Redness Of The Sky
Redness Of The Sky
REDNESS OF THE SKY.When the Pharisees and Sadducees (Mat 16:1 f.) demanded of Christ a sign from heaven ( ), He replied by reminding them how, when the sky (, Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 heaven) was red at morning or evening, they were able to foretell foul or fair weather, and so showed that they themselves could discern the face of the sky (or the heaven). There is here an insistence on the various meanings of that is lost in the Authorized Version by the introduction of a second word to construe it (see Sky). The redness of the sky is denoted by the verb , to glow, literally, to become fire. The colour of fire () is used for red in Rev 6:4; Rev 12:3. In the LXX Septuagint it stands for the Hebrew . The consequences of a fiery hue in the sky at morning or evening, due to the condition of the atmospheric medium, is one of the commonest of weather maxims. It is familiarized in various old couplets.
W. S. Kerr.