¹¹ As related at Acts 2:1-4 and 14-21, at Pentecost 33 C.E., God poured out holy spirit on 120 disciples, both men and women. The apostle Peter made known that this was what Joel had foretold. What, though, of Joel’s words about ‘the sun being turned into darkness and the moon into blood and the stars withdrawing their brightness’? Nothing indicates that this was fulfilled in 33 C.E. or during the more than 30-year-long span of the conclusion of the Jewish system of things.

12, 13. How were the celestial phenomena Joel foretold fulfilled?

¹² Evidently that latter part of Joel’s prediction was more closely linked with “the coming of the great and fear-inspiring day of Jehovah”​—the destruction of Jerusalem. The Watchtower of November 15, 1966, said about the tribulation that befell Jerusalem in 70 C.E.: “That was certainly a ‘day of Jehovah’ with reference to Jerusalem and her children. And in connection with that day there was plenty of ‘blood and fire and smoke mist,’ the sun not brightening the gloom of the city by day, and the moon suggesting shed blood, not peaceful, silvery moonlight by night.”c

¹³ Yes, as with other prophecies that we have noted, the celestial phenomena Joel foretold were to be fulfilled when Jehovah exacted judgment. Rather than extending over the conclusion of the Jewish system, the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars occurred when the executionary forces came against Jerusalem. Logically, we can expect a larger fulfillment of that part of Joel’s prophecy when God’s execution of the present system gets under way.