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:
Ver. 10. The earth shall quake before them, &c.] Tragicis figuris calamitatem amplificat, saith Luther here. By such tragic terms the prophets used to set forth a horrible desolation, such as first the Assyrians and afterwards the Romans brought upon the Jews; the Turks and Saracens upon the Christian Churches. Whether there were any such earthquake or stupendous concussions of the heavenly bodies as is here described, is uncertain. Strange forerunners there were both in heaven and earth of the last destruction of Jerusalem, as Christ also had foretold. In the days of Justinian the emperor, the sun for the greatest part of a year gave so little light that it was but equal to the light of the moon, the sky being clear without clouds or anything to shadow it; after which, there followed a great famine, and much war and bloodshed.
The sun and the moon shall be dark] Wondrous expressions to meet with their wondrous stupidity. The Hebrew doctors (and Oecolampadius much disliketh it not) allegorize the text; and by the earth understand the common people, by the heavens the grandees, by the sun and moon the king and kingdom, as by the stars those of indifferent rank, all which are woe begone (as they say) by reason of the present calamities; as when upon the death of Prince Henry, Great Britain was said to be all in black; and as Demades was wont to say of the Athenians, nunquam eos sapere nisi pullis vestibus indutos, that they were never so wise as when they were in mourning weeds (Plutarch).