Clouds

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Clouds (Part One): A Really Special Cloud
by Charles Whitaker (Charlotte, North Carolina)
 
 
“God’s cloud led them on by day when they broke camp and set out.” (Numbers 10:34, The Voice)
 
One of the most nuanced yet telling dichotomies in God’s Word is that of concealment and revelation. Keeping something under one’s hat is the opposite of bringing it out into the open. The gambler who plays close to the vest is not likely to tip his hand. Anyone who is characteristically tight-lipped is not wont to spill the beans.
 
The tension between God’s keeping a secret and sharing it with others mirrors another basic dichotomy, His presence, and His absence. God’s presence (or His messengers’) is revelatory, while His absence perpetuates the “mystery of godliness,” which the apostle Paul speaks about in I Timothy 3:16. i
 
This same apostle pointedly tells us one of the ways God reveals Himself. Anglican clergyman J.B. Phillips captures the spirit of Paul’s comments nicely:
 
Now the holy anger of God is disclosed from Heaven against the godlessness and evil of those men who render truth dumb and impotent by their wickedness. It is not that they do not know the truth about God; indeed, he has made it quite plain to them. For since the beginning of the world the invisible attributes of God, e.g., his eternal power and deity, have been plainly discernible through things which he has made and which are commonly seen and known, thus leaving these men without a rag of excuse. They knew all the time that there is a God, yet they refused to acknowledge him as such, or to thank him for what he is or does. Thus, they became fatuous in their argumentations, and plunged their silly minds still further into the dark. (Romans 1:19-21, The New Testament in Modern English)
 
One of the design-characteristics of God’s creation is its ability to reveal the power and divinity of its Creator. It does that so clearly, Paul emphasizes, that mankind has no excuse whatsoever to deny His existence. Whether these wicked individuals instruct about astronomy in an Ivy League university’s lecture hall or write a book about theology, their arguments, Paul says, are fatuous—mindless and silly.
 
As part of God’s creation, clouds teach us something about God’s nature and His power. We can go as far as to call them a bespoke emblem—that is, a made-to-order symbol—for God’s characteristic of hiding information from some and revealing it to others, according to His sovereign purpose. In these articles, we will look at clouds from both sides to see what they teach us about the presence and absence of God—His gracious willingness to reveal and His sovereign determination to conceal.
  
Not Your Everyday Cloud
Of his Salvation, that is, of his God, David writes:
He rode on a cherub and flew;
he came swiftly on the wings of the wind.
He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him,
thick clouds dark with water.
Out of the brightness before him
hailstones and coals of fire broke through his clouds. (Psalm 18:10-12, English Standard Version)
 
Note David’s mention of “[H]is clouds.” Numbers 10:34 refers to “the cloud of the LORD.” The clouds God rides (compare Psalm 68:4) are unique for at least two awe-inspiring reasons.
 
First, unlike the rainy-day clouds we experience so often (scientifically, the colloidal aerosol made up predominately of water vapor), God’s clouds issue “coals of fire” as well as moisture. God’s clouds are supernatural. They are in some ways like the clouds we know so well—the clouds that testify to God’s power and divinity—but in other ways astonishingly different.
 
Second and more importantly, God’s clouds reflect His glory. We might say God’s clouds are a lens focusing His glory. When God’s clouds are around, He is around! His clouds signal His presence.
 
One of the purposes to which God puts His clouds is to protect His people. The prophet Isaiah provides a good example. The setting of this place-of-safety prophecy is Jerusalem in the last days.
 
Then whoever is left in Zion and whoever remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem. The Lord will wash away the filth of Zion’s people. He will clean bloodstains from Jerusalem with a spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning. The Lord will create a cloud of smoke during the day and a glowing flame of fire during the night over the whole area of Mount Zion and over the assembly. His glory will cover everything. It will be a shelter from the heat during the day as well as a refuge and hiding place from storms and rain. (Isaiah 4:3-6, GOD’s WORD Translation)
 
What provides shelter, refuge, and a hiding place is not so much the “cloud of smoke” itself as it is the presence of God inside the cloud. The linkage of God’s glory to the cloud evidences His presence in it: The translators of the Contemporary English Version render verse 5, “God’s own glory will be like a huge tent that covers everything.” The Good News Translation has it, “God’s glory will cover and protect the whole city.” ii
 
Now, of course, there is no question about it: The phrase “a cloud of smoke during the day and a glowing flame of fire during the night” echoes the cloud and pillar of fire of the Exodus and the prolonged wilderness wanderings. Here is one of Scripture’s first references iii to them: iv
 
And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so as to go by day and night. He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day or the pillar of fire by night from before the people. (Exodus 13:21-22)
 
The meaning of this introductory passage about the pillar and cloud is clear: As He led the children of Israel, God was present in both pillar and cloud. The cloud supplied shade during the day, while the pillar provided light at night. The saga of the pillar and cloud continues in the next chapter. The context is the defeat of the Egyptians at the Red Sea.
 
And the Angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, moved, and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud went from before them and stood behind them. So, it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. Thus, it was a cloud and darkness to the one, and it gave light by night to the other, so that the one did not come near the other all that night. . .. Now it came to pass, in the morning watch, that the LORD looked down upon the army of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and cloud, and He troubled the army of the Egyptians. (Exodus 14:19-20, 24)
 
The description of God looking down from the cloud clearly indicates His presence in it. In this case, His cloud expedites protection for His people and terrifies His enemies. God’s cloud discomforts the Egyptians.
 
In Exodus 19, though, the idea of revelation through the cloud becomes explicit; God’s cloud facilitates His revelation. He makes clear His intent: God tells Moses that He is coming in a cloud so that the children of Israel may hear when He speaks:
 
And the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I come to you in the thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you and believe you forever.” (Exodus 19:9)
 
A few verses later, Moses leads the people to God, that is, to meet Him. They come to be in His presence: Then it came to pass on the third day, in the morning, that there were thunderings and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain; and the sound of the trumpet was very loud, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke because the LORD descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly. (Exodus 19:16-18)
 
Revealing and Concealing
God’s cloud, then, embodies a paradox. It can be a facility through which God reveals Himself, that is, a vehicle through which He communicates to mankind. Shortly before the Israelites entered the Promised Land, Moses reminds the people of the cloud’s revelatory nature. It was God, he says, who for decades “went in the way before you to search out a place for you to pitch your tents, to show you the way you should go, in the fire by night and in the cloud by day” (Deuteronomy 1:33).
 
God’s use of His cloud regarding the Tabernacle of Meeting provides another good example: Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of meeting. And it came to pass that everyone who sought the LORD went out to the tabernacle of meeting which was outside the camp. So it was, whenever Moses went out to the tabernacle, that all the people rose, and each man stood at his tent door and watched Moses until he had gone into the tabernacle. And it came to pass, when Moses entered the tabernacle, that the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the LORD talked with Moses. All the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose and worshiped, each man in his tent door. So, the LORD spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend…. (Exodus 33:7-11)
 
At the same time, however, the cloud allows God to cloak Himself—lest He let some cat or the other out of the bag. If we have eyes to understand it, God’s refusing to reveal is actually a manifestation of His graciousness since information revealed too early would be harmful, even fatal. Keeping information to Himself is an act of love on God’s part. For instance, God uses the cloud to hide Himself from Moses, lest he see His face and die. Then [God] said [to Moses], “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” But He said, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.” (Exodus 33:19-20)
 
The apostle John mentions a time, yet future when God will reveal Himself to us, uncloaked: Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore, the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. (I John 3:1-2)
 
It is God’s choice as to how He uses His cloud. He is sovereign over the knowledge He reveals—and hides. Christ explained this divine prerogative to His disciples in Matthew 13:11, “He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.” He again mentions the tension between revelation and concealment in Matthew 11:25, where He thanks His Father that He has “hidden these things from the wise and prudent and [has] revealed them to babes.”
 
We learn of Him at His pleasure—through His grace. Paul alludes to this fact in II Timothy 3:7, mentioning there those who are “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Study as we might, even with the best of intentions and the best of “learning aids,” we come to understand only what God wills us to understand at the time.
 
Next time, we will focus on God’s cloud as His means of transport over the face of the earth.

End Notes
i Unless otherwise noted, all scriptural citations are from the New King James Version.
 
ii The Message is a bit coy, saying that the cloud and fire will “mark Mount Zion and everyone in it with His glorious presence . . ..” The New English Translation is more direct: “. . . indeed a canopy will accompany the Lord’s glorious presence.” Wycliffe says, “. . . for His glory shall be a covering, or a defense [sic], for all.” Most other translations are mere obfuscations.
 
iii See also Exodus 10:21-23. The ninth plague, that of the terrible, tangible darkness experienced by the Egyptians (but not the children of Israel), may be a manifestation of God’s cloud, in this case to punish the Egyptians. God blinded them, sinners that they were, to His truth; they could not see Him even though He was present.
 
iv Other references to “the cloud of the LORD” (Numbers 10:34) appear in Numbers 9:15-23 and chapters 12, 14, and 16. For Deuteronomic references to the pillar and cloud, see Deuteronomy 1:33; 4:11; 5:22; and 31:15. Leviticus 16:2 refers to God’s appearing in a cloud above the Mercy Seat (in the Holy of Holies). Exodus 40:34-38 addresses the cloud’s filling the Tabernacle with God’s glory. For parallel references to the cloud at the time of the dedication of Solomon’s Temple, see I Kings 8:11-11 and II Chronicles 5:13-14. In all, there are about forty-two references to God’s cloud in the Pentateuch alone.
Clouds (Part Two): God’s Cloud as His Chariot
by Charles Whitaker (Charlotte, North Carolina)

 
“Where the LORD goes, there are whirlwinds and storms, and the clouds are the dust beneath His feet.” (Nahum 1:3, New Century Version)
 
In Part One, we saw that God possesses His own cloud; He enwraps Himself in it. “His cloud,” as David calls it in Psalm 18:12, is more than supernatural: It is positively spectacular, discharging not only rain but fire, not only hail but smoke. From His magnificent yet terrifying1 cloud, God reveals His secrets to some according to His sovereign will, while hiding Himself from others according to the purposes of that same will. His cloud can facilitate revelation as easily as it can concealment.
 
God is present in His cloud. It is no wonder, then, that so many scriptures associate His cloud with His glory. Exodus 16:10 notifies us that “the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.”2 Exodus 24:16 reports that “the glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days.” Not at all surprisingly, the glory of God, in His cloud, filled the Tabernacle:
 
Then the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tabernacle of meeting, because the cloud rested above it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. (Exodus 40:34-35)
 
As a parallel scripture, consider the description of the dedication of Solomon’s Temple: And it came to pass, when the priests came out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the LORD, so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud; for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD. (I Kings 8:10-11; see also II Chronicles 5:13-14)
 
The cloud at once announces God’s presence and obscures enough of His glory to protect humans from destruction. Whether we want to think of the God-cloud as a manifestation of the shekinah or not, it is apparent that He is there, present in His cloud.
 
The gospels also link God’s glory to His cloud. A case in point is the Transfiguration:3
 
While He was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and suddenly a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their faces and were greatly afraid. (Matthew 17:5-6; see also Mark 9:7; Luke 9:34-35)
 
Here as elsewhere, the cloud hides God so people do not succumb, overcome by the brightness of His glory. But the same cloud also provides the opportunity for the Father to reveal a truth He deemed exceedingly important to the three disciples present on the occasion, namely, the opportunity to teach them that the words of His Son carried more weight than the words of Moses or the prophets (represented by Elijah). Just as God used His cloud (as we saw last time in Exodus 19:9) to facilitate the Israelites’ hearing of Moses, so on this occasion the cloud facilitates the disciples’ hearing of Jesus.
 
After Christ’s resurrection, the apostle John, who was present at the Transfiguration, refers to this incident, connecting it with God’s glory: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Years later, Peter, who was also present with the brothers James and John at the Transfiguration, likewise connected it with the glory of God: “For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’” (II Peter 1:17). Generally, God’s cloud reflects His glory by virtue of the fact that He is present in it.
 
Riding the Portable Throne
Any discussion of God’s cloud demands a look at Ezekiel 1 and 10, the prophet’s description of God’s “portable throne.” In Psalm 104:3, the psalmist sees clouds as God’s chariot. If we stop to reflect, even the garden-variety of clouds we know so well are generally on the move, sometimes rapidly so. This fact informs the image of clouds as a means of transport.4 Ezekiel introduces his description of the throne with a reference to clouds:
 
As I looked, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north [remember, Isaiah 14:13 hints that God resides at “the farthest sides of the north”5] and a great cloud, with brightness around it, and fire flashing forth continually, and in the midst of the fire, as it were gleaming metal. (Ezekiel 1:4, English Standard Version [ESV])
 
The “gleaming metal” (many translations render it “glowing metal”) may be a reference to Christ, the God riding the cloud. Compare the description of Christ’s feet at Revelation 1:15: “His feet [were] like unto brilliant metal as if they burned in a furnace” (Jubilee Bible 2000). In Ezekiel 1:27-28, the prophet concludes his description with a reference to the Being who was riding the cloud, mentioning a stunning display of God’s glory:
 
I looked at Him from His waist up. He looked like hot metal with fire all around Him. I looked at Him from His waist down. It looked like fire with a glow that was shining all around Him. The light shining around Him was like a rainbow in a cloud. It was the Glory of the Lord. (Easy-to-Read Version)
 
The Good News Translation describes the rainbow mentioned in verse 28 as “the dazzling light which shows the presence of the LORD.” Again, in Ezekiel 10:4, the prophet cannot miss the glory of God radiating from His cloud:
 
Then the glory of the LORD went up from the cherub and paused over the threshold of the temple; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the LORD’s glory.
 
A broad look at Ezekiel’s description of the portable throne makes it clear that God revealed more about the “inner workings” of His cloud to Ezekiel than to anyone else. The passage is a good example of God’s exercising His sovereign prerogative to reveal knowledge according to His purposes. Interestingly, about the only element missing from the description of the portable throne in Ezekiel 1 and 10 is smoke. Clouds are there, as are fires of coal and lightning, but no smoke. It may be that God, choosing to reveal never-before-understood secrets about His cloud, purposefully removed the smoke to permit the prophet a better view.
 
Likely, Psalm 18:11 is a poetic description of God’s riding His portable throne. Here, David alludes to the cloaking effect of the cloud: God “made darkness His secret place; His canopy around Him was dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.”
 
Isaiah 19:1, where the prophet writes that “the LORD rides on a swift cloud and will come into Egypt,” is another verse that apparently mentions God’s transporting Himself wherever He wishes while cloaked in His brilliant cloud. A better-known example appears in Daniel 7:13, where the prophet Daniel was watching in the night visions, and behold, One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him.
 
Next time, we will look at the role God’s cloud plays in the prophecies of Christ’s return.

Inset: Smoke and God’s Cloud
As we have seen, some descriptions of God’s cloud include the presence of smoke, for example, the “smoking cloud” of Isaiah 4:5 (Complete Jewish Bible) and the enveloping smoke over Mount Sinai described in Exodus 19:18. While smoke has several meanings in God’s Word, three stand out:
 
Judgment. Compare two far-apart scriptures, ones which really are not that distant, considering they both deal with the concept of God’s judgment. In the first one, Abraham “looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain; and he saw, and behold, the smoke of the land which went up like the smoke of a furnace” (Genesis 19:28).
 
In the second passage, smoke attends the fall of another great city, Babylon: After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying out, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for His judgments are true and just; for He has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality and has avenged on her the blood of His servants.”
 
Once more they cried out, “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.” (Revelation 19:1-3, ESV)
 
Judgment forms the backdrop of both passages, and, in both cases, smoke is present. One of the underlying concepts behind smoke is God’s judgment. In fact, one Hebrew noun for “smoke” is closely associated with the noun “anger,” as illustrated in Psalm 74:1: “Why does Your anger smoke against the sheep of Your pasture?”
 
God also links judgment with smoke in Nahum 2:13: “‘Behold, I am against you,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘I will burn your chariots in smoke.’” It is only appropriate, then, that fully 22% of the scriptural references to smoke appear in the book of Revelation, since that book narrates the visions the apostle John saw regarding the Lord’s Day—the Day of the Lord (Revelation 1:10)—a day of judgment.
 
Smoke and judgment fit hand and glove for at least two reasons: First, smoke is evanescent; it is short-lived, ascending, dispersing, quickly becoming rarefied. In Psalm 102:3, the psalmist writes: “For my days pass away like smoke . . ..” God, speaking through the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 51:6, assures us that “the heavens will vanish away like smoke.” As smoke is short-lived, so is God’s wrath. In Isaiah 10:25 (ESV), God tells us that “in a very little while My fury will come to an end.” Like smoke, God’s judgment is intense but short-lived.6
 
Second, not only is smoke an apt image for the brevity of God’s judgment, but it is also a good image of the fate of those judged and found wanting. In Psalm 37:20, David assures us that the wicked shall perish “like the splendor of the meadows, [they] shall vanish, into smoke they shall vanish away.” In Hosea 13:3, the prophet, speaking of those who offer human sacrifices, concludes: “Therefore they shall be like the morning cloud and like the early dew that passes away, like chaff blown off from a threshing floor and like smoke from a chimney.” Poof! And they are gone.
 
Protection. We have already seen that, as recorded in Isaiah 4:5-6, God promises to create in Jerusalem a smoking cloud that will serve as a covering “for shade in the daytime from the heat, for a place of refuge, and for a shelter from storm and rain.” (In their wilderness wanderings, the children of Israel found protection from the sun under God’s cloud.)
 
Fellowship. An intriguing reference to smoke occurs in the narrative of God’s making His covenant with Abraham: And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces [of the sacrifices]. (Genesis 15:17)
 
The Hebrew noun accurately translated “oven” refers to a “baking oven” as distinct from a kiln or smelting furnace—both of which burn much hotter. (The Hebrew nouns for “kiln” or for “smelting furnace” are more likely to appear in contexts of God’s wrath or judgment.)
 
In this passage, God is not passing judgment on Abraham, as He did on the Egyptians in Exodus 14 or on Sodom in Genesis 19. Nor is He protecting Abraham from an enemy, as He promises to do in the case of His people in Isaiah 4. Rather, Genesis 15 links smoke to the sort of oven in which people prepare food. The symbolic action indicates that God and Abraham were going to have a meal together. There was peace between them; they were in fellowship. In this context, smoke represents the fellowship of God and man in peace.
 
In all three cases—judgment, protection, or fellowship—smoke represents the presence of God. It is in this sense that smoke relates to God’s cloud, which also indicates His presence. However, there is a decided difference in symbolic emphasis between God’s cloud and the smoke that may be associated with it. The thrust of the passages about God’s cloud is twofold:
 
His cloud hides Him to keep people from being consumed by the brightness of His glory.
 
Paradoxically, His cloud reveals Him, for when God’s cloud is around, people definitely know it. He often teaches from His cloud.
 
However, the primary thrust behind the image of smoke is different: Smoke highlights the intrinsic difference between God and man. In Proverbs 10:26, God mentions the fact that smoke is not good for the eyes. Humans instinctively close their eyes around heavy smoke. Again, in Isaiah 65:5, God speaks of rebellious people (verse 2) using an anthropomorphism, saying they “are a smoke in My nostrils.” The image is informed by the fact that smoke gags humans, who need the “breath of life” (Genesis 2:7) to exist. Sputtering and coughing, we take quick action to avoid inhaling it, knowing that we are unable to live in a heavily smoky environment.
 
Conversely, God is at ease in His smoky cloud. In fact, Isaiah discovered that God’s throne-room is “filled with smoke” (Isaiah 6:4). Revelation 15:8 notifies us that “the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from His power.” Some argue that this smoke refers to incense. However, it is noteworthy that the Hebrew and Greek nouns for “smoke” in these two passages, nouns appearing in aggregate 38 times in God’s Word, refer unambiguously to incense only once (Revelation 8:4).
 
Smoke makes a good “buffer” between God and man because a smoky environment is inimical to man. God can use it to ensure His privacy. Smoke is His way of saying, “Keep out.” By controlling the density of smoke, God can control exactly how much of Himself He wishes to reveal. The lesson is that humans can know of God only what He wants them to know.

End Notes
1 For examples of God’s cloud generating terror, consider Exodus 19:16 (the giving of the law at Sinai), Ezekiel 1:28 (the prophet’s response to the vision of the portable throne), and Matthew 17:6 (the disciples’ response at the Transfiguration).
 
2 Unless otherwise noted, all scriptural citations are from the New King James Version.
 
3 The Greek verb rendered “overshadowed” in verse 5, its first use, is episkiazo (Strong’s Concordance #1982). The New American Standard Bible and the King James Version render episkiazo with the verb “overshadow” in all five of its New Testament appearances: Matthew 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 1:35; 9:34; and Acts 5:15. Episkiazo carries the idea of “enveloping.” Compare Psalm 97:2, where the psalmist writes that “clouds and darkness surround” God. They envelop Him.
 
4 See Jeremiah 4:13, where God describes Nebuchadnezzar with imagery involving quickly moving clouds: “Behold, he shall come up like clouds, and his chariots like a whirlwind. His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us, for we are plundered!”
 
5 Here God is quoting Satan, the great deceiver, so we accept them at face value at our own risk. It is not appropriate to consider God’s quotation of Satan here as an example of “two witnesses” validating a charge, since the Devil does not have a sterling reputation as an honest witness.
 
6 For scriptures showing the brevity of God’s wrath, consider the following:
 
Isaiah 54:7 (Holman Christian Standard Bible [HCSB]): I deserted you for a brief moment, but I will take you back with great compassion.
 
Note the conceptual opposites of “desertion” and “great compassion,” separated by only “a brief moment.”
 
Isaiah 26:20 (HCSB), where the “wrath” of God passes quickly: Go, My people, enter your rooms and close your doors behind you. Hide for a little while until the wrath has passed.
 
Isaiah 10:25 (The Amplified Bible): For yet a very little while and My indignation against you [Israel] will be fulfilled and My anger will be directed toward the destruction of the Assyrian. See also Malachi 4:1-3.
Clouds (Part Three): The Revealing of Christ
by Charles Whitaker (Charlotte, North Carolina)

  
“They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” —Matthew 24:30
 
Previously, we have seen how God uses His cloud to hide and to reveal. The concept revolves around the variability of clouds’ density—they can be thick or thin. Thin clouds admit light, symbolic of knowledge (I Corinthians 4:5). Conversely, the thicker the cloud, the more impenetrable it becomes, refusing admittance to human eyes, no matter how intently—and how well-intentioned—they might stare into it. The apostle Paul uses a related metaphor to get across the same idea:
 
Now all we can see of God is like a cloudy picture in a mirror. Later we will see Him face to face. We don’t know everything, but then we will, just as God completely understands us. (I Corinthians 13:12, Contemporary English Version [CEV])
 
In this last article on clouds, we will examine clouds in prophecy, focusing on the Day of the Lord, which we understand to be the year-long period culminating in Christ’s touching down on the Mount of Olives (Zechariah 14:1-4). It appears that the Day of the Lord occurs as the final year of the time of Jacob’s Trouble (Jeremiah 30:7).i
 
Clouds in the Day of the Lord
Any number of Old and New Testament scriptures describes the role clouds will play in the Day of the Lord, just before the, return of Christ, often called the Parousia.ii For instance, Zephaniah 1 is about God’s judgment on sinning Judah. But as verse 2 shows, the prophecy is much more sweeping: “I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth” (English Standard Version [ESV]). The prophet continues:
 
The great day of the LORD is near; it is near and hastens quickly. The noise of the day of the LORD is bitter; there the mighty men shall cry out. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of devastation and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness . . .. (Zephaniah 1:14-15)iii
 
The prophet Joel, like Zephaniah, links clouds with the Day of the Lord: “For the day of the LORD is coming, for it is at hand: A Day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like the morning clouds spread over the mountains” (Joel 2:1-2).
 
Like Zephaniah, the prophet Ezekiel describes the Day of the Lord in terms of clouds and universal destruction.iv The prophecy is about Egypt, but again, the impact is worldwide: “For the day is near, the day of the LORD is near; it will be a day of clouds, a time of doom for the nations” (Ezekiel 30:3, ESV).
 
Note the plural: nations. Two chapters later, speaking again about Egypt, God again refers to a cloud: “When I put out your light, I will cover the heavens, and make its stars dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light” (Ezekiel 32:7).
 
In Acts 1 appears a subtle reference to the Day of the Lord and the cloud that will attend it. “After [Christ] had said this, He was taken up as they were watching, and a cloud took Him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9, Holman Christian Standard Bible [HCSB]). Other versions read that the cloud “hid Him from their sight.”v This depiction fits well with the idea of clouds moving, moving upward in this case. The cloud conveys God; He is present in it. Additionally, this depiction fits nicely into the notion that clouds can occlude, that is, hide or obscure.vi
 
The two angels standing nearby notify the awe-struck disciples (and us) that the Christ “will come back in the same way that you saw Him go to heaven” (Acts 1:11, GOD’s WORD Translation [GW]). He ascended in a cloud; He will return in one. As such, this passage gives insight into the Day of the Lord when Christ returns. Does it agree with other prophecies on this topic? Yes, it does, as Christ’s remarks in the Olivet Prophecy indicate:vii
 
Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. (Matthew 24:30)
 
Further, Christ does not change His mode of transport in the years after His return. On trial before the council, He prophesied about another event, this one to take place years after His return: “. . . in the future you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:64, HCSB).
 
Many witnesses render it more accurately: “in the clouds of heaven.” Finally, the apostle John adds his witness to the fact that Christ will come “riding” (The Message) the clouds: “Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen” (Revelation 1:7).
 
At Work for a Year
Luke helps us connect Christ’s return with another time in history beset with clouds: For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day. But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. . .. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. (Luke 17:24-27, 30)
 
The term “in His day” in verse 24 means “in the day of Him.” He is the Lord. Hence, the reference is to the Day of the Lord.viii
 
Psalm 29:10 tells us that “The LORD sat enthroned over the flood…” (International Standard Version [ISV]). The word “flood” there is mabbuwl,ix, xthe Hebrew noun that specifically refers to the great Deluge in Genesis—and only to that Flood. About ten other Hebrew words mean “flood,” but only mabbuwl appears in the Old Testament in reference to the Flood. This reference in Psalm 29:10 is the only use of mabbuwl outside the Genesis account of the Flood. God sat enthroned over Noah’s Flood.
 
Beginning probably on the day Noah entered the ark—”on the very same day” as Genesis 7:13 puts it—the Being whom we know as Jesus Christ oversaw events from His cloud. While there are different ways of looking at the events during that cataclysm, it appears that, for the better part of a year, the enthroned God presided over the Flood, supervising two activities:
 
He destroyed a violent and corrupt civilization worldwide—all of it—so thoroughly that little certifiable archeological evidence confirms it ever existed. However, substantial geological evidence of the Noachian Deluge exists. God virtually obliterated the ante-Diluvian civilization.xi
 
At the same time, the enthroned God also wiped out the ante-Diluvian world, not just its civilization. While He was destroying the corrupt culture that existed in, say, what we now term North America, He began to terraform a new world. Vast currents of water built the plains and carved out the Grand Canyon. All over the world, God directed that sort of activity. Enthroned on His cloud, He orchestrated rebuilding almost immediately after destruction. It appears that God views restoration as concomitant with destruction.
 
When the clouds finally scattered, and Noah again set foot on terra firma, the geography and the topography were substantially different from when God “sealed” him in the ark (Genesis 7:16, ISV). It was a new world.
 
As it was in Noah’s day, “so it will be on the day when the Son of Man comes” (Luke 17:24, New Living Translation [NLT]). By the time the clouds suddenly dissipate, and He is revealed (verse 30), Christ will have done very much as He had done when He presided over the Flood. At His revealing (Parousia), He will have spent the better part of a year in His cloud, in the gloom, in the darkness, in the wind, riding His portable throne, searching out His enemies, cutting them asunder (Matthew 24:51). He will have taken vengeance on those who are His enemies, those who have killed His saints, touching the apple of His eye (Deuteronomy 32:10; Psalm 17:8; Zechariah 2:8).
 
Christ will destroy and create virtually simultaneously. For as He “destroy[s] those who destroy the earth” (Revelation 11:18), He will also be terraforming, leveling mountains with earthquakes, raising valleys (Isaiah 40:3-5; Luke 3:3-6), changing the directions of some rivers, building others. In all this, He will be so thorough that not so much as one genetically modified seed will remain on the earth’s face. He will tolerate no such corruption in His Kingdom (Isaiah 11:9; 65:25).
 
Throughout this period of Strum und Drang, He will protect those He has chosen to protect, those He graciously chooses as individuals to help Him build a new civilization. For, during the Day of the Lord, Christ will display the same level of precise selectivity as He did anciently, destroying some, saving others according to His righteous judgment. Through Jeremiah, God writes of His ability to be thus targeted in His judgments in this historical example:
 
[Nebuchadnezzar] will come and strike down the land of Egypt—those destined for death, to death; those destined for captivity, to captivity; and those destined for the sword, to the sword. (Jeremiah 43:11, Christian Standard Bible [CSB])
 
Isaiah 4:3-6, a passage we looked at earlier, describing the smoking cloud over Jerusalem in the last days, reflects Christ’s power—and His resolve—to judge fairly. While destroying His enemies, He will cover His people with His glorious canopy, “a shelter from the heat during the day as well as a refuge and hiding place from storms and rain.” He will remember them just as surely as He remembered Noah and his family during the year they were in the ark (Genesis 8:1).
 
The penetrating darkness of the Day of the Lord stands in stark contrast to the brilliancexii of His revealing. John the Baptist’s father, Zechariah, emphasizes this contrast at the close of his comments about his newborn son, John. Here, he alludes to the yet unborn Messiah as the Dayspring, or sunrise, saying that He “from on high will visit us to shine on those who live in darkness and the shadow of death; to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:78-79, [CSB]).
 
Humanity’s day is about to end in terrible agony. God’s day, of one thousand years, is about to begin. Before that day comes, a short—only a year—period of deep darkness and profound gloom will cover the earth. For all that, considering the peace and the fellowship the Dayspring will bring when He is at last revealed, we can only concur with the apostle John’s sentiments on Patmos. After he had seen all those horrific visions of the end time, he asserted: “So be it. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20, Good News Translation).
 
Inset: Darkness’s Sudden Death
“The darkest hour of all is the hour before day.” —Irish proverb cited by Samuel Lover (1858)
 
Without God’s revelatory grace, darkness lingers indefinitely, deepening with time’s passage. Darkness, with its attendant violence, ignorance, and fear, is the natural, elemental state. Such is the lesson of Genesis 1:2-3: Had God not said, “Let there be light,” tohu and bohu would abide, randomness and chaos unconquered. The revealed narrative of the beginning does not start with light but with darkness—not order but chaos. God’s Word opens with a description of the earth in disorder. God etches into our collective consciousness that darkness came first by ordaining that each day since the first begins with darkness and proceeds into light with the coming of the sun.
 
God did not choose to begin the sacred text with a description of the earth before tohu and bohu, although He assures us through the apostle Paul that He does not author confusion (I Corinthians 14:33). Perhaps He started with the good-for-nothing darkness to stress the patent fact of His graciousness in bringing light to the face of the earth. There is no light that does not emanate from Him (Isaiah 8:20). Whatever His reasons, He has filled His revelation to us, page after page of it, with examples of “His goodness bringing an end to darkness” of all types and orders.xiii
 
Accordingly, we come to understand that, before Christ could be glorified in the giving of sight, the man born blind lived in darkness for decades (John 9:1-12). He had to do that to allow those with eyes to see the stark and undeniable contrast between dark and light, blindness, and revelation.
 
It was just as necessary that, before Christ could receive glory as the One who rules wind and sea, the disciples on the boat had to experience a period of terrifying distress, certain they were all about to perish in the violence of the waters (Matthew 8:23-27; Luke 8:22-25). Yet, to the blind man, to those in the boat, light came just as it did to the earth’s surface on Creation’s first day.
 
And it came suddenly. Not only does God’s grace end darkness, but it does so in a flash, as the coming of lightning attends the Parousia. In only seven days, God finished off tohu and bohu, supplanting it perfectly with the order we call Creation. Here are several Scriptures that show how fast God can replace the violence that results from sin with what is good and wholesome. Sometimes the change from dark to light occurs in a single breath— “let there be light.” In some cases, the shift from chaos to order occurs so fast the author did not have time to insert a transitional word!
 
The italic text below indicates the destructive force of His judgment on sin—the darkness that sin inevitably brings. The normal text indicates the goodness God suddenly puts in its place.
 
Jeremiah 30:7-8: Alas! For that day is great, so that none is like it; and it is the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it. “For it shall come to pass in that day,” says the LORD of hosts, “that I will break his yoke from your neck and will burst your bonds; foreigners shall no more enslave them.”
 
Zechariah 14:1-5 (NLT): Watch, for the day of the LORD is coming when your possessions will be plundered right in front of you! I will gather all the nations to fight against Jerusalem. The city will be taken, the houses looted, and the women raped. Half the population will be taken into captivity, and the rest will be left among the ruins of the city. Then the LORD will go out to fight against those nations, as He has fought in times past. On that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem. And the Mount of Olives will split apart, making a wide valley running from east to west. Half the mountain will move toward the north and half toward the south. You will flee through this valley, for it will reach across to Azal. … Then the LORD my God will come, and all His holy ones with him.
 
Isaiah 30:20-21 (New English Translation [NET]): The sovereign master will give you distress to eat and suffering to drink; but your teachers will no longer be hidden; your eyes will see them. You will hear a word spoken behind you, saying, “This is the correct way, walk in it,” whether you are heading to the right or the left.
 
Isaiah 30:25 (NET): On every high mountain and every high hill there will be streams flowing with water, at the time of great slaughter when the fortified towers collapse.
 
Isaiah 30:26 (NET): The light of the full moon will be like the sun’s glare and the sun’s glare will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, when the LORD binds up his people’s fractured bones and heals their severe wound.
 
Joel 3:14-18 (NET): Crowds, great crowds are in the valley of decision, for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision! The sun and moon are darkened; the stars withhold their brightness. The LORD roars from Zion; from Jerusalem his voice bellows out. The heavens and the earth shake. But the LORD is a refuge for his people; he is a stronghold for the citizens of Israel. You will be convinced that I the LORD am your God, dwelling on Zion, my holy mountain. Jerusalem will be holy—conquering armies will no longer pass through it. On that day the mountains will drip with sweet wine, and the hills will flow with milk. All the dry stream beds of Judah will flow with water. A spring will flow out from the temple of the LORD, watering the Valley of Acacia Trees.
 

End Notes
i The first use of the term “Day of the Lord” appears in Isaiah 2:11-16, where the concept of inclusiveness thematically pervades. The Day of the Lord will affect the entire earth.
 
The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day. For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low: And upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up and upon all the oaks of Bashan, and upon all the high mountains and upon all the hills that are lifted up, and upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall, and upon all the ships of Tarshish and upon all pleasant pictures. (Jubilee Bible [JUB])
 
Compare Isaiah 5:15-16: People shall be brought down, each man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled. But the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God who is holy shall be hallowed in righteousness.
 
The term “Day of the Lord” appears 18 times in the Old Testament, five in the New Testament. Definitive passages include Isaiah 13:9-13; Jeremiah 46:10; Ezekiel 13:5; 30:3; Joel 1:15; 2:1-2; 3:14-18; Amos 5:18-20; Obadiah 15-16; Zephaniah 1:1-18; Zechariah 14:1-15; Malachi 4:1-3; I Corinthians 5:5; I Thessalonians 5:2-3; and II Thessalonians 2:2.
 
The term “Lord’s Day,” grammatically equivalent to the “Day of the Lord,” appears once in the King James Version (KJV) (Revelation 1:10), where, in context, it clearly does not refer to Sunday, the so-called “Lord’s Day,” but to a period of judgment.
 
The term “in that day,” appearing 112 times in the KJV, does not always refer to the Day of the Lord. However, its first use (Exodus 8:22), where God says He will make a difference between Goshen and Egypt “in that day,” may have prophetic import: God will make a difference between Israel (the church, the Israel of God; Galatians 6:16) and the world in the Day of the Lord.
 
Since Christ is “the Lord,” His reference to “My day” in John 8:56 may be a reference to the Day of the Lord. Grammatically, the term “My day” is the first-person equivalent of the third person “Lord’s day” (compare Hebrews 11:13). John 8:56 does not teach that Abraham was living in heaven and saw Christ’s birth, as some claim in support of their errant contention that the “dead in Christ” go to heaven immediately upon death.
 
The term “His day,” where the pronoun clearly refers to Christ, appears only once in the Scriptures, in Luke 17:24: In this case, “His day” is a third-person pronoun form of “Lord’s Day.” “For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day.”
 
Distinct from the Day of the Lord is the day of man, mentioned by Paul in I Corinthians 4:3, where it is often translated “human court” or “man’s judgment.” The literal Greek is “day of man.” “But it is a trivial matter to me if I am evaluated by you or by a day in a human court. Why, I do not even evaluate myself” (Evangelical Heritage Version [EHV]).
 
ii “Parousia” is a theological term derived from a Greek noun. In the New Testament, parousia denotes Christ’s presence after an absence, thus, broadly, the return of Christ.
 
iii Unless otherwise noted, all scriptural citations are from the New King James Version.
 
iv While the prophet Amos does not relate the Day of the Lord to clouds, he does call it a day of “darkness, and not light” (Amos 5:18).
 
v The Greek verb rendered “took, hid, or received” (KJV) is hupolambano (Strong’s Concordance, #5274), appearing only four times in the New Testament. The KJV translators render hupolambano as “answer” (once), “receive” (once) and “suppose” (twice). The New American Standard Bible renders hupolambano as “received” (once), “replied” (once), “support” (once) and “suppose” (twice). Its first appearance is in Luke 7:43, where it is translated as “suppose.”
 
vi A surprising result of a review of various artistic renditions of Christ’s ascension was how many artists have depicted the event without a cloud in the sky! Some have Him ascending in a ray of bright light but no clouds.
 
vii A second witness appears in Mark 13:26: “Then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory,” and a third, in Luke 21:27: “Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.”
 
viii See Matthew 24:27. In this parallel passage to Luke 17:24, Matthew avoids the use of the pronoun “His,” thereby clarifying Luke’s verbiage. “For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.”
 
ix The Hebrew noun mabbuwl (Strong’s #3999) appears thirteen times in twelve Old Testament verses. All but one of them are in the Genesis account of the Flood, the single exception being Psalm 29:10. The KJV ubiquitously translates mabbuwl as “flood.” Its first use is in Genesis 6:17.
 
The Old Testament’s exclusive use of a dedicated noun to refer to the singular great Deluge has a parallel in the New Testament, where the KJV renders as “flood” four Greek words (three nouns and one adjective). However, the New Testament writers use only one of those words, kataklysmos, to refer to the Deluge. Kataklysmos (Strong’s #2627), from which the English word “cataclysm” obviously derives, appears four times in four New Testament verses: Matthew 24:38, 39; Luke 17:27; II Peter 2:5.
 
x In Psalm 29.10, the verb translated “enthroned,” yashab (Strong’s #3427), is properly past tense, although many translations render it in the present. Yashab appears 1,089 times in 980 verses is the Old Testament. The KJV translates it as “dwell” (437x), “inhabitant” (221x),“sit” (172x),“abide” (70x), “inhabit” (39x), “down” (26x),“remain” (23x), “in” (22x),“tarry”(19x),“set” (14x),“continue” (5x), “place” (5x), with 23 miscellaneous translations. Its first use appears in Genesis 4:16: “Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt [yashab] in the land of Nod on the east of Eden.”
 
xi The apostle Peter recognizes the linkage between the Flood and the Lake of Fire in II Peter 3. More correctly, he understands that the thoroughness of God’s destruction of the “world that then was” (II Peter 3:6) serves as an emblem of His future annihilation of the wicked in the Lake of Fire.
 
xii Scripture frequently links Christ with light:
John 1:7: [John the Baptist] came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through Him might believe.
 
John 8:12: Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness but have the light of life.”
 
John 12:35-36: Then Jesus said to them, “A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.” These things Jesus spoke, and departed, and was hidden from them.
 
II Corinthians 4:6: For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
 
Ephesians 5:14: Therefore, He says: “Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”
 
I John 1:7: But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
 
II Peter 1:19 (Complete Jewish Bible [CJB]): Yes, we have the prophetic Word made very certain. You will do well to pay attention to it as to a light shining in a dark, murky place, until the Day dawns and the Morning Star rises in your hearts. Conversely, the absence of light is undesirable.
 
Isaiah 8:20: To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.
 
Isaiah 50:10: Who among you fears the Lord? Who obeys the voice of His Servant? Who walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely upon his God.
 
Jeremiah 4:23: I beheld the earth, and indeed it was without form, and void; and the heavens, they had no light.
 
Amos 5:8: He made the Pleiades and Orion; He turns the shadow of death into morning and makes the day dark as night; He calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the face of the earth; the Lord is His name.
 
xiii The verbal phrase, “God’s goodness bringing an end to darkness,” is an operational definition of God’s graciousness.
 
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Reprinted with permission from: Church of the Great God
https://www.cgg.org/  
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