With the destruction of the Temple the divinely appointed order had lost its centre, the correspondence between heaven and earth had been disrupted. It was experienced as a collapse of the ordered world itself. That crowning disaster went beyond anything that prophecy had to explain and justify in the past. This would mean the 'cosmic darkness' idiom was also being used for significant events - events perceived as God's judgment - that were not perceived as literally world-ending.įor example, one particularly poignant use of the 'cosmic darkness' used it for the destruction of Jerusalem's (first) temple: 2 The language of 'cosmic darkness' was carried along with the 'Day of YHWH' concept from its earliest recorded stage. If Amos was the earliest prophet to use the Day of YHWH, he was also the earliest to use the cosmic darkness in association with it.
In most of the texts from the list I provided above, the 'cosmic darkness' is used in association with 'the Day of YHWH'. The 'Day of YHWH' label was used for events that would leave this or that nation undone, while the rest of the world marched on without them. An explicit example is found in Jeremiah 46, where we read about Nebuchadnezzar conquering Necho II, with this event called 'the Day of YHWH of Hosts' (verse 46.10). We find the Day of YHWH idea used over and over throughout the biblical prophets, but there is little indication they thought history would grind to a halt on that 'Day'. However, based on how he speaks about this 'day', it is generally agreed the ideas Amos utilized were around for quite a while before he came along. The 'Day of YHWH' (or 'Day of the LORD') is found earliest in the book of Amos. Obviously, a necessary question should be, How did they understand the imagery they were using? A minor detour is required to answer that. We find this picture of 'cosmic darkness' scattered throughout a variety of contexts, across several centuries-worth of prophetic material.
The moon being extinguished, or turning red.The sun being extingiushed, or disappearing mid-day.The 'cosmic darkness' had a wide range of depictions, from something as typical as a thunderstorm, to something as catastrophic as a full-blown decreation of the universe. Here are several examples of this distressful picture:Īnd for good measure, a few examples from the Psalms: One such hyperbolic metaphor was 'cosmic darkness'.
But they also used hyperbolic, exaggerated pictures to stress the gravity of the events they had in mind. The prophets delivered their prophecies in various ways, but they were often rich in figures of speech, using (of course) common images from their culture to help their audiences understand what it was they were saying - such as street-corner prostitutes (Ezekiel 16), economically prosperous vineyards (Isaiah 5), or a devastating plague of locusts (Joel 1-2). Their primary interest was in events that had national or cultural importance for Israel and/or Judah. When Babylon posed a threat to Jerusalem, Jeremiah spoke to that. When Syria and Israel were posing a threat against Judah, Isaiah spoke to that context (e.g. The Hebrew prophets, in general, spoke in relation to events of their own times. ‘Immediately after the suffering of those days Or in English: Matthew 24.29, NRSV translation
#Name the heavenly bodies full
The full verse of Matthew 24.29 reads in Greek: Matthew 24.29, NA28
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