What Does The Bible Say About Eclipses?

Word-Of-The-Day: ‘<The Lord, through Isaiah, said to Babylon,> ”The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.”’ (Isaiah 13:10); ‘<The Lord, through Ezekiel, said to the Pharoah of Egypt,>, “When I snuff you out, I will cover the heavens and darken their stars; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light.”’ (Ezekiel 32:7)

In both of these prophecies through Isaiah and Ezekiel, both refer to eclipses occurring as kingdoms meet their demise; the Egyptians fell to Assyria between 675BC and 650BC through several campaigns; this ended Egyptian self-rule as Assyria, Persia, Greece and Rome all ruled over Egypt in some form through the remaining BC period.  A solar eclipse is noted to have occurred in this timeframe by the Greek poet Archilochus on the island of Paros.

The Babylonians fell to the Persians in 539 BC.  Historians suggest the Babylonians were in the middle of a ‘moon’ festival when the Persians overtook Babylon.  Just before this, in Daniel 5, King Belshazzar of Babylon literally saw the handwriting on the wall after using Temple goblets to drink from, and after Daniel told him the handwriting was from God to tell him his days were numbered, Belshazzar was killed and Darius the Mede became king, followed by Cyrus the Persian.  Thales of Miletus, a Greek astronomer, noted a solar eclipse occurring in 585BC, which ended a conflict between the Lydians and the Medes, which then allowed the Medes and the Persians to unite their forces to overtake Babylon.

In both prophecies, there are predictions of both solar (the Sun blocked from the Earth by the Moon) and lunar (the Sun blocked from the Moon by the Earth) eclipses occurring at the same time or close in proximity to announce each kingdom’s fall.  In the Book of Joel, written in the mid-800BC by most Biblical scholars, eclipses are also prophesized in Joel 2 (in verses 2, 10, and 31) and Joel 3:15 in part to note the fall of Israel and Judah, but is also seen as the precursor to the coming of the reign of Jesus in the End Times. 

Jesus also talks of eclipses marking the End Times (the end of the Tribulation) prior to His return (Matthew 24:29, Mark 13:24), and in Revelation such ‘double’ eclipses occur after Jesus breaks open the 6^th Seal (Revelation 6:12) and after the 4^th Trumpet is sounded (Revelation 8:12).

Typically, a lunar eclipse will not occur at the same time as a solar eclipse; in what is called a Saros Cycle, a solar eclipse occurs 9 years, 5½ days after a lunar eclipse.  As we see in the prophecies, each talk of both eclipses occurring at the same time, or very close in time to each other.  This will let us know whether such an eclipse is truly a sign from God or simply naturally occurring. 

The prophecies of Joel and those by Jesus during His earthly ministry and His Revelation describe eclipses will not be natural but by Him to show His power.  Today’s eclipse is natural, and though we will not fully experience it know that the Lord is in control of it, and we are one day closer to Him returning!  It is in His glory He is providing this one today, perhaps to remind us of the eclipses that are to come.