Yesterday, Israel unveiled its new blood bank in Tel Aviv. It is so sophisticated that there’s nothing like it in the world. Interesting to Americans, it is named the Marcus National Blood Services Center because this $135 million project, that took four years to build, is named after the American Bernie Marcus. He and his wife Billi donated $35 million to its construction. Bernard Marcus is a 93-year old Jewish immigrant from Russia who co-founded Home Depot.
This blood bank is the most secure in the world. Precious human blood, used mostly for blood transfusions in human surgery, needs to be protected from contamination. So, Israel’s new Marcus National Blood Services Center is mostly an underground structure made of much concrete and 11,000 tons of steel that can preserve human blood not only from bacterial contamination but from such outside catastrophes as terrorism, war, and earthquake.
The chief engineer of this facility is Moshe Noyovich. He revealed, “We visited many blood banks around the world when planning, and found that there is simply no other country with a facility like this, with such a high level of protection for the national blood supply. We have built something that’s a new standard in protecting blood, which is important as it’s a strategic asset.”
This reminds me of a perplexing question I’ve had all of my adult life about a Bible prophecy concerning blood. The Old Testament book of Joel seems to prophesy about about a chaos in the heavens that will occur at the end of the age. God predicts through the prophet concerning the Land of Israel, “a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old” (Joel 2.2). Joel calls the nation to repent, saying, “Truly the day of the LORD is great, terrible indeed–who can endure it? Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; . . . Return to the LORD, your God” (vv. 11-13 NRSV).
It is at this time that God declares through Joel, “The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining” (Joel 2.10). God further reveals, “I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes. Then everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved” (vv. 30-32).
So, Joel prophesied first that both the sun and moon will be darkened together. That cannot be some eclipse with which we are familiar since he then says, “the stars withdraw their shining.” But then Joel adds that something else will happen to the moon, and thus not to the sun. That is, the moon will become “blood.” Notice that he does not say it will “look like blood,” thereby relating how Ezekiel the prophet explained his divine-throne-chariot vision, repeatedly describing things he saw in it as “something like” this or that (Ezekiel 1). No, Joel says the moon will have blood on it.
Jesus predicted something about this in his famous Olivet Discourse, but he did not mention blood. He said, “Immediately after the suffering of those days the sun will darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. Then the Son of Man [meaning himself] will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth [I think the 12 tribes of the Land of Israel] will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matt. 24.29-30).
The apostle Peter did mention blood when he preached out this in his first sermon–following Jesus death, resurrection, and heavenly ascension–that was on the Day of Pentecost in Jerusalem by saying, “This is what was spoken through the prophet Joel; in the last days it will be , God declares that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, . . . The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2.16-17, 20-21).
How can the moon be turned into the blood? This is not about the so-called a “blood moon” that has gained popularity in recent years. That concerns only a temporary eclipse of the moon that results in a reddish-colored moon. But does God through his prophets mean for this phenomenon of the moon being turned into blood to be understood literally or not? I suspect God meant it literally. If so, how can that be?
For most of my life I have speculated that this prophecy of Joel and its quotation by Peter in Acts 2 will occur literally since human blood will be stored on the moon. Why would that be? If you ever have surgery, in which you are given a blood transfusion, you first have to sign a document saying the hospital is not liable if you die from the blood transfusion. That does happen, though it is rare. The main cause for death from a blood transfusion is that the blood got contaminated from bacterial growth. Blood banks are supposed to preserve the blood or its separated elements from becoming contaminated with bacteria.
Our moon has a slight gravity but no atmosphere. Bacteria needs oxygen or other elements to sustain its existence. Thus, it is believed that there is no bacteria living on the moon. When astronauts landed on the moon and walked around, even hit a golf ball, they wore spacesuits that both sustained their lives and prevented any bacteria from them being left on the moon.
The quotation above has Jesus saying of the end times, “the powers of heaven will be shaken.” In the Greek text, the word uranos is here translated in the singular in the NRSV as in most English Bibles, e.g., the KJV. But uranos can be understood in either the singular or the plural. In this case, I believe it should be translated in the plural as “heavens” and thereby refer to outer space in our universe, thus including its objects such as suns and planets. The NIV therefore has a better translation: “the heavenly bodies will be shaken.” So, Jesus meant that all of the universe will shake. If there are blood banks on the moon at that time, and the moon shakes violently, I think it is conceivable that the protection of those facilities on the moon which safeguard blood could be compromised. The result might be that blood will somehow flow on the moon.
I admit that this is is one of my far out ideas that I don’t talk about much. How do you think the moon will be turned into blood as Joel and Peter say?
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