Zone1 100-Pound Hailstones (Rv 16:21)

[norwegen]

I normally suggest to skeptics (dispensationalists, evangelicals, mainstream Christians, etc.) to try to envision the big picture, then the details fall into place. But try as they might, the view eludes them (or they don't even try). So, here's a detail that coincides with the biblical account of the end of the age, which happened nearly two thousand years ago.

100-pound hailstones fell upon the people. As is often the case, a historical context can put questions to bed. After Jerusalem fell, the surviving Jews regrouped with the Sicarii at Masada (Rv 16:14-16), where they stockpiled their remaining arsenal of 100-pound ballista stones on the roofs of the casements they occupied to hurl at Rome’s Tenth Legion whenever it attacked the walls of the fortress.* Flavius Silva, the procurator of Judea, had gathered generals and armies together from different outposts to attack Masada, the one stronghold of the Great Revolt that was still in rebellion after the fall of Jerusalem (Wars 7.8.1). Archeologists unearthed several caches of this ballista shot when they excavated the site in the 1960s.

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* The Editors at Charles River Editors, The Ancient Roman Sieges of Jerusalem and Masada: The History of the First Jewish-Roman War's Most Famous Battles (Charles River Editors Publishing Company, 2016) Kindle eBook.

 

[norwegen]

Another detail that relates to the end of the Jewish Age are the famines and earthquakes that were to signal it (Mt 24:7, Rv 11:13, 16:18, 18:18).

Many people starved to death during the war. A series of famines plagued Judea during that tribulation. They were widespread and debilitating, exacerbating the horrors of war.

Luke recorded one notable famine preceding the war, during Claudius’ reign in the 40s and early 50s (Acts 11:28). This famine was severe enough to prompt Queen Helena of Adiabene, residing in Jerusalem at the time, to import corn and figs at great expense to help alleviate the suffering (Antiquities 20.2.5, 20.5.2).

Jesus also warned of earthquakes. We know of at least one tremor that struck Jerusalem during a storm when the Idumeans arrived to support the Zealots. John of Patmos recorded another earthquake during a storm (Rv 16:18). Josephus also reported a tremor during the war. During an observance one night, as the priests prepared their sacred ministrations, they felt a quaking (Wars 6.5.3). A fault line also ran north and south through the vicinity of Masada, and seismic activity may well have caused some quaking there as well.