Christian Message Boards: the shadow of the sundial

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Posted by Eden (Member # 5728) on :

Isaiah 38

7 And this shall be a sign to you {King Hezekiah of Judah} from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing which He has spoken, namely,

8 I will bring again the shadow of the degrees which had gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down.

Last night I read these verses again and I had always thought from my reading of these verses and from what I had been taught, that the sun in the sky returned by 10 degrees.

But I also thought that, if the sun in the sky went back by 10 degrees, HOW CAN THE HABITAT ON EARTH NOT HAVE BEEN DESTROYED OR GREATLY HARMED by such a backward movement of the sun?

Then last night I read the verses again and I suddenly realized that the verses do NOT say that the sun will retrograde in the sky.

In v.9, the LORD says: "I will bring again the SHADOW of the degrees which had gone down in the sundial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down.

I realized last night that the LORD ONLY made the shadow on the sundial go back by 10 degrees, which is a a completely different miracle than making the SUN GO BACKWARD in the sky.

I had always ASSUMED that the actual SUN in our sky had been made to go RETROGRADE or BACKWARD by 10 degrees IN THE SKY IN ORDER TO produce this effect of the shadow on the sundial returning by 10 degrees going forward or backward on the sundial (whatever the case may be, forward or backward, I haven't figured that out yet).

But last night I realized that the sun in the sky did not need to be part of this miracle. The miracle only took place on the sundial.

Anybody else agree with this interpretation?

love, eden

Posted by Forever His (Member # 25) on :

If you are better at goggle than I am [Big Grin]

I think you may discover something about how the scientist's discovered that the sun did indeed go back 10 degrees. I remember hearing a story about it some years ago but my memory has slipped by about 10 degrees or so [Wink]

God Bless

Forever His

Posted by Forever His (Member # 25) on :

Well I just tried a google search for "sun going back 10 degrees " and found lots of hits... after reading snopes I went ouch [pound]

If the link works... here it is. One thing that I do believe was reinforced in my mind is that the sun probably did actually go back 10 degrees... anyway. For anyone interested...

http://www.snopes.com/religion/lostday.htm

Posted by Eden (Member # 5728) on :

Hi, Forever His, nice to meet you. I will try to read your link to the sun going back by 10 degrees, soon.

In the meantime, the miracle of the shadow on the sundial is one thing, but that still leaves this miracle:

Joshua 10:13
And the sun stood still and the moon stayed {did not come out}, 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 hurried not to go down about a whole day.

I suppose God is powerful enough to be able to stop the sun and to make sure nothing changes on earth?

with love, eden

Posted by Forever His (Member # 25) on :

This last summer I had the priveledge to view a sermon [on video ] by a christian who has some real knowledge of our solar system. He gave us a small "glimpse" of just how big our God is... It is amazing !!! It is uncomprihensible !!!

Here is a small article on a star that is big enough to make our minds boggle... yet it is a small star compared to a new one the discovered a year ago... They called it something like canus grandious [ ie. big dog ] and I have no idea of how to tell you how big it is... but just to give you a small glimpse of God's "hugeness" ...

Betelgeuse is the closest to us of Orion's 10 or so stars - it's about 500 light years away. It's also the biggest star in Orion. In fact, Betelgeuse is the single biggest thing that our eyes can detect. Sure, galaxies and star clusters are bigger, but they're a collection of stars rather than a single object. Compared to other stars, our old Sun is pretty much average, however, Betelgeuse makes our Sun look absolutely puny, and it's gargantuan compared to the Earth. According to astronomer Bob Berman, if Betelgeuse were a ball that enclosed a 20 story building, than the Earth would be the period at the end of this sentence. Using another analogy, if Betelgeuse were a spherical jar, and if Earth-sized objects were poured out every second, it would take 30,000 years to empty the jar!!

Another thing about Betelgeuse is that it's not always the same size or brightness. Over a period of about 14 months, it swells up and then deflates a bit. When it's at its biggest, it's even brighter than Rigel. However, when Betelgeuse is quiescent, it no longer ranks in the top 10 of the brightest stars. Betelgeuse is much more oblate (fatter in the middle) than our Sun since its center of gravity is so far from its surface. If our Sun were replaced by Betelgeuse, in its bloated phase, it would extend out past the orbit of Jupiter! The force of gravity on this massive bag of gas causes Betelgeuse to partially collapse. It'll deflate a bit and then rebound again in an endless cycle. All known red giant stars exhibit this kind of behavior, but since Betelgeuse is the biggest of the big, it's bulging and shrinking is more pronounced.

WOW.... isn't God BIG [clap2]

For Him to stop the rotation of the earth... or turn it backwards for a while [Big Grin]

would be no harder than a child playing with a small pebble......

God Bless you

Forever His