The total solar eclipse set to take place on April 8 will follow a prophetically significant path, according to some Bible experts.
When the moon passes in front of the sun on Monday, portions of the U.S. will plunge into darkness, while the rest of the country will experience at least a partial eclipse.
Pastor Paul Begley and investigative journalist Troy Anderson, co-authors of “Revelation 911: How the Book of Revelation Intersects with Today’s Headlines,” told The Western Journal that there are several noteworthy things about the “Great North American Eclipse,” particularly when it is coupled with the “Great American Eclipse” of 2017.
“God said in the very first chapter of Genesis that he created the sun, the moon and the stars for signs and seasons, for days and years — so signs meaning prophetic signs,” said Begley, the co-host of the “Revelation Watchers” podcast.
“Jesus reiterates that when asked the question about … the signs of his Second Coming. He immediately goes into talking about the sun, the moon and the stars, as well as other things on earth,” he continued.
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America’s Nineveh Moment
One interesting thing Begley noted about this eclipse is that two U.S. cities called Nineveh lie in the path of totality.
— National Eclipse (@NationalEclipse) April 4, 2024
The pastor found it “very ironic because in the Bible, when Jonah went to preach to the city of Nineveh because of their wickedness, God said he was going to destroy the city unless they repent.”
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“Well, the day Jonah entered into the city of Nineveh was June 15, 763 B.C. [There] was a great solar eclipse that went over the Middle East, went right over Nineveh. So the question is, is this a prophetic sign? Is this America’s Nineveh moment?”
An ancient Assyrian tablet found in the royal archives of Nineveh and now housed in the British Museum references a solar eclipse that occurred on June 15, 763 B.C., during the time period Jonah is believed to have lived.
The Bible records that the people of Nineveh heeded Jonah’s warning and repented, and God did not send judgment on the city.
Anderson said the late evangelist Billy Graham felt that the U.S. was reaching its Nineveh moment. The journalist interviewed “the preacher to the presidents” in 2013 as part of a series about the end times and the possibility of revival in the U.S.
“Something that really stuck with me in that interview is he said that when God sent the prophet Jonah to Nineveh … the king and the people repented, and [Graham] believed the same thing can happen again, this time in America,” Anderson recalled.
The author said the last president to call the nation to repentance was Abraham Lincoln, but it had been a regular occurrence prior to that. Further, the Continental Congress made several such calls to fasting and repentance during the Revolutionary War.
In addition to the eclipse’s path over towns named Nineveh, Begley pointed to the place where it will cross the path of the 2017 eclipse — a region in southern Illinois known as “Little Egypt.”
Begley noted that the area is likely called Little Egypt because, following a 19th-century famine in northern Illinois, people came south to buy grain, much as Jacob’s children traveled south to Egypt to find food when famine struck their land.
Compared to the 2017 eclipse, the 2024 eclipse has a duration of totality that’s about 68 percent longer and a path of totality that’s about 76 percent wider at its widest point. pic.twitter.com/t3qLj2HUxo
— National Eclipse (@NationalEclipse) March 23, 2024
The path of the 2024 total solar eclipse crosses the path of the 2017 total solar eclipse. Here’s the overlapping totality zone in Missouri, Illinois, and Kentucky. The only place in the U.S. where you can see two total eclipses in the span of only seven years. pic.twitter.com/Ycku31FJnr
— National Eclipse (@NationalEclipse) February 10, 2024
Anderson also noted the “devil comet” will be visible during the April 8 eclipse. It’s an unusual horned comet that travels near Earth every 71 years.
Begley said that only eight solar eclipses have directly crossed the U.S. since its founding.
“Only eight since we declared ourselves a nation in 1776, and two of them have come in less than a seven-year period,” he emphasized.
The same was true during the Revolutionary War, when two eclipses occurred in a little over two years — one in June 1778 and another in October 1780, according to WIJA-TV.
Other U.S. eclipses occurred in 1806, 1854, 1878, 1918, 1923, 1979 and in 2017, as previously mentioned. In other words, they are rare phenomena. The next solar eclipse in the U.S. will not be until 2044.
“So we started looking at all of these things, and we said, ‘What is God trying to say in this prophetic moment?’” Begley explained.
“I think God is saying to us, ‘This is your moment, America. Where will you stand?’ Are you going to continue … legalizing some of the abominations that God said not to do?” Begley asked. “This nation has to make a decision. Who are we? Are we a Christian nation?”
“I think this is a defining moment,” he said.
For their part, several states have already declared a state of emergency. And after a rare earthquake shook parts of the East Coast on Friday — including New York, a state that lies in the path of totality — stunned witnesses ominously linked it to the approaching eclipse.
Asked what he believes the American people need to repent of, Begley answered abortion and same-sex marriage.
The Supreme Court’s overruling of Roe v. Wade in 2022 was a good first step regarding abortion, the pastor said, but now it falls on the states to make the call to protect life.
He also believes the court should revisit the 2015 Obergefell decision, which forced states to make same-sex marriage legal.
Overturning that ruling would give “America a chance to choose, to vote, to pray. And it gives the pastors, who are really the spiritual leaders of this nation, a chance to speak to their congregations and to encourage them to follow the laws of God,” Begley said.
Civil War Revisited?
The pastor also saw significance in the fact that the two eclipses of 2017 and 2024 will have crossed over Lincoln’s home state of Illinois.
Further, the 2017 eclipse exited the U.S. over Charleston, South Carolina, where Fort Sumter is located and the Civil War began, and the 2024 eclipse will enter the nation over Eagle Pass, Texas, where, in a sense, the conflict finally came to an end.
The Confederates fired the first shots on Fort Sumter in April 1861.
And at Eagle Pass, near what is now Shelby Park, Confederate Gen. J.O. Shelby, who had refused to surrender to Union forces, fled with about 1,000 of his troops into Mexico. (Shelby Park is also a focal point in the ongoing illegal immigration battle between the state of Texas and the federal government.)
Shelby reportedly took a Confederate flag, wrapped it around a rock, and sunk it in the Rio Grande on his way out in June 1865. Shelby Park became known as the “Grave of the Confederacy.”
Begley thought the odds of all these Civil War tie-ins in the paths of the two eclipses seem “just about impossible” without divine planning.
“Crisscrossing over the Land of Lincoln not far from Springfield, Illinois. Then the Civil War ending in Eagle Pass, or at least that may be considered the ending spot. I think God is revisiting this with us,” he said.
“He’s revisiting this and saying, ‘What are you going to do? Are you guys going to repent? Change your ways? Or are you guys going to just become a divided nation that cannot stand?’” Begley added.
Anderson is hopeful that Americans will repent and experience revival.
“I think over this last year we’ve sort of seen these pockets of revival around the country ever since that ‘Jesus Revolution‘ movie came out,” he said.
Anderson pointed to the Asbury awakening and mass baptisms in California last summer, as well as moves of God on college campuses around the country.
“I think God is rooting for us,” he said. “He’s hoping that we’ll turn back to him. He’s hoping that we’ll repent of our sins and turn from our wicked ways. And then we could have this revival. So I think we very well could be on the cusp of this great harvest revival, but I think God put the ball in our court.”
“I think we can have a big turnaround in this country, but I think the choice is ours.”
