The Sixth Seal

By Ashley R. Clarkson
1 July, 2003

"And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;" - Revelation 6:12

The Earth Shakes

Five terrible judgements have been unleashed so far upon the inhabitants of Earth, and while some repent, and as of the Fifth Seal, are martyred in large numbers for their faith. Still others stumble in the darkness, not quite sure just what is happening, though unconsciously many have begun to choose sides. Others have already joined Satan and the devils. The time arrives for the most devastating judgement to date to be released.

The Sixth Seal

"And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?" - Revelation 6:12-17

From the outset this seal promises to be a real disaster. All the descriptions given by John here suggest a calamity without comparison throughout the history of man. This is not some localised event as might happen with any disaster, but is felt worldwide. It is also quite apparent just whom is ultimately in control. But is this judgement able to be taken at face value, or, like the four horsemen, is there some aspect that we must look at? I will present both views henceforth.

The easiest way to interpret this piece is that this is simply an earthquake, and this has been the position of many writers, including those of a poorly written fiction series that is based in this period. Taking this literally at face value suggests the following - there will be a great earthquake, the sun will be darkened and the moon will turn red as blood, stars will fall from the heavens (at this point they would immediately have to interpret this as being meteors or similar), there will be great atmospheric disturbances and the earthquake effects will redefine mountains and rocks. This will frighten the citizens of earth and bring them to hide in dens and the mountains. While this is a possible outcome, indeed there is not much that God cannot do (the song is wrong - he cannot lie and will not break his word, for instance), I have issues with this line of interpretation.

Now please do not take me wrong here, I am not saying, nor will I, that what is said in this passage is not correct. Word for word it is perfect and inerrant, and far be it from me to ever assume that I am a better judge of what God said (Yea, hath God said?). What I take issue with, is the stupidity of hiding in a cave or a den from an earthquake. Now I will grant that they want the rocks to come down and kill them, and so would many people if they saw everything materially that they hold dear to them destroyed, and to see such disastrous circumstances. But this still does not explain jumping in a den to escape an earthquake. I live in a city where we have 2 earthquakes per day on average, and Australians have cruelly dubbed New Zealand "the Shaky Isles" (in fact, recently a travel advisory warning was issued due to a few large earthquakes down in Fiordland). I know what you do in an earthquake, and I've been through a few of them too (though not of the magnitude this would suggest). Simply speaking, only an absolute idiot ever hides in such places. In an earthquake, you shelter in a doorway or under a table to protect yourself from falling objects. Hiding in a den or in a mountain cave is a fast ticket to your maker. That is one reason why I believe that this interpretation that follows as presented by myself is the right one.

The modern definition of an earthquake is:

earth·quake (ûrthkwk) n. A sudden movement of the earth's crust caused by the release of stress accumulated along geologic faults or by volcanic activity. Also called seism, temblor.

Now this is a fantastic and precise definition for earthquake - that is, for the word as it is used today. We have only since 1870 had some idea as to what causes earthquakes, as theories have slowly been produced and vindicated. Of course, as one progresses backwards the definition, as less and less knowledge of the phenomenon is known, becomes more and more general, which allows it to be used to describe more than one thing. Earthquake (or its equivalent) have been used to describe all sorts of phenomena, including but not limited to earthquakes in the modern specific sense, and landslides. Here is the definition given by Websters 1828:

EARTH'QUAKE, n. A shaking, trembling or concussion of the earth; sometimes a slight tremor; at other times a violent shaking or convulsion; at other times a rocking or heaving of the earth. Earthquakes are usually preceded by a rattling sound in the air, or by a subterraneous rumbling noise. Hence the name, earthdin, formerly given to an earthquake.

Notice that the definition at this point is left more open to interpretation. How more so the definition of earthquake in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries! In fact, one could simplify these definitions, remembering its generalistic beginnings and the lack of scientific knowledge on such factors in the Seventeenth Century. A fully justifiable, and generally (though not specifically scientifically) definition would be "a shaking of the earth". Whilst there is not a dictionary freely extant to prove this (though if you can access one I would appreciate if you would do so and let me know what the specific definition is), this would appear to be a sufficient poke at the definition (due to evolution of languages, they tend to maintain an undercurrent of their original meaning, though can become more or less specialised. Only in rare cases does the definition change, for instance when adopted by groups). This is probably what the Greek equivalent is too, but since I don't speak Greek, and it is bad scholarship to claim knowledge in an area of a language by pulling it out of a book (instead of learning the word through learning the language or through scholarly research), we shall have to go on the highly likely assumption that it is the case (if you want to test it, try it. But I won't claim it as mine).

This definition has the immediate effect of introducing more than one possible reason for the 'earthquake' - the shaking of the earth, and could lead to a plausible understanding of the complimentary effects of the Sixth Seal. While it is true that following the old saying "it says what it means and it means what it says" is certainly the key to biblical understanding, and avoiding changing the meaning, it is also essential to note that there are places where the meaning is symbolic, or we are dealing with things that are accurately described in a language that does not have the expanded scientific vocabulary that exists again. This is the fine line that is tread when uncovering the mysteries of Revelation - giving respect to this saying (in other words, taking what it says as being plainly what is meant) while still remembering that there is more than the most obvious possibility to consider, and perhaps there is a symbolic or an interpretation that is unlocked by looking at more than what the words appear to be saying (in other words, they are descriptions of events that cannot be described accurately due to the lackings of the language for an accurate word which summises the occurrence). The following treads this line accordingly.

One of the greatest scourges of mankind was that which helped bring the Second World War to an early end. The Atomic Bomb, first successfully detonated in 1944 and later dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Its successor, the H-Bomb (Hydrogen Bomb) or more accurately thermonuclear weapon is the even more destructive descendant of the Cold War, which saw tens of thousands of these weapons produced in the event of a nuclear showdown. While the collapse of the Soviet Union has seen a reduction, on paper at least, of these nuclear weapons over the past 15 years, there are still more than enough weapons for a serious amount of damage to be done. Computer simulations that account for only some variables have been run in order to try and understand what might happen were there a nuclear war, with the results propagated as the "nuclear winter" scenario, where the earth is clouded in darkness, plants die, animals follow suit and finally almost everybody dies from starvation or after-effects. No doubt many of you know of the "everybody dies of radiation sickness" scenario propagated in On The Beach by Nevil Shute (okay, so in the book they take pills to kill themselves so they don't die of radiation sickness).

That is definitely an overstatement of any sort of possible effects that would happen. In fact, what must be remembered is that many nuclear weapons will be destroyed during any exchanges, and at any rate most radioactive isotopes have remarkably fast half-lives (the time it takes for half the material to decay into other elements - radiation is one of the byproducts of this). In fact, depending on where you live and on whether or not you take shelter for 48 hours to one week, you have a reasonable chance of surviving. But not if you are caught in the cities when the first missiles hit, or if you run outside to see what the commotion is.

So how can nuclear weapons have anything to do with shaking the earth? Well believe it or not, nuclear weapons (and indeed any major bomb) cause tremors in the earth. One of the earliest detections for the dropping of nuclear weapons was measuring seismic shocks on a seismograph. Highly sensitive seismographs were used to detect explosions causing tremors in the earth. This is how they figured out what sank the Kursk - detectors in Britain noticed the explosion in the Barents Sea when a torpedo in the sub detonated, leading to the events that occured. These same seismographs are tuned to register the great seismic tremors that occur in a nuclear detonation. Thousands of nuclear weapons detonating within a similar time period will cause a great shaking of the earth, as a result of the great destruction it will wreak upon cities, military bases and other targets.

Someone has punched the panic button. Across the globe, the nuclear powers launch their bombers and the missiles climb out of their launch tubes, riding columns of fire to the sky. High above the surface they tip and fall through the atmosphere like stars, hitting cities and casting great clouds of dirt into the sky, reddening the moon and darkening the sun. The great overpressures created by the detonations makes the air thrust out and then snap back in on the vacuums created. The people run for shelter in hardened facilities, bunkers and in caves as everything in their world that they know is destroyed. They are under no illusions as to who has let this happen. Cowering in their shelters, they wish that the rocks would fall upon them and hide them from the wrath of a God so angry that he would finally let man unleash his greatest weapons upon himself. The earth trembles, the sun is darkened, the mushroom clouds disperse into the winds, and nuclear winter settles upon the earth...