MARK 15:33 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
“And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.”
At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon — the three hours of darkness (sixth to ninth hour) fulfill the prophetic darkness of judgment: Amos 8:9 (I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight), Joel 2:31 (the sun will be turned to darkness). The cosmic darkness communicates that what is happening at Calvary is not merely a Roman execution but a cosmic event — the hour of darkness (Luke 22:53) that Jesus identified at his arrest.
Church Fathers on Mark 15:33
This most glorious light took away its rays from the world, lest it should see the Lord hanging, and lest the blasphemers should have the benefit of its light.
Luke added to this account the cause of the darkness, that is, the darkening of the sun.
If this had been the time for an eclipse, some one might have said that this which happened was natural, but it was the fourteenth moon, when no eclipse can take place.
Read all 11 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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