Joel 2:31
New International Version
The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.

New Living Translation
The sun will become dark, and the moon will turn blood red before that great and terrible day of the LORD arrives.

English Standard Version
The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.

Berean Standard Bible
The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and awesome Day of the LORD.

King James Bible
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.

New King James Version
The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD.

New American Standard Bible
“The sun will be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.

NASB 1995
“The sun will be turned into darkness And the moon into blood Before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.

NASB 1977
“The sun will be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.

Legacy Standard Bible
The sun will be turned into darkness And the moon into blood Before the great and awesome day of Yahweh comes.

Amplified Bible
“The sun will be turned into darkness And the moon into blood Before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes.

Christian Standard Bible
The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and awe-inspiring Day of the LORD comes.

American Standard Version
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of Jehovah cometh.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and awesome day of LORD JEHOVAH will come

Brenton Septuagint Translation
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and glorious day of the Lord come.

Contemporary English Version
The sun will turn dark, and the moon will be as red as blood before that great and terrible day when I appear.

Douay-Rheims Bible
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood: before the great and dreadful day of the Lord doth come.

English Revised Version
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD come.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
The sun will become dark, and the moon will become as red as blood before the terrifying day of the LORD comes."

Good News Translation
The sun will be darkened, and the moon will turn red as blood before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes.

International Standard Version
The sun will be given over to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the coming of the great and terrifying Day of the LORD.

JPS Tanakh 1917
The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the great and terrible day of the LORD come.

Literal Standard Version
The sun is turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, | Before the coming of the Day of YHWH, | The great and the fearful.

Majority Standard Bible
The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and awesome Day of the LORD.

New American Bible
The sun will darken, the moon turn blood-red, Before the day of the LORD arrives, that great and terrible day.

NET Bible
The sunlight will be turned to darkness and the moon to the color of blood, before the day of the LORD comes--that great and terrible day!

New Revised Standard Version
The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes.

New Heart English Bible
The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.

Webster's Bible Translation
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD shall come.

World English Bible
The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of Yahweh comes.

Young's Literal Translation
The sun is turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, Before the coming of the day of Jehovah, The great and the fearful.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
I Will Pour Out My Spirit
30I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. 31The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and awesome Day of the LORD. 32And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the LORD has promised, among the remnant called by the LORD.…

Cross References
Matthew 24:29
Immediately after the tribulation of those days: 'The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.'

Mark 13:24
But in those days, after that tribulation: 'The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light;

Luke 21:25
There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among the nations, bewildered by the roaring of the sea and the surging of the waves.

Acts 2:20
The sun will be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the coming of the great and glorious Day of the Lord.

Revelation 6:12
And when I saw the Lamb open the sixth seal, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black like sackcloth of goat hair, and the whole moon turned blood red,

Revelation 6:13
and the stars of the sky fell to the earth like unripe figs dropping from a tree shaken by a great wind.

Revelation 8:12
Then the fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun and moon and stars were struck. A third of the stars were darkened, a third of the day was without light, and a third of the night as well.


Treasury of Scripture

The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD come.

sun.

Joel 2:10
The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining:

Joel 3:1,15
For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, …

Isaiah 13:9,10
Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it…

the great.

Zephaniah 1:14-16
The great day of the LORD is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the LORD: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly…

Malachi 4:1,5
For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch…

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Joel 2
1. He shows unto Zion the terribleness of God's judgment.
12. He exhorts to repentance;
15. prescribes a fast;
18. promises a blessing thereon.
21. He comforts Zion with present,
28. and future blessings.














Verse 31. - The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come. These wonders in the heavens follow the wonders on earth, and these obscurations of the heavenly bodies - the darkening of the sun and the dull blood-like appearance of the moon - were portents of coming judgment. These miraculous phenomena, if literally employed, may refer to those portentous sights which, as the Jewish historian Josephus and the Roman historian Tacitus testify, were witnessed, both by besiegers and besieged, during the siege and before the destruction of Jerusalem. But taken symbolically, as is preferable, blood symbolizes bloodshed; fire, the firing of a town in time of war; and pillars of smoke, the clouds of smoke rolling up to heaven from the burning or smouldering ruins of a town or city set on fire by the enemy; while the darkening of the sun and the turning of the moon into a dull blood-red would portend approaching judgment, and a change, political and ecclesiastical, in the existing constitution of things. Here particularly, by reading Joel's prophecy in the light of the New Testament, we shall understand with tolerable clearness the meaning of the symbols of the sun and moon. The symbolic language of Joel's prediction found its fulfilment, at least in part, within less than half a century from the time when Peter spoke. Scarce forty years from that Pentecostal outpouring and the ruling powers, civil and ecclesiastical, of the Jewish nation came to an end. The Jewish Church and Hebrew commonwealth went out in darkness. The moon of the latter began to wane from the first day the Roman power was set up in Palestine, but at the destruction of the capital the light of that moon was extinguished for ever; the sun of the former was long getting obscured by clouds, but at last it underwent a total and final eclipse. But why, it may be asked, are sun and moon thus symbolic of rulers superior and inferior, or of rulers of greater and less importance, or of rulers in Church and state? By the original constitution of these luminaries, as specified in the record of Creation, they were actually appointed to this, and so naturally enough the physical here, as elsewhere, underlies the symbolic, as we read, "God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night." Thus what was commenced when Judaea became a Roman province was completed when Jerusalem was destroyed and the temple burnt by the Roman army under Titus. "The day of the Lord" is an expression very common with the prophets, and always expressive of some severe visitation or special judgment. Thus we read in this same Book of the Prophet Joel, "The day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come." Again in Amos 5:18, "The day of the Lord is darkness, and not light." But other days of judicial visitation were not to be compared with this. The day of Babylon's destruction is called by Isaiah simply "the day of the Lord;" so Jeremiah speaks of the day of the destruction of Pharaoh's army at the Euphrates as "the day of the Lord;" and Joel himself designates the day of Jerusalem's destruction of Nebuchadnezzar as "the day of the Lord." But the day mentioned in the text before us is "that great and notable day of the Lord," and so it was the day of the final destruction and desolation of Jerusalem.



Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
The sun
הַשֶּׁ֙מֶשׁ֙ (haš·še·meš)
Article | Noun - common singular
Strong's 8121: The sun, the east, a ray, a notched battlement

will be turned
יֵהָפֵ֣ךְ (yê·hā·p̄êḵ)
Verb - Nifal - Imperfect - third person masculine singular
Strong's 2015: To turn about, over, to change, overturn, return, pervert

to darkness
לְחֹ֔שֶׁךְ (lə·ḥō·šeḵ)
Preposition-l | Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 2822: The dark, darkness, misery, destruction, death, ignorance, sorrow, wickedness

and the moon
וְהַיָּרֵ֖חַ (wə·hay·yā·rê·aḥ)
Conjunctive waw, Article | Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 3394: The moon

to blood
לְדָ֑ם (lə·ḏām)
Preposition-l | Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 1818: Blood, of man, an animal, the juice of the grape, bloodshed

before
לִפְנֵ֗י (lip̄·nê)
Preposition-l | Noun - common plural construct
Strong's 6440: The face

the coming
בּ֚וֹא (bō·w)
Verb - Qal - Infinitive construct
Strong's 935: To come in, come, go in, go

of the great
הַגָּד֖וֹל (hag·gā·ḏō·wl)
Article | Adjective - masculine singular
Strong's 1419: Great, older, insolent

and awesome
וְהַנּוֹרָֽא׃ (wə·han·nō·w·rā)
Conjunctive waw, Article | Verb - Nifal - Participle - masculine singular
Strong's 3372: To fear, to revere, caus, to frighten

day
י֣וֹם (yō·wm)
Noun - masculine singular construct
Strong's 3117: A day

of the LORD.
יְהוָ֔ה (Yah·weh)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 3068: LORD -- the proper name of the God of Israel


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OT Prophets: Joel 2:31 The sun will be turned into darkness (Jl Joe.)
Joel 2:30
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