What Does Mark 13:24 Mean in the King James?
But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,
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
After tribulation, even the lights that order the visible world go dark; the upheaval reaches the cosmos itself.
THE MEANING
After tribulation, the sun is darkened and the moon withholds her brightness; the disturbance reaches the lights that order the visible world. The verse speaks to the reader in a threshold where the ordeal is past, yet familiar certainty has not returned.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The assumption that the world’s regular lights guarantee stability is undone here: after tribulation, even the sun and moon cease to offer their usual light.
THE ROOT
σκοτισθήσεται
skotisthēsetai
GROWS FROM
σκοτ- (skot-), from σκότος (skotos)
darkness; the dark state
“darkened” in this verse is skotisthēsetai. English makes this sound like an event of reduced brightness; the Greek verb grows from the same root as the word for darkness, naming the condition entering the scene. The sun changes state, and the moon’s withheld radiance makes that loss visible across both great lights.
ALSO GROWS
skotia: darkness
σκοτία
This noun carries the same root into a named condition, connecting the sun’s darkening with darkness itself.
skoteinos: dark, full of darkness
σκοτεινός
This adjective uses the same root to describe a dark condition, showing the family’s movement from darkness as a state to something characterized by it.
θλῖψις
thlipsis
GROWS FROM
θλιβ- (thlib-), from θλίβω (thlibō)
to press or squeeze
The Greek noun holds the image of pressure inside what English calls tribulation. The verse marks what follows that pressure as a distinct threshold: its passing does not immediately restore familiar light.
ALSO GROWS
thlibō: press, squeeze, afflict
θλίβω
The verb preserves the physical image beneath tribulation, so the word carries pressure rather than hardship as an abstraction.
thlibomenoi: being pressed, afflicted
θλιβόμενοι
This form shows people undergoing the same pressure named by the verse’s noun.
THE PATTERN
Scripture portrays upheaval as reaching the heavens themselves, with the sun and moon losing their expected light.
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.The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining:And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;THE THREAD
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:Matthew repeats Mark’s phrase about the sun being darkened, using the same Greek root for darkness. It extends the image to falling stars and shaken heavenly powers, showing that the signs reach the whole visible order.
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