“And it will come about on that day,” declares the Lord God, “That I will make the sun go down at noon, And make the earth dark in broad daylight.
Parallel translations
- WEB 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.
- KJV And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day:
- BSB 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.
- NKJV “And it shall come to pass in that day,” says the Lord God, “That I will make the sun go down at noon, And I will darken the earth in broad daylight;
- NLT “In that day,” says the Sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth while it is still day.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God declares he will darken the day, causing the sun to set at noon. The reversal of light into darkness pictures sudden, overwhelming calamity.
Overview
Darkness at midday is a sign of disaster and divine judgment, turning expected light into gloom. It echoes the earlier warning that the day of the Lord is darkness, not light, for the unrepentant. Strikingly, darkness fell at noon when Christ hung on the cross, bearing the judgment we deserved so that day might dawn for his people.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Mark 15:33When the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.
- Matt 27:45Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.
- Luke 23:44It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour.
- Jer 15:9She who has borne seven languishes; she has given up the spirit. Her sun has gone down while it was yet day. She has been disappointed and confounded: and their residue will I deliver to the sword before their enemies,” says Yahweh.
- Matt 24:29But immediately after the oppression 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;
- Mic 3:6“Therefore night is over you, with no vision, and it is dark to you, that you may not divine; and the sun will go down on the prophets, and the day will be black over them.
- Amos 5:8seek him who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night; who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth, Yahweh is his name,
- Isa 59:9–10Therefore is justice far from us, and righteousness doesn’t overtake us. We look for light, but see darkness; for brightness, but we walk in obscurity.
- Isa 13:10For the stars of the sky and its constellations will not give their light. The sun will be darkened in its going out, and the moon will not cause its light to shine.
- Job 5:14They meet with darkness in the day time, and grope at noonday as in the night.
- Amos 4:13For, behold, he who forms the mountains, and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought; who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the high places of the earth: Yahweh, the God of Armies, is his name.”
- Rev 6:12I 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.
- Rev 8:12The fourth angel sounded, and one third of the sun was struck, and one third of the moon, and one third of the stars; so that one third of them would be darkened, and the day wouldn’t shine for one third of it, and the night in the same way.
- Isa 29:9–10Pause and wonder! Blind yourselves and be blind! They are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.
- Exod 10:21–23Yahweh said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward the sky, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt.”
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Christ at the center
Amid judgment on injustice, Amos promises the raising up of David's fallen tent — read by James in Acts 15 as the ingathering of the nations into the kingdom of the risen Christ.
How Amos 8:9 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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