Luke 21:25 to Joel 2:30-31

NT Text: Luke 21:25

OT Source(s):

• Joel 2:30-31 ("I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth … the sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD")

Source: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Reference Type: Allusion

Connection Method(s): Promise-Fulfillment + Redemptive-Historical Progression

Anchor Text: Joel 2:28-32 — I Will Pour Out My Spirit

Significance: Jesus' Olivet discourse describes cosmic signs — "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" (Luke 21:25) — employing the cosmic-disruption language characteristic of Day of the LORD oracles. Joel 2:30-31 is the most concentrated source: signs in heaven and earth, the sun darkened and moon turned to blood before the great and awesome day of Yahweh (yôm YHWH hag-gādôl wĕ-han-nôrāʾ). Whether these signs apply to the 70 CE events or to the final coming of Christ has been debated, but in either case Jesus frames the events in explicitly Joeline Day of the LORD terms, signaling that what he describes constitutes the in-breaking of divine judgment in history. Acts 2:17-21 cites Joel 2:28-32 on Pentecost, showing that the apostolic hermeneutic read the Joeline signs as beginning to be fulfilled in the first century.