Yoel 2:2

2:2 It will be ¹  a day of dreadful darkness, ² 

a day of foreboding storm clouds, ³ 

like blackness ⁴  spread over the mountains.

It is a huge and powerful army ⁵  –

there has never been anything like it ever before,

and there will not be anything like it for many generations to come! ⁶ 

Yoel 2:31

2:31 The sunlight will be turned to darkness

and the moon to the color of blood, ⁷ 

before the day of the Lord comes –

that great and terrible day!

Yoel 3:15

3:15 The sun and moon are darkened;

the stars withhold ⁸  their brightness.

Yesaya 13:10

13:10 Indeed the stars in the sky and their constellations

no longer give out their light; ⁹ 

the sun is darkened as soon as it rises,

and the moon does not shine. ¹⁰ 

Yesaya 34:4

34:4 All the stars in the sky will fade away, ¹¹ 

the sky will roll up like a scroll;

all its stars will wither,

like a leaf withers and falls from a vine

or a fig withers and falls from a tree. ¹² 

Yeremia 4:23

4:23 “I looked at the land and saw ¹³  that it was an empty wasteland. ¹⁴ 

I looked up at the sky, and its light had vanished.

Yehezkiel 32:7

32:7 When I extinguish you, I will cover the sky;

I will darken its stars.

I will cover the sun with a cloud,

and the moon will not shine. ¹⁵ 

Amos 5:8

5:8 (But there is one who made the constellations Pleiades and Orion;

he can turn the darkness into morning

and daylight ¹⁶  into night.

He summons the water of the seas

and pours it out on the earth’s surface.

The Lord is his name!

Matius 24:29

The Arrival of the Son of Man

24:29 “Immediately ¹⁷  after the suffering ¹⁸  of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. ¹⁹ 

Markus 13:24-25

The Arrival of the Son of Man

13:24 “But in those days, after that suffering, ²⁰  the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light; 13:25 the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. ²¹ 

Lukas 21:25-26

The Arrival of the Son of Man

21:25 “And there will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, ²²  and on the earth nations will be in distress, ²³  anxious ²⁴  over the roaring of the sea and the surging waves. 21:26 People will be fainting from fear ²⁵  and from the expectation of what is coming on the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. ²⁶ 

Kisah Para Rasul 2:20

2:20 The sun will be changed to darkness

and the moon to blood

before the great and glorious ²⁷  day of the Lord comes.

Wahyu 8:12

8:12 Then ²⁸  the fourth angel blew his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them were darkened. And there was no light for a third of the day ²⁹  and for a third of the night likewise.

[2:2]  ¹ tn The phrase “It will be” does not appear in the Hebrew, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of smoothness and style.

[2:2]  ² tn Heb “darkness and gloom.” These two terms probably form a hendiadys here. This picture recalls the imagery of the supernatural darkness in Egypt during the judgments of the exodus (Exod 10:22). These terms are also frequently used as figures (metonymy of association) for calamity and divine judgment (Isa 8:22; 59:9; Jer 23:12; Zeph 1:15). Darkness is often a figure (metonymy of association) for death, dread, distress and judgment (BDB 365 s.v. חשֶׁךְ 3).

[2:2]  ³ tn Heb “a day of cloud and darkness.”

[2:2]  ⁴ tc The present translation here follows the proposed reading שְׁחֹר (shÿkhor, “blackness”) rather than the MT שַׁחַר (shakhar, “morning”). The change affects only the vocalization; the Hebrew consonants remain unchanged. Here the context calls for a word describing darkness. The idea of morning or dawn speaks instead of approaching light, which does not seem to fit here. The other words in the verse (e.g., “darkness,” “gloominess,” “cloud,” “heavy overcast”) all emphasize the negative aspects of the matter at hand and lead the reader to expect a word like “blackness” rather than “dawn.” However, NIrV paraphrases the MT nicely: “A huge army of locusts is coming. They will spread across the mountains like the sun when it rises.”

[2:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “A huge and powerful people”; KJV, ASV “a great people and a strong.” Many interpreters understand Joel 2 to describe an invasion of human armies, either in past history (e.g., the Babylonian invasion of Palestine in the sixth century b.c.) or in an eschatological setting. More probably, however, the language of this chapter referring to “people” and “armies” is a hypocatastic description of the locusts of chapter one. Cf. TEV “The great army of locusts advances like darkness.”

[2:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “it will not be repeated for years of generation and generation.”

[2:31]  ⁷ tn Heb “to blood,” but no doubt this is intended to indicate by metonymy the color of blood rather than the substance itself. The blood red color suggests a visual impression here – something that could be caused by fires, volcanic dust, sandstorms, or other atmospheric phenomena.

[3:15]  ⁸ tn Heb “gather in.”

[13:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “do not flash forth their light.”

[13:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “does not shed forth its light.”

[34:4]  ¹¹ tc Heb “and all the host of heaven will rot.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a inserts “and the valleys will be split open,” but this reading may be influenced by Mic 1:4. On the other hand, the statement, if original, could have been omitted by homoioarcton, a scribe’s eye jumping from the conjunction prefixed to “the valleys” to the conjunction prefixed to the verb “rot.”

[34:4]  ¹² tn Heb “like the withering of a leaf from a vine, and like the withering from a fig tree.”

[4:23]  ¹³ tn Heb “I looked at the land and behold...” This indicates the visionary character of Jeremiah’s description of the future condition of the land of Israel.

[4:23]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “formless and empty.” This is a case of hendiadys (two nouns joined by “and” both describe the same thing): one noun retains its full nominal force, the other functions as an adjective. The words תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ (tohu vavohu) allude to Gen 1:2, hyperbolically picturing a reversal of creation and return to the original precreation chaos.

[32:7]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “will not shine its light.” For similar features of cosmic eschatology, see Joel 2:10; 4:15; Amos 5:18-20; Zeph 1:5.

[5:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “darkens the day into night.”

[24:29]  ¹⁷ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[24:29]  ¹⁸ tn Traditionally, “tribulation.”

[24:29]  ¹⁹ sn An allusion to Isa 13:10, 34:4 (LXX); Joel 2:10. The heavens were seen as the abode of heavenly forces, so their shaking indicates distress in the spiritual realm. Although some take the powers as a reference to bodies in the heavens (like stars and planets, “the heavenly bodies,” NIV) this is not as likely.

[13:24]  ²⁰ tn Traditionally, “tribulation.”

[13:25]  ²¹ sn An allusion to Isa 13:10, 34:4 (LXX); Joel 2:10. The heavens were seen as the abode of heavenly forces, so their shaking indicates distress in the spiritual realm. Although some take the powers as a reference to bodies in the heavens (like stars and planets, “the heavenly bodies,” NIV) this is not as likely.

[21:25]  ²² sn Signs in the sun and moon and stars are cosmic signs that turn our attention to the end and the Son of Man’s return for the righteous. OT imagery is present: See Isa 13:9-10; 24:18-20; 34:4; Ezek 32:7-8; Joel 2:1, 30-31; 3:15.

[21:25]  ²³ tn Grk “distress of nations.”

[21:25]  ²⁴ tn Or “in consternation” (L&N 32.9).

[21:26]  ²⁵ tn According to L&N 23.184 this could be mainly a psychological experience rather than actual loss of consciousness. It could also refer to complete discouragement because of fear, leading people to give up hope (L&N 25.293).

[21:26]  ²⁶ sn An allusion to Isa 34:4. The heavens were seen as the abode of heavenly forces, so their shaking indicates distress in the spiritual realm. Although some take the powers as a reference to bodies in the heavens (like stars and planets, “the heavenly bodies,” NIV) this is not as likely.

[2:20]  ²⁷ tn Or “and wonderful.”

[8:12]  ²⁸ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.

[8:12]  ²⁹ tn Grk “the day did not shine [with respect to] the third of it.”