Solar eclipse.

In Holy Scripture, especially in the prophetic books, much detail is found bearing directly on this awesome and majestic phenomenon of nature, although the word itself is never once mentioned in the Bible. “And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD,” thus do the God-inspired men describe the phenomenon of a solar eclipse, “that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day” (Amos 8:9). This passage probably refers to the total solar eclipse of February 9, 784 B.C., which coincided with the time of the prophecies of the prophet Amos, and which occurred at Jerusalem a little after noon.

“The sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them,” says the prophet Micah (3:6). Here, in all likelihood, is meant the total solar eclipse of June 5, 716 B.C., which is also described by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (2:56). “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD come,” prophesies the prophet Joel (2:31). The note in the prophet Jeremiah, “her sun is gone down while it was yet day” (15:9), evidently alludes to a solar eclipse, one well known from Herodotus (1:74, 103), which occurred on September 30, 610 B.C. The darkness over all the land, which lasted from the sixth hour even to the ninth, at the crucifixion of the Savior, was undoubtedly miraculous and arose from an extraordinary solar eclipse, although at that time there was also a full moon.