What Does Joel 3:15 Mean in the King James?
The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The stars gather their radiance inward, turning the sky’s light into something that can be drawn back.
THE MEANING
The sun and moon are darkened, and the stars gather their shining in; the sky’s ordinary lights no longer shine. The verse lets upheaval reach even what feels most constant above you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that the visible order is permanent and self-sustaining is undone: even its brightest fixtures can be veiled.
THE ROOT
אָסְפוּ
ʾāsəp̄ū
GROWS FROM
אסף
Gather, collect, bring in.
The verb translated “withdraw” carries the motion of gathering in or collecting. The stars’ light is pictured as drawn together, as though radiance can be withheld from the open sky.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāsap̄: Gather, collect, bring in.
אָסַף
This verb is the seed of the stars’ gathering: what disappears from view is pictured as being drawn in.
ʾāsîp̄: Ingathering, harvest.
אָסִיף
The word for harvest shares the root of gathering, linking the stars’ withdrawal with the image of light being brought in.
נֹגְהָם
nōghām
GROWS FROM
נגה
Shine, be bright; brightness or radiance.
The stars’ shining is named as their brightness, something that can be gathered in. The verse makes the withdrawal concrete: the radiance itself recedes from view.
ALSO GROWS
nāgah: Shine, give light.
נָגַהּ
This verb names the act of shining that the stars’ image withdraws.
nōgah: Brightness, radiance.
נֹגַהּ
This noun names the light itself, making clear what is gathered away from the sky.
קָדָרוּ
qādārū
GROWS FROM
קדר
Grow dark, become gloomy.
“darkened” in this verse is qādārū. The same darkening verb describes both the sun and the moon, placing both great lights under one condition. Its root also carries the shade of gloom and mourning, so the darkness holds emotional weight as well as visual force.
ALSO GROWS
qādar: Grow dark, become gloomy.
קָדַר
The verb holds the sun and moon’s dimming within a root that also describes a deepening gloom.
qōdēr: Dark, gloomy; mourning.
קֹדֵר
This related form carries the root’s movement from visible darkness into the weight of mourning.
THE PATTERN
At a decisive turning, scripture pictures upheaval through the dimming of lights that ordinarily mark the sky’s order.
For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: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:THE THREAD
Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the LORD shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.The stars’ “withdraw” in Joel and the moon’s “withdraw itself” in Isaiah come from the same root, אסף (ʾ-s-p), meaning “gather” or “collect.” Isaiah turns the image around: the moon is no longer gathered in, the light remains, and mourning ends.
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