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Joel 3:15

in Joel 3

The sun and moon will grow dark, and the stars will no longer shine.

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV

ASV

The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.

KJV

The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.

This verse in Joel 3

Commentary

5 notes on this verse

A commentator

Jerome

Commentary on Joel · Written before 420.

(Verse 14, 15) O people, people in the valley of slaughter, for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of slaughter. The sun and moon are darkened, and the stars have withdrawn their shining. LXX: The sound is heard in the valley of judgment, for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of judgment. The sun and moon will be darkened, and the stars will make their shining go away. In that place where we have set ourselves, people, people, and the Seventy have translated, the sound is heard.

This site's exposition

The sun and the moon shall be darkened

on Joel 3:15-17

The sun and the moon shall be darkened repeats 2:10 and 2:31's language once more, binding the locust plague, the Pentecost promise, and this final judgment together under one recurring description rather than three unrelated events. The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, quoted almost word for word at Amos 1:2, pictures the Lord as a lion whose voice alone shakes heaven and earth, yet the same voice that terrifies the nations is named the hope of his people in the very next clause. So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain promises a Jerusalem where no strangers pass through her any more, a restoration the commentators tie to the temple's presence, and readers differ on how far into the future the promise reaches, positions named and not adjudicated here.

The record, by era

The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice

The sun and moon shall be darkened,.... Both the politic and ecclesiastic state of antichrist shall be ruined and destroyed; it shall "fare" with Rome Papal as it did with Rome Pagan, at the time of its dissolution; see Rev 6:12; and the stars shall withdraw their shining: antichristian princes and nobles in the civil state, and the clergy of all ranks in the church state, shall lose their glory.

The Nineteenth Century2 voices

The sun and the moon shall be darkened - This may be, either that they shall be outshone by the brightness of the glory of Christ, or that they themselves shall undergo a change, whereof the darkness at the Crucifixion was an image.

A commentator

Adam Clarke

1762–1832

Commentary on the Bible · Written before 1832.

proposed

The sun and the moon shall be darkened - High and mighty states shall be eclipsed, and brought to ruin, and the stars - petty states, princes, and governors - shall withdraw their shining; withhold their influence and tribute from the kingdoms to which they have belonged, and set up themselves as independent governors.

The words behind it

6 Hebrew words

Every Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

  • שֶׁ֥מֶשׁsun

    shemeshH8121134 times

  • וְיָרֵ֖חַand moon

    veyareachH339427 times

  • קָדָ֑רוּthey have become dark

    kadaruH6937

  • וְכוֹכָבִ֖יםand [the] stars

    vekhokhavimH3556

  • אָסְפ֥וּthey have withdrawn

    ʾasefuH622200 times

  • נָגְהָֽם׃brightness their

    nagehamH5051

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

The walk

8 stops

Each card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.

  • Through

    Matthew 24:29

    Immediately after the tribulation of those days: ‘The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will…

    it leads to

    • Isaiah 13:10

      For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light. The rising sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light.

      Reached by 2 separate paths from here.

    • Amos 8:9

      And in that day, declares the Lord GOD, I will make the sun go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the daytime.

    • Isaiah 24:23

      The moon will be confounded and the sun will be ashamed; for the LORD of Hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before His elders with great glory.

    • Mark 13:24–25

      But in those days, after that tribulation: ‘The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light;

    • Acts 2:19–20

      I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke.

  • Through

    Joel 2:10

    Before them the earth quakes; the heavens tremble. The sun and moon grow dark, and the stars lose their brightness.

    it leads to

    • Matthew 24:29

      Immediately after the tribulation of those days: ‘The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will…

      Reached by 3 separate paths from here.

  • Through

    Joel 2:31

    The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and awesome Day of the LORD.

    it leads to

    • Revelation 6:12–13

      And when I saw the Lamb open the sixth seal, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black like sackcloth of goat hair, and the whole moon turned blood red,

    • Malachi 4:1

      “For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble; the day is coming when I will set them ablaze,” says the LORD of…

About Joel

This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary; Jerome, Commentary on Joel and John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763).