Sun

The sun is named in Scripture as one of "the two great lights" that God ordained to rule the day (Gen 1:16). It is a creature, not a deity; it keeps a fixed circuit, marks signs and seasons, draws prohibitions against worship, halts or retreats at Yahweh's word, signals the day-of-Yahweh when its light fails, and at last is displaced when the glory of God lightens the city directly. Sirach gathers many of these strands into a single hymnic catalog.

The Greater Light, Created

The opening creation account names the sun without naming it: "And [the Speech of] God made the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night and the stars" (Gen 1:16). The whole quartet of verses gives its purpose. The lights are set "in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night," and they serve "for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years" (Gen 1:14-15, 17-18). Their assignment is governance, not autonomy.

The Psalter and Jeremiah re-confess this making in liturgical and oracular form. "The day is yours, the night also is yours: You have prepared the light and the sun" (Ps 74:16). The Hallel pairs the great lights with covenant loyalty: "To him who made great lights; For his loving-kindness [endures] forever" (Ps 136:7). And Jeremiah grounds the daytime sun in Yahweh's own oath: "Thus says Yahweh, who gives the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night... Yahweh of hosts is his name" (Jer 31:35).

Sirach repeats this confession with unusual force. He calls the sun "his mighty one": "For great is Yahweh who made it, And his word causes his mighty one to shine" (Sir 43:5). Even at its most dazzling — "What is brighter than the sun?" — it remains a fading creature: "Yet this fails; And how much more man who [has] the inclination of flesh and blood" (Sir 17:31).

The Daily Course

The sun's regular path is itself a witness. "The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hurries to its place where it rises" (Ec 1:5). The Psalmist adds the cosmic scope: "In them he has set a tabernacle for the sun... His going forth is from the end of the heavens, And his circuit to the ends of it; And there is nothing hid from its heat" (Ps 19:4, 6). Sirach amplifies the heat: "The sun when he goes forth pours out heat, How terrible are the works of Yahweh!" (Sir 43:2); "When it shines at noon it scorches the world, Before its burning [heat] who can stand?" (Sir 43:3); "A heated furnace makes the metal become heated, [But] the sending forth of the sun sets mountains ablaze" (Sir 43:4). The rising sun also publishes the divine glory: "The rising sun is revealed over all, And the glory of Yahweh upon all his works" (Sir 42:16).

The same daily course is a benediction. "The sun will not strike you by day, Nor the moon by night" (Ps 121:6). It also lends its pure brightness to praise: "Who is she who looks forth as the morning, Beautiful as the moon, Clear as the sun, Terrible as an army with banners?" (SS 6:10). And it punctuates martial scenes — "Now when the sun shone on the shields of gold, and of brass, the mountains glittered therewith, and they shone like lamps of fire" (1Ma 6:39).

Sun-Worship Forbidden

Because the sun is creature, not god, Mosaic law forbids its veneration outright. "Or else you will lift up your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the host of heaven, you will be drawn away and worship them, and serve them, which Yahweh your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven" (Deut 4:19). The Deuteronomic case-law repeats it as a capital matter: "and has gone and served other gods, and worshiped them, or the sun, or the moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I haven't commanded" (Deut 17:3).

Job knows the reach of the prohibition into the heart. He swears that no covert sun-rite has ever crept in: "If I have seen the sun when it shined, Or the moon walking in brightness, And my heart has been secretly enticed, And my mouth has kissed my hand: This also was an iniquity to be punished by the judges; For I should have denied the God who is above" (Job 31:26-28).

Sun-Worship Practiced and Judged

Israel and Judah did not keep the prohibition. Jeremiah names the dishonor heaped on the bones of the apostates: "and they will spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, which they have loved, and which they have served, and after which they have walked, and which they have sought, and which they have worshiped" (Jer 8:2). Ezekiel names the idol-objects: "And your⁺ altars will become desolate, and your⁺ sun-images will be broken" (Ezek 6:4); "your⁺ altars may be laid waste... and your⁺ sun-images may be cut down, and your⁺ works may be abolished" (Ezek 6:6).

The temple-court vision is the apex of the indictment: "at the door of the temple of Yahweh, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of Yahweh, and their faces toward the east; and they were worshiping the sun toward the east" (Ezek 8:16).

The kings of Judah had even harnessed the sun-worship to royal display. Josiah's reform in 2 Kings is precise about it: "And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entrance of the house of Yahweh, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the precincts; and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire" (2Ki 23:11).

Stood Still and Went Backward

Twice in the canon the sun's regular course is interrupted at Yahweh's word. At Gibeon, "Joshua spoke to Yahweh in the day when Yahweh delivered up the Amorites... and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand still on Gibeon; And, Moon, in the valley of Aijalon" (Jos 10:12). The narrator confirms: "And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, Until the nation had avenged themselves of their enemies... And the sun stopped in the midst of heaven, and didn't hurry to go down about a whole day" (Jos 10:13). Habakkuk's theophany echoes it: "The sun and moon stood still in their habitation, At the light of [your Speech] as they went, At the shining of your glittering spear" (Hab 3:11). Sirach numbers the Joshua sign among the wonders of the strong: "Was it not by his hand that the sun stood still And one day became as two?" (Sir 46:4).

The sun-dial sign for Hezekiah is the second and reverse interruption. "And Isaiah the prophet cried to Yahweh; and he brought back the shadow on the steps it had gone down, on the steps of Ahaz, backward ten steps" (2Ki 20:11). Isaiah's own version is fuller: "Look, I will move back the shadow of the steps, which has gone down on the steps from the Upper House of Ahaz - [I will move back] the sun backward ten steps. So the sun returned ten steps on the steps on which it had gone down" (Isa 38:8). Sirach knows this sign too: "In his days the sun went backward, And he added life to the king" (Sir 48:23).

Darkening of the Sun

The ninth plague provides the earliest narrative darkening. "And Yahweh said to Moses, Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt... and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days; they didn't see one another, neither rose anyone from his place for three days: but all the sons of Israel had light in their dwellings" (Ex 10:21-23).

The prophets pick up this image as the regular sign of the day-of-Yahweh. "And if one looks to the land, look, darkness [and] distress; and the light is darkened in its clouds" (Isa 5:30). "Then the moon will be confounded, and the sun ashamed; for Yahweh of hosts will reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem; and before his elders will be glory" (Isa 24:23). "And when I will extinguish you, I will cover the heavens, and make their stars dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light" (Ezek 32:7). Joel triples it: "the sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining" (Joel 2:10); "The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and awesome day of Yahweh comes" (Joel 2:31); "The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining" (Joel 3:15). Amos sets the sign at high noon: "I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day" (Am 8:9). Micah turns it on the false prophets: "and the sun will go down on the prophets, and the day will be black over them" (Mic 3:6).

In the gospels the sign comes twice. Olivet: "But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give her light" (Mark 13:24); paralleled in "there will be signs in sun and moon and stars" (Luke 21:25). And the crucifixion: "And when the sixth hour came, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour" (Mark 15:33); "And it was now about the sixth hour, and a darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour" (Luke 23:44).

The Apocalypse takes the same image into seal, trumpet, and bowl. The sixth seal: "the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the whole moon became as blood" (Re 6:12). The fourth trumpet: "the third part of the sun was struck, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; that the third part of them should be darkened" (Re 8:12). The pit-smoke at the fifth trumpet: "the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit" (Re 9:2). And the inverse — scorching — at the fourth bowl: "And the fourth poured out his bowl on the sun; and it was given to it to scorch men with fire" (Re 16:8).

Figurative Sun: Yahweh, the Righteous, the Sun of Righteousness

Within this same sun-image vocabulary, Scripture builds its figures. Yahweh himself is named a sun: "For Yahweh God is a sun and a shield: Yahweh will give grace and glory" (Ps 84:11). Those who love him share that figure: "let those who love him be as the sun when he goes forth in his might" (Jdg 5:31). Restoration day is a sevenfold sun: "the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that Yahweh binds up the hurt of his people" (Isa 30:26).

The figure for personal calamity is the sun gone down too soon: "her sun has gone down while it was yet day; she has been put to shame and confounded" (Jer 15:9). Sirach uses the sun as the simile of priestly glory: "Like the sun shining upon the Temple of the King, And like the bow appearing in the cloud" (Sir 50:7).

Malachi gathers the figure into a single covenant promise: "But to you⁺ who fear my name the sun of righteousness will arise with healing in its wings; and you⁺ will go forth, and leap as calves of the stall" (Mal 4:2).

In the Apocalypse this figure crystallizes around the Risen Christ and his people: "and his countenance was as the sun shines in his strength" (Re 1:16); "a woman arrayed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars" (Re 12:1); "And I saw an angel standing in the sun" (Re 19:17).

The Sun Displaced

The trajectory ends where Genesis began — with light, but no longer with the sun. Isaiah opens it: "The sun will no more be your light by day; neither will the moon give light to you for brightness: but Yahweh will be to you an everlasting light, and your God your glory" (Isa 60:19); "Your sun will no more go down, neither will your moon withdraw itself; for Yahweh will be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning will be ended" (Isa 60:20).

John's vision closes it: "And the city has no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine on her: for the glory of God lightened her, and her lamp [is] the Lamb" (Re 21:23). The greater light that was set to rule the day is at last unneeded; the day belongs entirely to the glory of God and to the Lamb.