p. 1 | THE COMING EARTHQUAKE

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 9, 1869

THE COMING EARTHQUAKE.

This is the title of a new work by D. T. Taylor, published by H. L. Hastings, Boston, Mass. With the permission of the author, we shall give much of this work in the columns of the Review. The reader will find instruction of great value concerning that dread event, the great earthquake, “such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake and so great.” The following forms the first part of the work—Ed. Review.

I. MAN’S EARTH.

As for the earth, out of it cometh bread; and under it is turned up as it were fire. Job xxviii, 5.

Man’s earth, we are told, is a globe in form, some eight thousand miles in diameter, and twenty-five thousand miles in circumference, hung out in the aerial space “upon nothing,” turning upon its axis once in every twenty-four hours, plunging on through the deep abyss of space in an annual orbit about a great central sun at the rate of nineteen miles each second; three-fourths of its surface being vast oceans of water, and only fifty million square miles, or one-fourth of its surface, being land, and much of this being desert or mountainous, both unfertile and uninhabitable.

Moreover, modern science also teaches that this globe is an enormous “terrestrial bomb shell.” It is claimed as demonstrable by a majority of noted geologists that all of its hidden interior, save only about “twenty or thirty miles” of the outer surface, is an intensely heated mass in a condition of molten fluidity, agitated, restless, and rolling its fiery waves hither and thither, age after age, incessantly seeking, with a terrible expansive power, an outlet to diffuse its igneous elements over the surface and into the atmosphere. On this thin, rocky film, or outer surface, dwells a fallen, sinful, and dying race of mortals, numbering over thirteen hundred millions of souls; the slender partition separating them from the mysterious hell just under their feet, being in comparison with the whole earth’s diameter, only one four-hundredth part of the whole.

Startling fact! alarming conclusion! Is it any wonder that the surface-crust quakes, and tosses, and undulates perpetually beneath our tread? Is it any wonder that the volcanic mountains smoke, and tremble, and burn in the struggle to disgorge the incandescent lake within? Is it any wonder that great cities, and whole countries, and populous villages, and multitudes of human creatures that move upon this dangerous surface, are ever and anon smitten with destruction and go down shuddering with fear in the mighty ruin?

Is it any wonder that thinking, sober people have, from the earliest ages, looked for a final, awful convulsion and a burning day? Is it not rather a greater wonder that such a day has not sooner arrived? And to what restraining power are mortals, thus situated, indebted for the long delay, but to an almighty, wise, good, and merciful God, who bears patiently with his rebellious children, and who holds the great globe and all the universe in the hollow of his hand?

The discussion and philosophy of these fearful mundane agitations, termed earthquakes, may be thought, by some, to belong more properly to the domain of physical and geological science, rather than to a scriptural disquisition, but a phenomenon so often noted and marked in the sacred writings cannot be ignored by the Christian, and thrown over into the sphere of mere worldly wisdom, as if it were wholly and solely a matter of speculation, and no part of the revelation of God. All true science waits upon the Bible and the Bible’s author. These throbbings and quiverings of our planet are noticed in some fifty places both in the Old and New Testament, being set forth in the most striking manner in the inspired language of the holy men who record and predict them, as the act of Jehovah, the demonstrations of his power, the inflictions of his judgments, the omens of evil days, the accompaniments of extraordinary national changes. Especially are they to be regarded by the church of Jesus as signals of the approaching end of the age, and as tokens of the physical dissolution and coming new birth of our habitable world.

It matters not that secondary causes produce earth’s quakings. All animate and inanimate nature, as well as the angels around the throne, are but God’s servants, and messengers, and in the Bible all the mighty acts performed by his agents are ascribed to God himself. Earthquakes and atmospheric convulsions are but the ague-fits of a shattered globe writhing under the blighting curse of its Maker on account of sin. They are the groans of a marred and yearning creation longing for deliverance from the trail of the Satanic serpent who produced the immense ruin, and who, since the fall of man and the loss of Eden, has claimed the air for his royal seat, the Kosmos as his kingdom, and the whole human family as his servants and vassals, and who reigns by divine sufferance as the “prince of this world,” κόσμος, and the God of this age, αἰῶνος. And the Scriptures teach that the whole history of the world from Eden to the consummation is one long, burdening, usurped domination of sin and evil, and that the kingdom of God and of Christ is yet to come.

II. DIVINE AGENCY IN TERRESTRIAL CONVULSIONS.

Tremble thou earth at the presence of the Lord. Ps. cxiv, 7.

A proof of the doctrine of Divine agency in terrestrial convulsions is found in the fact of the numerous instances where the quakings of the earth and of the high mountains are referred to in the Bible. And first, in particular, those passages where such tremulous action is specially ascribed to God or to his mighty angels who are commissioned with power over the elements.

“And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.” Ex. xix, 18.

“Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchest out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled.” Judges v, 4.

“Then the earth shook and trembled . . . because he was wroth.” 2 Sam. xxii, 8; Ps. xviii, 7. Ps. lxviii, 8.

God—“which shaketh the earth out of her place and the pillars thereof tremble.” Job ix, 6.

“Thou hast made the earth to tremble; thou hast broken it; heal the breaches thereof for it shaketh.” Ps. lx, 2.

“But the Lord is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting King; at his wrath the earth shall tremble.” Jer. x, 10.

“I beheld the mountains, and lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.” Jer. iv, 24.

“He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth; he toucheth the hills and they smoke.” Ps. civ, 32.

“The mountains quake at him and the hills melt.” Nahum i, 5.

“Thou shalt be visited of the Lord of hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise; with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire.” Isa. xxix, 6.

In all these passages the Hebrew word eh-rets is properly rendered “earth,” as denoting the physical globe, while the descriptive verb rendered “quake” and “shake,” in the original, means, “to tremble, to rustle, to quake, etc., as in an earthquake.”

In the second place, we direct attention to the following scriptural allusions to earthquakes which are expressly declared to have been judgments upon human impiety, and tokens of Divine displeasure at sin.

At the flood: “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence……I will destroy them with the earth.” Gen. vi, 11–13. “The world that then was, perished.” 2 Pet. iii, 6. In Gen. vi, 11, the Hebrew word shahagath, rendered “corrupt,” signifies marred, spoiled, destroyed. Afterward God said, “Neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.” Gen. ix, 11.

Fairholme, Granville Penn, and many others, think that at the deluge all the dry land was shaken and sunk into the abyss of waters; “the fountains of the great deep [the subterranean oceans] were broken up,” and the book of Enoch, referred to by these authors, represents the mountains, hills, and substance of the whole earth, “absorbed by a great abyss.” And as geologists concur in supposing the deluge to have been, for the most part, “violent and tumultuous in its action on the globe,” it is hence made highly probable that at the flood, great earth-convulsions were sent by Him who causes the pillars of the globe to tremble, and who is described in prophecy as shaking the earth’s foundations. Isa. xxiv.

At the destruction of Sodom, when “the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven,” and “lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace,” the ground was doubtless shaken, and the valley sunk to a depth of thirteen hundred and twelve (1312) feet below the level of the Mediterranean; a sea of internal fire poured forth, forming for a season an immense crater, as witnessed by Abraham on the next morning; the iniquitous inhabitants “suffering the vengeance of eternal fire,” and this was probably done, says a learned writer, “by earthquake accompanying volcanic action.” In the language of David A. Wells this catastrophe is generally supposed by geologists to have been “the result of volcanic action.”

And while it is remembered that angels, commissioned by God, wrought this terrible ruin, who dares deny that by the same hands, and for similar reasons, Herculaneum and Pompeii were overthrown? Because there is no prophet to stand by and affirm that it is the Lord God who doeth these things, are we therefore to conclude that when fearful earthquakes and volcanic eruptions now occur, destroying fair lands and thousands of lives, it is only the working of nature’s laws, entirely aside from Divine agency?

At the destruction of Pharaoh we read, “The depths covered them—the earth swallowed them—they sunk into the bottom as a stone, as lead in the mighty waters.” Exod. xv, 5, 10, 12. On this verse Dr. Adam Clarke says, “It is very likely there was also an earthquake on this occasion, and that chasms were made in the bottom of the sea, by which many of them were swallowed up, though multitudes were overwhelmed by the waters, whose dead bodies were thrown ashore. The Psalmist strongly intimates that there was an earthquake on this occasion: ‘The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee; they were afraid; the depths also were troubled; the clouds poured out water; the skies sent out a sound; thine arrows also went abroad; the voice of thy thunder was in the heaven; the lightnings lightened the world; the earth trembled.’” Ps. lxxvii, 16–18.

It is worthy of note that here are set forth all the phenomena that accompany earthquakes, viz., a trembling of the ground, with atmospheric convulsions, terrific rain storms, thunder, and lightning.

At the destruction of Korah, Moses said, “But if the Lord make a new thing and the earth open her mouth and swallow them up;”—which was literally fulfilled, as we are told that the ground, crust, or surface, clave asunder, that was under them, and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up—and the earth closed upon them, and they perished from among the congregation. Num. xvi, 30–34. Here we have a direct act of almighty power inflicted because of sin. Dr. Adam Clarke calls it “a supernatural earthquake.” Dr. William Smith, in his Bible Dictionary, also regards it as “an earthquake,” and, with Dr. Kitto, says earthquakes are of frequent occurrence in Palestine, and traces of volcanic action are everywhere visible. So dreadful and impressive was this event that it long vividly dwelt in the memory of the Hebrews. And it is specially declared to be one of “the great acts of the Lord which he did.”

When in 1783 at Oppido in Calabria the earth opened to the extent of five hundred, and a depth of more than two hundred feet; and also at Lisbon in 1755 when in a terrific earthquake the ground opened and swallowed up six thousand people with the marble quay upon the river’s bank on which they stood, together with many ships,—not a single one of which ever appeared on the surface again,—are we to suppose God, who has inflicted the severest earthquakes on these portions of our globe inhabited by the supporters of the Papacy, had no hand whatever in the two earthquakes just named, in which over two hundred thousand (200,000) utterly perished?

At the slaughter of the Philistines, “there was trembling in the host, in the field, and among all the people; the garrison and the spoilers they also trembled, and the earth quaked: so it was a very great trembling.” 1 Sam. xiv, 15. We have here an extraordinary panic of a great army, the whole multitude. The entire country also appeared to be in a strange commotion. The quaking is communicated to the solid earth; and Dr. Adam Clarke admits that “God might have interposed in an extraordinary manner and produced a real earthquake.” But though he doubts the fact, there is little room for doubting. It is plainly said that not only the host, the people, the garrison, and the spoilers trembled, but that the very “earth quaked.” And the twenty-third verse ascribes indirectly all this, and the complete discomfiture of the foe which followed, to “the Lord.”

When God met Elijah upon the mount there was also “an earthquake.” 1 Kings xix, 11. Dr. A. Clarke speaks of some who thought all the varied phenomena then occurring “were merely natural,” as the wind or tempest, and the fire issuing from the ground are often accompaniments of such real shakings of the earthquake,—but the Doctor’s conclusion is the more probable. He says, “Here, though everything is produced in its natural order, yet the exciting cause of the whole is supernatural.” The Chaldee Paraphrase renders the word “earthquake” by the phrase, “a host of the angels of commotion,” as if they thought the event to have been caused by the hand of angels as was the destruction of Sodom; while the Hebrew word is that invariably rendered “earthquake,” and is so translated by Coverdale and Boothroyd, as also in the Septuagint version.

An earthquake also occurred during the reign of Uzziah. To this we have these allusions in Scripture: “Two years before the earthquake.” Amos i, 1. “Ye shall flee like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah.” Zech. xiv, 5. Josephus testifies that this earthquake took place at a time when the king became proud and usurped the sacred office of the priests by insolently going into the temple to offer incense, threatening to kill all who opposed him, upon which he says “a great earthquake shook the ground,” the temple itself was shattered and rent, the mountains around Jerusalem broke asunder, and the impious king was smitten with leprosy. “Josephus’ Antiquities,” book ix, chap. x. All of this is confirmed by Amos and Zechariah, and the divine record in 2 Chron. xxvi, 16–23. Dr. Smith, already quoted, thinks a great convulsion did really take place, one of the most remarkable in Palestine, and the whole account confirms our view as herein defended, namely, that earthquakes are often indications of God’s displeasure against peoples, cities, and countries for their wickedness, and may be regarded as temporal punishments inflicted for the same.

Also, at the resurrection of our Lord it is recorded, “And the earth did quake, and the rocks rent, and the graves were opened;” Matt. xxvii, 51, 52; “and behold there was a great earthquake, for the angel of the Lord descended from Heaven, and came and rolled back the stone.” Matt. xxviii, 2. This was evidently miraculous. The Greek word used here is σεισμός (seismos) which in all cases denotes a great shaking or a trembling of the earth. This earthquake was felt all through Judea and also in Bithynia, and Nice, and Maundrell, and other travelers described the rent rocks as still existing around Jerusalem, and so peculiar was the appearance that an instance is recorded where an infidel was converted by attentively observing these evidences of divine power which were manifested when the Son of God gave up his life on the cross for the salvation of a race, and “the earth trembled as the cords of his great heart broke” beneath the ponderous load of human guilt.

Again, in a critical season in the history of the infant church, after united and mighty prayer had been offered, we are told “the place was shaken” where the apostles were assembled, and the Holy Spirit came in power before unknown. Acts iv, 31. The commentators refer this to an earthquake sent (1) To prove God’s presence with his chosen; (2) As an answer to the prayer of faith; and (3) As proclaiming the irresistible power of Jehovah. All the old versions such as Wicliff, Tyndale, Coverdale, etc., render the Greek “the place moved,” while the original word, σάλος (salos), is by the lexicographers defined as denoting “to toss, to move to and fro.” This word being spoken of concerning a “place,” there is no doubt but Dr. Clarke is right in denominating this token of God’s presence and power, “an earthquake.” This striking proof that God was with the holy apostles was again manifested on a subsequent occasion, while they had been thrust into the stocks and confined in the prison, when “suddenly there was a great earthquake, σεισμός, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken.” Acts xvi, 26. It is impossible to so associate these events with natural and secondary causes as to leave out all connection with the immediate hand of God. Hence, we may conclude, with Dr. Kitto, that “The frequency of the allusions to these phenomena in the imagery of the Psalmist and other sacred writers, shows that earthquakes were but too well known to the Jewish people,” while it may be well observed in this place that the occurrence of such terrestrial convulsions in connection with great and marked moral and natural changes in the government of the world by the Deity, has been noticed and acknowledged by all writers, both sacred and profane, and is worthy the attention of both the careless and the devout, that the one may be prepared for every solemn crisis in the affairs of this globe on which we live, and the other walk in the light which these judgments shed upon the Divine administration of human affairs, recognizing the upholding power of an Almighty God, and standing in awe in view of the unsearchable judgments of his hand.

III. THE LAST CONVULSION.

Continuing our subject, we call attention to that great shaking of the globe with all its islands, mountains, and inhabitants, predicted in numerous places in the Bible to occur at the end of the world, and in connection with the second coming of the Son of Man, thus:—

Where the Psalmist sets forth his last and visible advent in consuming fire, it is said prophetically, “His lightnings enlightened the world; the earth saw, and trembled . . . at the presence of the Lord.” Ps. xvii, 4. Also, “Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord.” Ps. cxiv, 7. In Isaiah, we have in strong language the prediction that “they”—the wicked—“shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.” Isa. ii, 19.

In the twenty-fourth chapter of Isaiah we have one of these most remarkable prophecies of the convulsions that the earth shall experience in the Great Day. Here the Hebrew eh-rets, variously rendered “land” and “earth,” is used sixteen times in verses 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20. We are here told in the most graphic and solemn language; language that cannot be cramped down in its application to refer to a mere national judgment on the Jews, nor limited to the soil of Palestine, as too many of the commentators seem to imagine, but which must take a wider significance, unless violence is done to the whole chapter; that the earth we dwell upon is one day to be made empty, and waste, turned upside down, and spoiled; that by reason of the iniquity of its inhabitants, the “curse” shall devour it, and the inhabitants of the earth be burned; and that when that day arrives it will be accompanied,—as Peter subsequently teaches,—with fearful convulsions,—the earth shall be broken down, clean dissolved, moved exceedingly, and all its pillars and foundations shaken, until it “shall reel to and fro like a drunkard.” The Christian geologist will find a rare and wonderful field for his investigation in this portion of Isaiah’s prophecy.

From Joel we learn also that at the last day “the heavens (or air) and the earth shall shake,” while by Haggai, God declares “Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the Desire of all nations shall come,” which is thus explained by the holy Apostle Paul;—“And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, . . . that those things that cannot be shaken may remain;”—all of which corresponds with the prediction of Peter, that “the heavens, or air, shall pass away with a great noise, the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also.” 2 Pet. iii, 10.

In the Revelation, also, while in some places the Greek σεισμός (rendered in all places “earthquake,”) is put for national convulsions, and revolutions, yet in the following instances it may refer to a real convulsion or quaking of the globe itself. Thus in response to the prayers of the whole church militant, God answers, as he answered Elijah, by fire from Heaven falling into the earth, whereupon follow “voices and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.” Rev. viii, 5. Again, as the latest event of the “seventh” or last “trumpet,” we have similar atmospheric phenomena occurring, “and an earthquake, and great hail.” Rev. xi, 19. And again, when the seventh or last vial of wrath is poured out upon the air,—the aerial heavens which are to be shaken,—“There was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great;” Rev. xvi, 18; which recalls the gigantic and extraordinary convulsion of the entire globe foretold by the prophet Isaiah. In all the places quoted, the Greek word σεισμός (seismos) is used—which denotes “a shaking, a shock, especially an earthquake.” Liddell and Scott’s Lexicon.

Hence we see that this doctrine of a final and fearful convulsion of the globe is not new,—it is found in all the writings of the ancient prophets, and is also sung in the sacred hymns of the church of God.

IV. THE FIERY DEEP.

A fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell.—Deut. xxxii, 22.

The peculiarities in the physical structure of the earth which occasion earthquakes and which lead to, and shall result in, the final dissolution of the globe, are set forth fully and plainly in the Scriptures of divine truth. The prime and master element is fire, which seems to be stored in the interior cavities of the globe. That such is the case, the Bible teaches as plainly as it was taught by Plato, or in the best geological works now extant. “This cry of fire, echoed,” says Prof. Hitchcock, “from the earliest ages,” proved by Dr. Burnet to have been believed by all the ancient heathen, and fully held by the early church, is indeed, a solemn verity, a stupendous fact. Such, too, is the voice of holy Scripture, and as already shown in the occurrence of earthquakes, the primary cause of the igneous combustion and final catastrophe is ascribed, not to chance, nor to the development of latent chemical or active secondary forces alone, but to God. Thus, said Moses: “A fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell (sheol), and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains,” or as Dr. Boothroyd renders it,—

“A fire is kindled in mine anger, And shall burn to the lowest Hades; It shall consume the earth with its increase, And set in a blaze the foundations of the mountains.”

Coverdale renders it the “nethermost hell,” and in the Septuagint we read, “In the lowest hades.” The Hebrews understood the lowest sheol, or hades, to be the deep portions of the ground or earth, the hidden but subterraneous cavities or passages. In this ancient and remarkable Mosaic account, written more than thirty-four hundred years ago, we are expressly told: (1) That the earth was treasured or stored with fire; (2) That God kindled this fire or permitted it to be kindled; (3) That he has done this as a token of his righteous anger against the sinful and rebellious race of men who dwell on the earth’s surface; (4) That these fires lie deep down around and below the bases of the mountains, which they set on fire and excite to volcanic action; (5) That by a continued process of combustion this internal fire will so eat away the very pillars of the globe that one day all the works of men, and indeed the whole fabric of nature itself, shall be dissolved in flame. There is nothing made plainer than this in all the Bible.

In the book of Job, which some regard as older than the books of Moses, this same doctrine is confirmed; thus it is said, “As for the earth, out of it cometh bread; and under it is turned up as it were fire.” Job xxviii, 5. Dr. Boothroyd renders the last sentence, “Though its interior is subverted as by fire,” and in a note inclines to refer the passage “to the subterraneous fires by which earthquakes are produced.” Prof. Gaussen renders it, “Beneath, it is overturned, and as on fire.” In Fry’s version of Job it is as follows: “Even its under-strata is turned up as it were fire,” while in the old Chaldee paraphrase it reads, “The earth from which food proceeds and under which is Gehenna,” i. e., hell, or the infernos. Upon this, Dr. A. Clarke observes that “The Chaldee gives a translation conformable to a very ancient opinion which supposed the center of the earth to be a vast fire, and the place called hell.” Undoubtedly this passage teaches the admitted geological doctrine of the existence of vast internal fires at the very heart of the earth.

Observe, too, the prophetical language of David, when he says, “The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth,” and again, “He uttered his voice, the earth melted.” Again, Isaiah prays, “Oh! that thou wouldst rend the heavens, that thou wouldst come down, that the mountains might flow down at the presence, as when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil,” as if he would have God appear in grandeur as a proof to the wicked nations that he alone is God. Does not this also refer to the era of conflagration described by the prophet who says, “Behold the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble.” Mal. iv, 1. And does not that wonderful prediction of Isaiah, where we are told that “the curse hath devoured the earth,” refer to the same event, as if the original curse, pronounced upon the ground for man’s sake, beginning at the surface shall reach at last to the earth’s great heart, and break it, and devour its vitals with consuming fire?

In the New Testament all this testimony is summed up and repeated, and the doctrine established beyond cavil or question, in the third chapter of Peter’s second letter to the whole church, where it is said, “But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are standing fast, stored with fire, reserved in waiting to a day of Judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” 2 Peter iii, 7. Such is the literal sense of the apostle’s words, though προσδοκῶμεν sometimes takes the meaning to wait with long suffering, and eager desire. See Liddell and Scott’s Lexicon.

In exact accordance with Moses, Peter here represents the globe as a vast storehouse, in which is treasured up the element of fire. The whole body of the air and the earth abounds with hidden fire. In the tenth verse the apostle continues the subject, and foretells the melting or dissolving of the elements, the atmosphere, and the earth,—all of which is to be done with a crashing roar, and with fervent heat or intense burning. These, amid the great confusion and flaming change, are only loosed or melted, but the works of mortals, the earth’s “increase” as described by Isaiah, are burned up and totally consumed.

How solemn is the contemplation of such a fiery crisis! It is the Great Day of the Lord! But before that crisis, and along the last years of time, there are to be symptoms of decay and dissolution; throes that presage the mighty ruin; for the heavens, aerial or atmospheric, and earth, “shall wax old like a garment, and as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed,” or “as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed.” Yes, changed! The old and worn-out and unserviceable shall be made new. For he that sitteth upon the throne says, “Behold I make all things new.” Rev. xxi, 5. Creation’s destiny is not annihilation, but dissolution and purification, and the church of Jesus, “according to his promise,” looks “for New Heavens and a New Earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” 2 Peter iii, 13.