Because: other than the smoke from their rape and pillage, the sun was not darkened when the A's, B's and P's, conquered Israel and Judah.
Sorry but that doesn't pass the eisegesis sniff test.
That's YOU sitting here 25 centuries later deciding what YOU think about the ABP's and what it must have looked like.
That's NOT YOU doing due diligence, and finding out what THEY thought about war and the poetic images and symbols THEY used.
Those who honestly desire to know what the Lord God - creator of everything we see and experience - is telling us through Isaiah, will be open minded. Will be willing to take our time, and not IMPOSE OUR WILL on the text!
We will read in context, and respect the time and culture in which he wrote.
We will do DUE DILIGENCE!
What does ISAIAH say the Babylonian invasion will be like?
Isaiah 13
13 A prophecy against Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw:
2 Raise a banner on a bare hilltop,
shout to them;
What are they shouting?
4 Listen, a noise on the mountains,
like that of a great multitude!
...
The Lord Almighty is mustering
an army for war.
Oh - and I was hoping it would be a CME?
6 Wail, for the day of the Lord is near;
it will come like destruction from the Almighty.
Oh - now there's something coming directly from the Lord himself? Maybe there's hope! I do like something with a Sci-Fi twist.
9 See, the day of the Lord is coming
—a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger—
to make the land desolate
and destroy the sinners within it.
Yep! That sounds like it! Is this Nicholas Cage's "Knowing" after all!??
10 The stars of heaven and their constellations
will not show their light.
The rising sun will be darkened
and the moon will not give its light.
...
Yes! Awesome! We get our Sci-Fi movie! COOOOOOL!
13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble;
and the earth will shake from its place
Well - I don't know that the heavens actually shake in a CME - but we'll patronise Isaiah and put that down to just "not understanding these things" shall we? Or will we dare to stretch a little bit and call that "imagery" or "metaphor"? Oooh, dangerous, because if that's metaphor, what else is?
Ooh - my Sci-Fi brain is tingling? Could it be a CME?
What comes next?
at the wrath of the Lord Almighty,
in the day of his burning anger.
YES! BURNING ANGER! THIS IS IT!
14 Like a hunted gazelle,
like sheep without a shepherd,
they will all return to their own people,
they will flee to their native land.
OK - people returning home after something - that doesn't sound a LOT like a worldwide catastrophic CME when airports would have been fried, etc, but maybe there's still hope....?
15 Whoever is captured will be thrust through;
all who are caught will fall by the sword.
16 Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes;
their houses will be looted and their wives violated.
Oh, dag-nabit!
Isaiah takes away all our fun!
He's obviously talking about the horror of war - as he said in the introductory verses about raising a huge army!
Utterly barbaric war and war crimes - the whole package!
17 See, I will stir up against them the Medes,
...
18 Their bows will strike down the young men;
they will have no mercy on infants,
It's the Medes.
What can we conclude?
As I said above:
Babylon's destruction = Day of the Lord.
Babylon's destruction = rise of the Medes.
Bablyon's destruction = sun and moon and stars not giving their light.
Babylon's destruction = as thorough as God's DIRECT judgement of Sodom and Gomorrah - but through the Medes. (Persians.)
So given how clear
this is, how do you know your other "Dark Sun" passages are about Isaiah's unimaginably far, far future - when here he is clearly writing about the Persians?
When we see a specific Bible verse saying the sun and moon will do something unusual and unprecedented, as Isaiah 30:26a does, is it right to just fob it off as 'it must have happened in the past', or 'it's just allegorical and meaningless'. ?
Ah, but now you're playing the distraction game!
What does ISAIAH 13 say the "Dark Sun and Moon" are?
How does he use it THERE?
And if the same author is using the Dark Sun for war here, as he is, why do we think he would use it for anything different elsewhere?
Isaiah 30:26 is very different
We have discussed this chapter before, years ago.
Where are the sun and moon darkened?
In this particular stanza of a passage FULL of the imagery of war, the sun and moon are not darkened by the fires of war.
No no NO!
It's about
contrasting what they
will go through under ABP with what
could have been if they repented instead.
9 People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. 20 Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. 21 Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” 22 Then you will desecrate your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, “Away with you!”
23 He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows. 24 The oxen and donkeys that work the soil will eat fodder and mash, spread out with fork and shovel. 25 In the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill. 26 The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the Lord binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.
It's hard to equate worldwide destruction in a CME with plentiful rain, abundant food, and streams of water and blessing!
The brightness of this passage could be read in the modern context as "My future's so bright, I gotta wear shades."
BUT - contrast that with the next verses about Assyria!
The Lord will cause people to hear his majestic voice
and will make them see his arm coming down
with raging anger and consuming fire,
with cloudburst, thunderstorm and hail.
31 The voice of the Lord will shatter Assyria;
with his rod he will strike them down.
32 Every stroke the Lord lays on them
with his punishing club
will be to the music of timbrels and harps,
as he fights them in battle with the blows of his arm.
33 Topheth has long been prepared;
it has been made ready for the king.
Its fire pit has been made deep and wide,
with an abundance of fire and wood;
the breath of the Lord,
like a stream of burning sulfur,
sets it ablaze.
Battle. Blows of his arm.
Fire pit - wood.
"Like a stream of burning sulfur" - but NOT "a stream of burning sulfur."
See?
War.
Poetry.
Darkness of a cloudburst and thunderstorm and hail.
NOT SHINY!
Also - note that Topheth is Gehenna! It's the place of child sacrifice, that calls for Israel to be judged the way the Canaanites were for the same thing.
Yes! That bit IS eternal in focus.
Which is my point, not yours!
There are a few eternal focus chapters in all this, in Isaiah and Jeremiah and others.
Some are far-future gospel focussed, some are eternity focussed.
But we must be VERY careful we do not rush our reading - and just pretend Isaiah is AVOIDING the essential questions of HIS DAY - which are "Has God failed to protect his people as the Assyrians and Babylonians march to war against them, and as the Persians rule over them?"
He is contrasting the proud city with the future hope of the eternal city.
In THIS passage! And note: your Dark Sun verses do not even appear here!
Isaiah is like John - pausing to consider that God has promised an end to ALL this awful conflict and suffering.
A FINAL judgement, when he will return and bless all who trust in him.
So Isaiah does pause in all this horror of war and judgement that God has eternal things in mind.
Just as John does, writing to his generation about the Romans.
John says he is writing to his friends in Asia Minor about something that will SOON take place (1:1), that is NEAR (1:3), and it is THE tribulation that HE shares in! (1:9). Not “a tribulation” or “my own personal tribulation” - but THE tribulation!
But even more confounding for futurists is that he expects them to “KEEP what is written in it, for the time is NEAR.” (1:3).
They are to KEEP it.
That means read and OBEY it.
But if it’s all about some bizarre end-times-table of different FUTURE nations inevitably doing bizarre, futuristic things to each other 2000 years away - in the name of Dr Seuss and everything surrealist and abstract - how on EARTH are they meant to obey it?
EG: “In 4000AD on Mars most Red, the Cybers will FRAZZLE the Nurfblums! Flee, flee to the valleys of Valles Marineris - lest you too be FRAZZLED!”
I mean - the mind boggles!
Obey it?
How John?
It’s not even TO us?
We’re just back here near the Romans sacking Jerusalem and the temple, OK? What are we to make of that?
