Strata: Rare Eclipse Coming This August

This August see an eclipse of Biblical proportions.

A total solar eclipse (when the moon completely blocks the sun, casting the earth in temporary darkness) will be visible across the United States on August 21, 2017 (see map for visibility). Viewers in the path of the eclipse will experience about two minutes of total darkness. At the spot marked GD—Greatest Duration—the eclipse will last two minutes and 40.2 seconds. The spot marked GE—Greatest Eclipse—indicates the location where the moon’s shadow passes closest to the earth’s center.

When the solar eclipse works its eerie wonders on August 21, shadows will behave strangely. Pin-hole openings in tree leaf cover will project tiny eclipses on the ground. Some people will see shadow waves—bands of shade moving across the ground.

Might eclipses, together with the timing of Biblical events, have been interpreted as divine messages and signs?

When King Hezekiah was near death, Isaiah delivered God’s promise that Hezekiah would live for 15 more years. A sign was to confirm the healing. The shadow could move forward or backward on an outdoor stairway. Hezekiah chose backward (2 Kings 20:10).

In 702 B.C.E., the 16th year before Hezekiah’s death, a prominent solar eclipse appeared over the Middle East (see online NASA’s Five Millennium Catalog of Solar Eclipses). If a stairway had been engulfed in darkness and then restored to daylight, the shadow would have appeared to retreat.