage quoted by Peter comes to a point upon this very day; and the question (Act_2:12) What meaneth this? is answered.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 20. that great and notable day] Instead of notable…
20. that great and notable day] Instead of notable we have in Joel terrible. The words of the N. T. are those of the LXX. The Hebrew verbs to fear and to see have often been confounded in that version. On the various senses of this expression cp. Lightfoot, Hor. Hebr. Mar_9:1. The prophecy of Joel was primarily and partially fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, but also looked onward to its destruction by the Romans.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (20) The sun shall be turned into darkness.—Both clauses…
(20) The sun shall be turned into darkness.—Both clauses bring before us the phenomena of an eclipse: the total darkness of the sun, the dusky copper hue of the moon. Signs, of which these were but faint images, had been predicted by our Lord, echoing, as it were, the words of Joel, as among the preludes of His Advent (Mat_24:29).
That great and notable day.—St. Luke follows the LXX. version. The Hebrew gives, as in our version, “the great and terrible day.” As seen by the prophet, the day was terrible to the enemies of God; a day of blessing to “the remnant whom the Lord should call” (Joe_2:32). The Greek word for “notable” (epiphanès) lent itself readily to the thought of the great Epiphany or manifestation of Christ as the Judge of all.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain The day of the Lord come, that great and…
The day of the Lord come, that great and notable day for that great and notable day of the Lord come, A.V. and T.R.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain The sun shall be turned into darkness.
Act_2:20
The sun shall be turned into darkness.
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Downfall of Christianity
Solar eclipse is here prophesied to take place about the time of the destruction of ancient Jerusalem. Josephus says that the prophecy was literally fulfilled. Christianity is the sun of our time, and men bare tried, with the vapours of scepticism and the smoke of blasphemy, to turn this sun into darkness. Suppose the archangels of malice and horror should be allowed to extinguish and destroy the sun in the natural heavens. They would take the oceans from other worlds and pour them on this luminary, and the waters go hissing down among the ravines and the caverns, and there is explosion after explosion until there are only a few peaks of fire left in the sun, and these are cooling down and going out until the vast continents of flame are reduced to a small acreage of fire, and that whitens and cools off until there are only a few coals left, and these are whitening and going out until there is not a spark left in all the mountains and valleys and chasms of ashes. An extinguished sun. A dead sun. Let all worlds wail at the stupendous obsequies. Of course, this withdrawal of the solar light and heat throws our earth into a universal chill, and the tropics become the temperate, and the temperate becomes the arctic, and there are frozen rivers, lakes, and oceans. From the arctic and antarctic regions the inhabitants gather in towards the centre and find the equator as the poles. The slain forests are piled up into great bonfires, and around them gather the shivering villages and cities. The wealth of the coal mines is hastily poured into the furnaces and stirred into rage of combustion, but soon the bonfires begin to lower and the furnaces begin to go out, and the natives begin to die. The great volcanoes cease to smoke, and the ice of hailstorms remains unmelted in their craters. All the flowers have breathed their last breath. Child frosted and dead in the cradle. Octogenarian frosted and dead at the hearth. Workman with frozen hands at the hammer or frozen foot on the shuttle. Winter from sea to sea. The earth an ice-floe, grinding against other ice-floes. The archangels of malice and horror have done their work, and now they may take their thrones of glacier and look down upon the ruin they have wrought. What the destruction of the sun in the natural heavens would be to our physical earth, the destruction of Christianity would be to the moral world. The sun turned into darkness. Infidelity in our time is considered a great joke. I propose to take infidelity out of the realm of jocularity into one of tragedy, and show you what these men, if they are successful, will accomplish. It will be--
I. The complete and unutterable degradation of womanhood. In all communities where Christianity has been dominant, womans condition has been ameliorated and improved, and she is honoured in a thousand things, and every gentleman takes off his hat before her. You know that while woman may suffer injustices, she has more of her rights in Christendom than she has anywhere else. Now compare this with womans condition in lands where Christianity has made little or no advance. The Burmese sell their wives and daughters as so many sheep. The Hindoo Bible makes it an outrage for a woman to listen to music, or look out of the window in the absence of her husband, and gives as a lawful ground for divorce a womans beginning to eat before her husband has finished his meal! Her birth a misfortune. Her life a torture. Her death a horror. Now compare those two conditions. How far toward this latter condition would woman go if Christian influences were withdrawn? If an object be lifted to a certain point and not fastened there, and the lifting power be withdrawn, how long before that object will fall down to the point from which it started? Christianity has lifted woman up from the very depths of degradation almost to the skies. If that lifting power be withdrawn she falls back to the depth from which she was raised, not going any lower because there is no lower depth. And yet I have read that notwithstanding all that, there were women present at a meeting in a Brooklyn theatre at which Christianity was outrageously assailed and our Lord blasphemously maligned.
II. The demoralisation of society. The one idea in the Bible that infidels most hate is the idea of retribution. Take away that idea from society, and it will begin very soon to disintegrate, and take away from the minds of men the fear of hell, and there are a great many of them who would very soon turn this world into a hell. I have heard this brave talk about people fearing nothing of the consequences of sin in the next, world, and I have made up my mind it is merely a cowards whistling to keep his courage up; for when they came to die they shrieked until you could hear them far enough. The mightiest restraints to-day against crime of all sorts are the retributions of eternity. Men know that they can escape the law, but down in the offenders soul there is the realisation of the fact that he cannot escape God. Take this out of the hearts and minds of men, and it would not be long before our great cities became Sodoms.
III. Suppose now these generals of infidelity got the victory, they will first attack the churches. Away with those houses of worship. They have been standing there so long deluding the people with consolation in their bereavements and sorrows. Turn the St. Peters and St. Pauls and the temples and tabernacles into club-houses.
IV. Next they scatter the sabbath-schools, filled with bright-eyed, bright-cheeked little ones who are singing songs on Sunday afternoon and getting instruction when they ought to be on the street corners playing marbles or swearing on the commons.
V. They destroy Christian asylums, the institutions of mercy supported by Christian philanthropies. Never mind the blind eyes and the deaf ears and the crippled limbs and the weakened intellects. Let paralysed old age pick up its own food, and orphans fight their own way, and the half-reformed go back to their evil habits.
VI. They come to the great picture galleries, and tear down the pictures, for they are Bible pictures--Claudes Burning Bush, and Rembrandts Christ in the Temple, and Paul Veroneses Marriage in Cana, and Michael Angelos Last Judgment. Down with the pictures; they are Bible pictures. And away with the oratorios of Handel and Haydn and Beethoven, for they speak of the Messiah and the Creation, and of Jephthah, and of Samson, and of other Bible heroes.
VII. Now they come to the graveyards. Pull down the sculpture, for it means the resurrection. On, ye great army of infidels where you see Asleep in Jesus, cut it away, and where you find a marble story of heaven blast it; and where you find over a little childs grave, Suffer little children to come unto Me, substitute the words delusion and sham; and where you find an angel in marble strike off the wing; and when you come to a family vault chisel on the door: Dead and dead for ever. The place of Christian burial turned into a place for the burial of the whole family of Christian graces. Prayer dead. Faith dead. Hope dead. Charity dead. Self-denial dead. Honesty dead. Happiness dead.
VIII. They will attempt to scale heaven. On and on until they blow up the foundations of jasper and the gates of pearl. They charge up the steep. Now they aim for the throne of Him who liveth for ever and ever.
IX. There is only one more height to scale. They assail the Eternal Father and they want Him to feel the combined force of human and Satanic spite. A world without a head, a universe without a king. Orphan constellations. Fatherless galaxies. Anarchy supreme. A dethroned Jehovah. An assassinated God. Patricide, Regicide, Deicide. That is what they mean, and what they will have, if they can. Civilisation hurled back into semi-barbarism, and semi-barbarism driven back into Hottentot savagery. The wheel of progress turned the other way, and turned towards the Dark Ages. The sun turned into darkness. Has Christianity received its death-blow? Yes, when the smoke of the city chimney arrests and destroys the noonday sun. Josephus says about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem the sun was turned into darkness; but only clouds rolled between the sun and the earth. The sun went right on. At the beginning God said, Let there be light, and light was, and light is, and light shall be. So Christianity is rolling on, and it is going to warm all nations, and all nations are to bask in its light, and all nations are to be kindled with its joy. Men may shut the window-blinds so they cannot see out, or they may smoke the pipe of speculation until they are shadowed under their own vapouring; but God is a sun. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 20. The sun shall be turned into darkness. See…
20. The sun shall be turned into darkness. See notes on Matt. 24:29.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain See notes on verse 19
See notes on verse 19
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Peter finishes quoting the prophet Joel.
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The sun will be turned to darkness
This means that the sun will appear to be dark instead of light. AT: "The sun will become dark" (See: Active or Passive)
the moon to blood
This means that the moon will appear to be red like blood. AT: "the moon will appear to be red" (See: Metaphor and Ellipsis)
the great and remarkable day
The words "great" and "remarkable" share similar meanings and emphasize the intensity of greatness. AT: "the very great day" (See: Doublet)
remarkable
great and beautiful
everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved
This can be stated in active form. AT: "the Lord will save everyone who calls on him" (See: Active or Passive and Metonymy)
translationWords
darkness
blood
day of the Lord
call
name
lord
save
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.