Tool Alpha
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 8:12, the sun going down at noon
Amos 8:9, where God makes the sun set at noon in a judgment on Israel shaped by the plague on Egypt, may also stand behind the fourth trumpet.
Revelation 8:12, in every translation this tool compares.
A writer can borrow a disaster from history and aim it at a new target. Amos took the darkness of the Egyptian plague and turned it on Israel. He warned that God would make the sun set at midday and bring darkness in broad daylight. A famine of hearing God's word would follow. John's fourth trumpet darkens part of the day as well. Beale and others think Amos may be in the background.
Daylight darkened as a judgment. The Greek of Amos 8:9 has the sun going down at midday and the light darkened (syskotasei) on the earth; John has a third of the day not shining.
Amos speaks of the sun alone, darkened at noon. John strikes sun, moon and stars, and only by a third. Amos aims at Israel's sins. John's trumpet strikes the world.
Beale says Amos modeled this warning on the plague of darkness. A famine of God's word was to follow. If John has Amos in mind, the darkness means God pulling away from those who reject him.
Not a firm link. Beale says Amos possibly stands in the background; it adds to Exodus, it does not replace it.
Beale says Amos 8:9 possibly stands in the background of 8:12. Amos shaped his warning to Israel on the Egyptian darkness, as the double mention of the Nile in 8:8 and the mourning for an only son in 8:10 show. It comes with a famine of hearing God's word (8:11-12), which Beale reads as God withdrawing his presence. In the vault's Septuagint, Amos 8:9 reads dysetai ho helios mesembrias, kai syskotasei epi tes ges en hemera to phos. Aune, as Heiser reads him, thinks John likely had Amos 8:9 in view as well, a judgment on Israel modeled on Egypt's plague. The CSB Study Bible's cross-references at 8:12 list Amos 8:9. The grade is possible: the sources hedge, and the wording is only partly shared.
Heiser reads Aune here: besides the plague of darkness, Amos 8:9 is likely part of John's reference, a judgment on apostate Israel modeled on what God did to Egypt. Heiser adds that the persecutor changes, from Egypt to Babylon, but the theme repeats.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), The Interruption of Patterns of Cosmic Light Sources as an Indication of Covenantal Judgment
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references at Revelation 8:12
- Septuagint, Amos 8:9, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 8:12
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 8: The Seventh Seal and the First Four Trumpet Judgments, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
