Sun

The sun appears on the first pages of Scripture as one of the “lights in the firmament of the heaven,” set there to mark days, seasons and years. After that it takes many roles. In Joshua it is told, “Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon.” A psalm says that “the LORD God is a sun and shield.” The prophets and Gospels describe it darkened when great things are happening, and Revelation pictures a face shining “as the sun shineth in his strength.” Throughout, the sun belongs to God rather than being worshipped. Genesis 1 and Psalm 84 make a pleasant start.

48 verses

Genesis

Genesis 1:14

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

Genesis 1:15

And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

Genesis 1:16

And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

Genesis 1:17

And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

Genesis 1:18

And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

Exodus

Exodus 10:21

And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt.

Exodus 10:22

And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days:

Exodus 10:23

They saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days: but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.

Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 4:19

And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.

Joshua

Joshua 10:12

Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.

Joshua 10:13

And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

Judges

Judges 5:31

So let all thine enemies perish, O LORD: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. And the land had rest forty years.

2 Kings

2 Kings 20:11

And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the LORD: and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz.

Job

Job 31:26

If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness;

Job 31:27

And my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand:

Job 31:28

This also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge: for I should have denied the God that is above.

Psalms

Psalms 74:16

The day is thine, the night also is thine: thou hast prepared the light and the sun.

Psalms 84:11

For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.

Psalms 136:7

To him that made great lights: for his mercy endureth for ever:

Isaiah

Isaiah 5:30

And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea: and if one look unto the land, behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof.

Isaiah 24:23

Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.

Isaiah 30:26

Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.

Isaiah 60:11

Therefore thy gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night; that men may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles, and that their kings may be brought.

Jeremiah

Jeremiah 8:2

And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth.

Jeremiah 15:9

She that hath borne seven languisheth: she hath given up the ghost; her sun is gone down while it was yet day: she hath been ashamed and confounded: and the residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, saith the LORD.

Ezekiel

Ezekiel 6:4

And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken: and I will cast down your slain men before your idols.

Ezekiel 6:6

In all your dwellingplaces the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished.

Ezekiel 32:7

And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light.

Joel

Joel 2:10

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:

Joel 2:31

The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.

Joel 3:15

The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.

Amos

Amos 8:9

And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day:

Micah

Micah 3:6

Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them.

Malachi

Malachi 4:2

But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.

Matthew

Matthew 24:29

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 27:45

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.

Mark

Mark 13:24

But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,

Mark 15:33

And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

Luke

Luke 21:25

And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;

Luke 23:44

And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.

Luke 23:45

And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.

Acts

Acts 2:20

The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come:

Revelation

Revelation 1:16

And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.

Revelation 6:12

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;

Revelation 8:12

And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.

Revelation 9:2

And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.

Revelation 12:1

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:

Revelation 19:17

And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;

From Easton's Bible Dictionary

Matthew George Easton, 1897

(Heb. shemesh), first mentioned along with the moon as the two great luminaries of heaven (Gen. 1:14-18). By their motions and influence they were intended to mark and divide times and seasons. The worship of the sun was one of the oldest forms of false religion (Job 31:26,27), and was common among the Egyptians and Chaldeans and other pagan nations. The Jews were warned against this form of idolatry (Deut. 4:19; 17:3; comp. 2 Kings 23:11; Jer. 19:13).

From Smith's Bible Dictionary

William Smith, 1884

In the history of "greater light," of the creation the sun is described as "greater light," in contradistinction to the moon, the "lesser light," in conjunction with which it was to serve "for signs and for seasons, and for days, and for years," while its special office was "to rule the day." (Genesis 1:14-16) The "signs" referred to were probably such extraordinary phenomena as eclipses, which were regarded as conveying premonitions of coming events. (Jeremiah 10:2; Matthew 24:29) with Luke 21:25 The joint influence assigned to the sun and moon in deciding the "seasons," both for agricultural operations and for religious festivals, and also in regulating the length and subdivisions of the years "correctly describes the combination of the lunar and solar year which prevailed at all events subsequent to the Mosaic period. Sunrise and sunset are the only defined points of time in the absence of artificial contrivances for telling the hour of the day. Between these two points the Jews recognized three periods, viz., when the sun became hot, about 9 A.M. (1 Samuel 11:9; Nehemiah 7:3) the double light, or noon. (Genesis 43:16; 2 Samuel 4:5) and "the cool of the day," shortly before sunset. (Genesis 3:8) The sun also served to fix the quarters of the hemisphere, east, west north and south, which were represented respectively by the rising sun, the setting sun, (Isaiah 45:6; Psalms 50:1) the dark quarter, (Genesis 13:14; Joel 2:20) and the brilliant quarter, (33:23; Job 37:17; Ezekiel 40:24) or otherwise by their position relative to a person facing the rising sun--before, behind, on the left hand and on the right hand. (Job 23:8,9) The worship of the sun, as the most prominent and powerful agent in the kingdom of nature, was widely diffused throughout the countries adjacent to Palestine. The Arabians appear to have paid direct worship to it without the intervention of any statue or symbol, (Job 31:26,27) and this simple style of worship was probably familiar to the ancestors of the Jews in Chaldaea and Mesopotamia. The Hebrews must have been well acquainted with the idolatrous worship of the sun during the captivity in Egypt, both from the contiguity of On, the chief seat of the worship of the sun, as implied in the name itself (On being the equivalent of the Hebrew Bethshemesh, "house of the sun") (Jeremiah 43:13) and also from the connection between Joseph and Potipherah("he who belongs to Ela") the priest of On, (Genesis 41:45) After their removal to Canaan, the Hebrews came in contact with various forms of idolatry which originated in the worship of the sun; such as the Baal of the Phoenicians, the Molech or Milcom of the Ammonites, and the Hadad of the Syrians. The importance attached to the worship of the sun by the Jewish kings may be inferred from the fact that the horses sacred to the sun were stalled within the precincts of the temple. (2 Kings 23:11) In the metaphorical language of Scripture the sun is emblematic of the law of God, (Psalms 19:7) of the cheering presence of God, (Psalms 84:11) of the person of the Saviour, (John 1:9; Malachi 4:2) and of the glory and purity of heavenly beings. (Revelation 1:16; 10:1)

Based on Nave's Topical Bible by Orville J. Nave (1896). Dictionary entries from Easton's Bible Dictionary and Smith's Bible Dictionary. Public domain. KJV scripture text, public domain.