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Echoes of Revelation
Revelation never quotes the Old Testament outright, yet no New Testament book refers to it more. See both texts side by side, why they don’t match, and what John does with them.
Revelation 6:12, sun black as sackcloth, moon like blood
The sixth seal darkens the sun and turns the moon to blood in Joel's words for the day of the Lord, with Isaiah's sackcloth sky.
Revelation 6:12, in every translation this tool compares.
Some phrases mean the end of the world in any language, like the lights going out. Joel said the sun would go dark and the moon turn to blood when the day of the Lord drew near. Isaiah pictured God clothing the sky in black like sackcloth. John puts the two together. When the sixth seal opens, the sun turns black like sackcloth and the whole moon becomes like blood.
The sun darkened and the moon turned to blood, both from Joel 2:31 (helios, selene, haima). The sackcloth (sakkos) is from Isaiah 50:3. Isaiah 13:10 also darkens the sun and the moon at the day of the Lord.
Joel says the sun will turn to darkness. John says it becomes black as sackcloth, an image from Isaiah 50:3. John adds the whole moon, and a great earthquake first. Joel set the signs before the day; John sets them at the opening of the day itself.
Joel and Isaiah used these signs to announce the Lord's day of judgment on the nations. John sets them at the sixth seal, as God begins to answer the martyrs' prayer. Beale reads the seal as the start of the final judgment of the whole unbelieving world.
Not a quotation of Joel. John keeps Joel's darkened sun and moon of blood. He changes the darkness to black sackcloth from Isaiah 50:3, adds the whole moon, and puts an earthquake first.
Beale says the scene is drawn from a quarry of Old Testament texts for the dissolution of the cosmos: Isaiah 13:10-13, 24:1-6, 19-23, 34:4; Ezekiel 32:6-8; Joel 2:10, 30-31, 3:15-16; Habakkuk 3:6-11. He says Joel 2:31 stands behind the darkened sun and bloody moon, and that the sackcloth was suggested by Isaiah 50:3. In the vault's Septuagint, Joel 2:31 reads ho helios metastraphesetai eis skotos kai he selene eis haima; John has ho helios egeneto melas hos sakkos … he selene hole egeneto hos haima. Isaiah 50:3 has hos sakkon. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible cites Isaiah 13:9-11, 24:21-23 and Joel 2:31; the CSB Study Bible links Joel 2:28-31; the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible cites Isaiah 13:9-13 and Joel 2:10, 31; the CSB Study Bible's cross-references list Isaiah 13:10, 50:3 and Joel 2:10, 31. Walton reads Joel's signs as eclipses, feared as omens. The grade is drawn here.
Beale and Wright read the signs as figurative, since the source texts describe the fall of Babylon, Edom, Egypt and Israel's enemies. Keener reads the passage as the end of the age. The ESV Study Bible notes that some take 6:13 as a meteor shower. MacArthur reads physical events still to come: a worldwide earthquake as all the earth's faults give way together, with volcanoes whose ash blackens the sun and turns the moon red. For him the sixth seal begins the day of the Lord, which runs on through the trumpets and the bowls.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 6:12-14
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 6:12-13
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 6:12
- CSB Study Bible, note on Revelation 6:12-17 and cross-references at Revelation 6:12
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 6:12-13
- ESV Study Bible, notes on Revelation 6:12-17 and 6:13
- N. T. Wright, Revelation for Everyone, comment on Revelation 6:9-17
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament, on Joel 2:31
- Septuagint, Joel 2:31, Isaiah 50:3 and 13:10, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 6:12
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 6:12 and 6:17
