Bible Strands
Amos 8:9
And in that day, declares the Lord GOD, I will make the sun go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the daytime.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The Lord GOD speaks through the prophet Amos to the nation of Israel during a prophetic vision of imminent judgment. This declaration interrupts a sequence describing national collapse and the reversal of normal order.
The words — The phrase ne'um Adonai Yahweh (ne.'Um 'a.do.Nai Yah.weh) translates literally as "utterance of the Lord Yahweh," marking a direct divine decree. The verb ve/he.ve.Ti (and I will cause to go) combined with ha/she.mesh (the sun) describes the forced descent of the sun.
The thread — Jeremiah 15:9 records a mother whose sun sets while it is still day, and Matthew 27:45 and Mark 15:33 describe darkness covering the land from the sixth to the ninth hour. These passages document the same textual motif of premature darkness without adding interpretive claims.
Why it lands — The text requires the reader to acknowledge that divine judgment will actively invert creation's rhythms to signal irreversible mourning. It demands acceptance that religious observance becomes void when God withholds the light that sustains it.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day:
Cross-references
- Mark 15:33 From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.
- Matthew 27:45 From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.
- Jeremiah 15:9 The mother of seven will grow faint; she will breathe her last breath. Her sun will set while it is still day; she will be disgraced and humiliated. And the rest I will put to the sword in the presence of their enemies,” declares the LORD.
- Luke 23:44 It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over all the land until the ninth hour.
- Micah 3:6 Therefore night will come over you without visions, and darkness without divination. The sun will set on these prophets, and the daylight will turn black over them.
- 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.’
- Isaiah 59:9 Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We hope for light, but there is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in gloom.
- Amos 5:8 He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns darkness into dawn and darkens day into night, who summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the face of the earth—the LORD is His name—
- Job 5:14 They encounter darkness by day and grope at noon as in the night.
- Isaiah 13:10 For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light. The rising sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light.