Topic
Sun, Smiting by
6 passages cited, from 1 classic reference work.
These works date from 1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- 2 Kings 4:19ISBE
And he said unto his father, My head, my head. And he said to a lad, Carry him to his mother.
- Psalms 121:6ISBE
The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
- Isaiah 49:10ISBE
They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them.
- Jonah 4:8ISBE
And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.
- Judith 8:3ISBE
For as he stood overseeing them that bound sheaves in the field, the heat came upon his head, and he fell on his bed, and died in the city of Bethulia: and they buried him with his fathers in the field between Dothaim and Balamo.
- Matthew 4:24ISBE
And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 6 references
smit'-ing: Exposure of the uncovered head to the heat of the sun is likely to produce either of two conditions; the commoner is heat exhaustion with faintness, the rarer is heatstroke with fever and paralysis of the heat-regulating apparatus of the nervous system. This condition is described as siriasis. The two fatal instances recorded were probably of the latter kind. One, the case of the Shunammite's son (2Ki 4:19), was apparently very acute, like some of the cases described by Manson and Sambon. Of the other case, that of Manasseh, Judith's husband, we have no particulars (Judith 8:3), except that it was likewise brought on by exposure in the harvest field, and occurred at the time of barley harvest, that is, early in May. Jonah's attack was one of heat syncope, as he fainted from the heat (Jon 4:8). According both to psalmist (Ps 121:6) and to prophet (Isa 49:10), the people of God are protected from the stroke of the sun as well as from that of the moon. The latter was supposed to cause lunacy (hence, the name), and epilepsy, so in Mt 4:24 the word rendered "lunatic" (the King James Version) for "epileptic" (Revised Version) is seleniazomenous, literally, "moon struck."
See MOON.
Alexander Macalister
Texts: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.