Of blood moons and solar eclipses

And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.


Apparently 2014 and 2015 will be a very interesting year for celestial happenings.

Eclipses, both solar and lunar, which occur on significant days in the Jewish calendar.  The Jewish calendar is a lunar calendar, with holidays linked to the full moon or the new moon, but nevertheless...

There is a Christian minister who thinks this has Biblical significance.  He points out that:

April 15,2014. The first day of Passover.  The Exodus from Egypt, the pivotal moment in Jewish history.  We shall celebrate the holiday under a blood moon, that is, a partial lunar eclipse.

October 8, 2014, the first day of Sukkot. A holiday that commemorates the 40 years the Israelites wandered in the desert after the Exodus.   And another blood moon.

March 20, 2015.  The first day of the Hebrew month of Nissan.  In Biblical times, the new year was celebrated in the spring, on the first day of Nissan.  There will be a solar eclipse.

April 4, 2015, Passover again, and another blood moon.

September 13, 2015.  Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, the beginning of a ten day period of self reflection that ends on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.  Jewish tradition holds that the Almighty passes judgment on the world in those ten days.  On Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed.  We will have a solar eclipse.


September 28, 2015.  Sukkot again.  And another blood moon.

The four  blood moon phenomenon has appeared several times during key years in Jewish history.  Most notably in 1493-1494 (right after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain), 1949-1950 (the establishment of the State of Israel),  and 1967-1968 (the reunification of Jerusalem).  Interestingly, the phenomenon didn't happen from 1494 until 1949.

There's a passage in the Book of Joel, in chapter 2.  It talks about how the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, and this shall be a sign that the Day of the Lord is at hand.

I am usually not one to believe in signs and portents.  Yet  the timing is intriguing.  If nothing else, it will be interesting to step outside and see the eclipses. 





 



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