What Does Acts 2:20 Mean?
The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and shining day of the LORD comes.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come:THE KEY
The darkness is not the endpoint: it comes before the Lord’s day, described as the day of appearing.
THE MEANING
The familiar lights of the heavens lose their familiar forms: the sun becomes darkness, and the moon becomes blood. Their transformation comes before the great day of the Lord, called manifest or conspicuous. Cosmic disturbance and disclosure stand in the same sequence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that darkness means no revelation is near: here, the altered lights precede the day called manifest.
THE ROOT
μεταστραφήσεται
metastraphēsetai
GROWS FROM
στρέφω
strephō
to turn or change direction; μεταστρέφω (metastrephō) means to turn or change from one state to another.
The sun is not merely absent; it is turned into darkness. The Greek verb carries a change of state, and its root also appears in words for turning toward or turning away.
ALSO GROWS
epistrephō: turn toward, return
ἐπιστρέφω
The shared root shows turning as a change of direction; here the sun’s state changes toward darkness.
apostrephō: turn away
ἀποστρέφω
This branch shares the same turning root, making the verse’s transformation part of a wider language of turning.
ἐπιφανῆ
epiphanē
GROWS FROM
φαίνω
phainō
to appear, become visible, or shine.
“shining” in this verse is epiphanē. The day is called manifest or conspicuous: its name carries the idea of appearing. Darkness and blood come before this appearing, so the verse holds disturbance and disclosure together.
ALSO GROWS
epiphaneia: appearance, manifestation
ἐπιφάνεια
This noun shares the root and makes the sense of appearing in “notable” more visible.
phaneros: visible, manifest, evident
φανερός
This branch shares the root’s movement into visibility, echoing the day described as conspicuous.
THE PATTERN
The approach of the Lord’s day is marked by the heavens’ familiar lights becoming dark or bloodlike.
The sun will be overturned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great day of the LORD will come, the day full of awe.Immediately after the pressure of those days, the sun is darkened, and the moon does not give its glow, and the stars fall from the heavens, and the strength of the heavens is shaken.And I see when he opens the sixth seal, and a great shaking comes, and the sun becomes black as sackcloth of hair, and the whole moon becomes as blood.THE THREAD
The sun will be overturned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great day of the LORD will come, the day full of awe.Acts repeats Joel’s image with the same Greek turning verb, μεταστρέφω (metastrephō, to turn or change state). Joel names the day as great and terrible; Acts calls it great and manifest, keeping the transformed heavens immediately before the day’s arrival.
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