The city of Jericho, 36 km (16 miles) east of Jerusalem, is the oldest excavated town in the world, lying 260 meters below sea level, thereby making it also the lowest town on earth. Throughout history it was known as the ‘City of Palms’. It early on recorded the firsts in domestication of plants and animals plus the introduction of pottery, even before Egypt and the Babylonian and Assyrian empires. Today, it is rich agricultural area, with fresh fruits, such as dates, bananas and citrus fruit, including a wide variety of vegetables grown.

The archeological evidence about the dating of Jericho and the potential era of the Joshua invasion are dependence upon two noted archeologists, Dr.Garstang M.A., D.Sc., Hon LLD., F.S.A. during 1920-1926 and Dame Katherine Kenyon in the 1950’s. The following is indebted to Michael Sanders and his documentation on Jericho.

The director of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine, during the British Mandate was a Dr. Garstang M.A., Tell Es-Sultan from the Air. D.Sc., Hon LLD., F.S.A. during 1920-1926. During his tenure, his department examined over 100,000 potsherds from Jericho, dating them to the middle of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1400 BCE) This is pretty close to the traditional Exodus date of about 1450 BCE.

Tell Es-Sultan

The city of Jericho in the days of Joshua occupied a site of about 12 acres. Within this virgin site included 80 scarabs which were embossed the cartouches of the Egyptian kings, the latest was Pharaoh Amenhotep III (1413-1377 BCE by conventional dating) the surrounding cemeteries did not have any burial after that date.

According to Dr. Garstang in his book he describes Jericho and the Biblical Story in "Wonders of the Past" 1937).

"Four main epochs in its occupation (referring to Jericho) are attested by that number of separate and successive periods of fortification.........Even the rampart which was constructed in the early bronze age can only be traced in intervals in deep soundings at a depth of about 20ft..........The walls were Babylonian in style.........This period of occupation is to be assigned to the last centuries the third millennium BC say 2300-2000 BC and corresponds therefore with the first Semitic Dynasty of Babylon, the remote age of Hammurabi and Abraham (sic)............ (cited by Michael Sanders at http://www.biblemysteries.com/Lectures.htm

The tell or layers of the city of Jericho described in the following diagram.

Schematic Section through the mound of Jericho. "About 2000 BC the site of Jericho was enclosed by definitive defensive ramparts comprising a stout wall of brick 12-14ft in thickness supported by an inner screen in front.........The area of the city was only about 8 acres.......The city gateway was narrow and near the spring (Now called Elisha's Fountain M.S.S.) and both these features were dominated by a massive guard-house, 60ft by 30ft containing three rooms in the line of the city walls."

"About 1800 BC, A DATE DEPENDING ULTIMATELY UPON EGYPTIAN General Plan. CHRONOLOGY, the city of Jericho was re-fortified upon a more ample scale...The area of Jericho now attained its maximum of about 12 acres. From the standpoint of military architecture the defensive works of Jericho at this time were unparalleled comprising the three fold principal of glacis, parapet and outer fosse.

The expansion and elaborate fortification of the city at this time indicates a period of relative prosperity and the suggestion is borne out by numerous 'finds" both in the city and the necropolis. The art is that of the Hyksos period during which Egypt herself was over-run............

Names of Hyksos leaders are found upon seals both in the tombs and the palace area of the city suggested that some of these personages both resided and died there............. A vast complex of store rooms came into being at that time...........68 such store rooms were examines layer by layer down to their foundations...............Quite a number of the jars had been sealed after the fashion of the age, in the name of Hyksos chieftains........ The whole system was destroyed 1600 BC by a general conflagration, an event which seemed to coincide with the demolition of the cities ramparts, though the evidence as to the date of the latter case is not so complete as to warrant a definite conclusion.........Further extensive damage was done by a landslide, originating presumably in an earthquake which broke one of the main walls in two and brought the brickwork of this and other walls toppling down in large masses.” (cited by Michael Sanders at http://www.biblemysteries.com/Lectures.htm

The archeologist carefully removed the debris from the remains at Jericho and this is what they found. The walls of the city were tilted forward with deep fissures and displaced from its base. There was the suggestion that the ramparts had collapsed which would be highly suspect as caused by a deep trenched earthquake.

"This disaster was accompanied also by local fires which completely charred and cracked Fissured and fallen walls of Ancient Jericho the bricks and the contents of the surviving rooms..............

"The tombs of the Hyksos period were the most numerous and complete in the whole necropolis......Putting the evidence from the necropolis by the side of the discoveries of the city, we conclude the latter was captured and its fortifications dismantled at the close of the Hyksos period i.e. soon after 1600 BC but that it was soon restored and a local dynasty reinstated as a vassal of Imperial Pharaohs. This state of things endured uninterruptedly until the earthquake at the end of the 16th century involved a reconstruction of the buildings and as it were ushered in a new archaeological period, that is of the late bronze age (c 1500 BC.......conventional dating).

"We come now to the last phase in the history of Bronze Age Jericho. The buildings of this period in the palace area and their contents are found to have been consumed by an intense conflagration which has left them embedded in a knee deep deposit of white ash covered by blackened debris..... Happily again the evidence from the tombs as regards this period is complete and satisfactory. The 15th century BC is represented by hundreds of intact specimens; their stratification is undisturbed and their continuity is attested by the discovery at appropriate levels of further Royal scarabs, notably one of Thuthmose III, the successor of Queen Hatshepsut in tomb 5 and two of Amenhotep III in tomb 4............the last names Pharaoh ruled from about 1411-1375 (conventional chronology) and with his reign the deposits in the tombs and the city alike come to an abrupt end.

"Only a handful of specimens represent the ensuing centuries in vivid contrast to the full series of 1,851 pottery objects and 160 scarabs which cover the period of time from the beginning of the Hyksos period down to this Pharaohs reign. It is then established that the normal life of the city of Jericho and the parallel use of the tombs in the adjoining necropolis ceased utterly around 1400 BC (conventional dating).....

"As to the nature of the collapse of the walls and the probable cause of the catastrophe, the indications are fairly clear..........The indications are those of earthquake and it would be difficult to find any other explanation to account for a catastrophe on so large a scale..........

"We reach then the following conclusions;

a) The city perished while in active occupation.

b) Buildings and their contents were consumed by fire of exceptional intensity.

c) The Ramparts fell at the same time as the adjacent houses and the state of their ruins points to earthquakes.

d) The date of the fall of Jericho was about 1400 BC

(Cited by Michael Sanders at http://www.biblemysteries.com/Lectures.htm

So in spite of the doubters and the critics, the most eminent archaeologist of his day had shown the Biblical account of the Conquest of Jericho to be accurate and confirming the Biblical account of its destruction.

And so things stood for twenty years until Dame Kathleen Kenyon came along and destroyed the illusion and in so doing inadvertently confirmed the revised chronology and Burnt timbers of an Early Bronze Age building the exact scenario as laid down by the Biblical account.

Garstang’s findings however caused a number of difficulties for Egyptologists. If the conquest took place during the XVIIIth dynasty of Egypt, where was the evidence of building in the Delta by the Children of Israel during this era? Further the date of the Exodus was still preferred to be in the XIXth dynasty and Garstang's results just did not fit.

The problem continued to baffle the experts until the 1950s when the site was re-examined by Dame Katherine Kenyon under the joint sponsorship of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, The American School of Oriental Research, also in Jerusalem, the Palestine Exploration Fund, the British Academy and the Royal Ontario Museum.

Her analysis of the site caused her to completely re-assess Professor Garstang's findings. She concluded that the double wall of his last (fourth) City could not be dated to 1400 BCE in the Middle Bronze Age but rather to the Early Bronze Age (EBIII) which she dated as terminating around 2100BC, a difference of some 700 years.

So Katherine Kenyon concluded that it just could not possibly be connected to the invasion of Joshua. Further she found that in her view Jericho was not even occupied for at least 150 years before 1400BC. She claimed:

"that almost all traces of the Late Bronze Age town of the time of Joshua had been destroyed by erosion." (Archaeology in the Holy Land p. 332).

Kenyon claimed that the town had been destroyed by fire and earthquake, but in c. 1580BC at the end of the MBII period. She stated that a convenient date for the end of the Middle Bronze Age is the rise of the XVIIIth dynasty in Egypt in 1567 BC (the accepted conventional chronology) when Egypt drove back the Asiatics and began to recover her control over Syria.

The destruction therefore of the walls which she found were later than the latest of Garstang's last town, was caused by the Egyptians following the expelled Hyksos into Palestine. But Jericho is in a very strange location for such an Egyptian invasion. Yes, it guards the entrance of Palestine from Moab, but it is not on any main North - South route. It is very unlikely indeed that an Egyptian invader would bother with the city of Jericho.

"At Jericho, the evidence for the destruction is even more dramatic. All the Middle Bronze Age buildings were violently destroyed by fire. The stumps of the walls are buried in the debris collapsed from the upper stories and the faces of these stumps and the floors of the rooms are strongly scorched by fire. This destruction covers the whole area about 52 meters by 22 meters." (Archaeology in the Holy Land p. 181).

"The stratigraphical evidence suggests in itself that there was a gap in occupation at Jericho. This is confirmed by a gap in the occupation of tombs in the cemeteries. Burials cease in all the tombs in the northern cemetery at the end of the Middle Bronze Age. There is a similar break in those in the western cemetery. But in the latter area, five were found to contain deposits belonging to the Late Bronze Age." (Archaeology in the Holy Land p. 182)

These Katherine Kenyon dated to around 1375-1300BC which is still before the time she would date Joshua.

"The evidence from the 1952-8 excavations at Jericho indicates that there was a Late Bronze Age (LB) town there in the 14th century which might have been attacked by Joshua, but nothing survives to illustrate the Biblical account. It also suggests that if this destruction followed by 600 years of abandonment was the work of the Israelite tribes under Joshua, it is not likely to have been later than c.1300BC which is difficult to reconcile with a flight from Egypt c. 1260 BC." (Archaeology in the Holy Land p.182).

In one fell swoop she proves the Biblical account of Joshua to be a myth, discounts both the accepted XVIIIth and XIXth dynasty theories for the origin of the Exodus, finds no evidence for the occupation of the King of Moab and nothing from the time of Ahab. Garstang's meticulous work is all for naught.

Let us try to sum up exactly what Katherine Kenyon did find. She discovered that at the end of the EBIII there was a wall described so dramatically by Garstang as the one destroyed by fire and earthquake.

"Newcomers who were presumably the authors of the destruction settled in considerable numbers in the area but they did not build for themselves a walled town.”

“In the intermediate Early Bronze-Middle there are two bodies. As a result there are an enormous numbers of tombs of this period. All energy and constructive ability seems to have been directed towards habitation for the dead instead of the living."

She found another major destruction of the site by fire at the end of the Middle Bronze period.

"The MBII town was at an early stage defended by a free standing wall......... after five successive building stages this type of defense was succeeded by one in which the important element was an artificial bank; at Jericho this again had three stages." (Archaeology in the Holy Land p. 164)

After this was destroyed there is just some limited evidence of occupation during the Late Bronze Age and after that NOTHING. For those who had read the early history of Jericho in the Bible and were sophisticated archaeologists and Egyptologists, the three stories just did not fit one another.

Let us therefore, as an experiment try and resolve the situation by using a simple technique. Using only the words of Garstang and Kenyon, the words of the Biblical account and the accepted history of Egypt but LEAVING OUT THE ABSOLUTE DATES WHICH ARE SOLELY BASED ON EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY, does the story fit?

There are two possible positions for the conquest of Joshua; either the wall which Garstang suggested but which Kenyon stated was EBIII, or another wall which Kenyon discovered from a later age, but which she claimed was still too early at the end of MBII.

The problem with this second wall is that nothing much came after it and we need, for the Biblical account to fit, at least two periods of occupation. If Garstang's wall is the wall of Joshua, Kenyan's wall is the final wall of a series which started with the gradual occupation by the Benjamites, their expulsion by the King of Moab, the re-occupation by the Benjamites and then the final burning by the other tribes of Israel.

The Hyksos (sic) remains are those of the inhabitants living there BEFORE the Exodus PRIOR to their moving into Egypt. The last Egyptian tombs therefore must be those of the Egyptians living in Canaan just after the time of Hiel, who were probably instrumental in giving advice on the protection of the Northern Kingdom from invasion by Moab and of course the power of Judah in the South.

John J. Bimson has written extensively on the timing of the Exodus (Redating the Exodus and Conquest: Sheffield 1978 and in the S.I.S. Review) and has come to a different conclusion as did Rohl (Pharaohs and Kings). They place the destruction by Joshua at the end of MBII.

Bimson presents as evidence the fact that:

1) The City was burnt

2) That multiple burials were present were present "very late in the history of the Middle Bronze Age" which he links to the plague the Israelites experienced just prior to their invasion of Jericho.

3) That some tombs contained well preserved bodies due possibly to the release of natural gas containing methane and carbon monoxide which was caused possibly by an earthquake.

This proposal whilst tempting ( but which was soundly condemned by Baruch Halpern in a critique in the Biblical Archaeological Review....just after which he reviewed my chronology without finding any such problems) on the surface suffers from a number of problems.

1) Of course the occupation by Eglon of Moab has to be ignored.

2) The destruction by fire of all the cities of the Benjamites has to be ignored.

3) He has, when comparing other destructions at the end of MBII throughout the land of Palestine, to continually switch from the hypothesis that it was an Israelite destruction to that of Thuthmose III destruction.

For example Lachish was destroyed by fire at the end of MBII, but the Biblical account precludes such an event. Thuthmose III is then introduced as the candidate. In some way both the Exodus and the invasion of Thuthmose III seemed to have occurred around the same time, a very strange hypothesis indeed.

There can be no doubt that the MBII destructions in many Palestine towns on a route of an Egyptian invasion were caused by Thuthmose III. Those destructions which took place at about this time and not on the invasion route (like Jericho) must have been by another agency and we have a very likely candidate for Jericho.

The evidence is clear. Garstang was correct in his identification of the wall Joshua attacked and Kenyon was correct in dating this event to be the end of EBIII. They were of course both wrong in their absolute dating which was based on an erroneous Egyptian chronology. But then that is the solution to ALL the anomalies and problems found extensively on most sites in the Near East.

Next week we will review the latest work on Jericho and sum up the evidence that Jericho confirms in all its aspects the Biblical Account.

Jericho-Tell Es Sultan © Michael S. Sanders 1987

Stratum	Description	Conventional Explanation	Revised Explanation
Town A. EB III Conventional date 2500-2100 Revised date 1775-1452	Walled fortified city whose walls were rebuilt at least 16 times in the whole early Bronze age period	Pre-Patriarchal era. Time of independent city states.	Canaanite City
Destruction by earthquake and fire.	Intermediate Period EBIII/IV two catastrophes close together	Destruction everywhere in Near East. 2nd destruction by invasion of enemies.	1st destruction same event which causes Exodus catastrophes. 2nd destruction Joshua's blast.
Town B MBI Conventional Date 2100-1900 Revised Date 1452-1399	This and all other towns in Canaan show occupation by a completely new people after an Intermediate time of living in tents.	Arrival of the nomadic Amorites followed by more settled invaders.	Invasion by Joshua and the Children of Israel. Garrison of Benjaminites in spite of law against occupation.
Town C, Palace I. MBII Conventional Date 1900-1500 Revised Date 1399-1185	City reaches maximum size of 12 acres expanded from earlier 8 acres. At an early stage defended by free standing wall and then three successive building phases.	Urban Semitic culture derived from coastal Canaanite and Phoenician culture. Under a ruling warrior aristocracy compared to the Hyksos in Egypt.	1. Eglon smote Israel and "possessed" the City of Palms 2.. Occupation by Eglon King of Moab. 3. Expulsion of Moabites by Ehud 4. Re-Occupation by garrison of Benjaminites
Destruction	City violent destroyed	Egyptians chasing Hyksos out of Egypt	Final burning by Israel revenge against the Tribe of Benjamin.
Town C, Palace II. LBI-II Conventional Date 1525-1425 Revised Date 1185-1022	Very Little evidence of a town, no fortifications of note	Canaanite Town. Tombs have many Egyptian scarabs from Thuthmose III through Amenhophis III abruptly ending	Thuthmose helps Deborah in her battle with Sisera, hence Egyptian influence in the area at this time.
Town D. LBIII Conventional Date 1400-1200 Revised date 1022-915	Little evidence of a town Mostly "eroded"		Meager occupation, David asked men to tarry there.
Final Destruction of Town.	Very little evidence of anything	Invasion By Sea Peoples	No evidence of anything
Iron Age II	Massive Building found	No Explanation	Building by Hiel, time of Ahab

The first category has been spearheaded by archaeologists in the group "Associates for Biblical Research" Dr. David Livingston, the founder and Dr. Bryant Wood an expert in the dating of ancient pottery.

They both accept the conventional chronology and believe the solution to the problem is different for each of the sites. As far as Ai is concerned, Dr. Livingston suggests that the identification of the site itself is in error and that Ai should instead be identified with a site "1 kilometer east of El-Bireh". (The Westminster Theological Journal XXXIII) He has done extensive work to try and prove his case to the orthodox scholars, so far without much success.

Dr. Wood on the other hand has suggested in a widely quoted paper in the prestigious Biblical Archaeological Review (16:2 1990), that Dame Kathleen Kenyon was wrong in her assessment of the site and that the town which she dated to the Middle Bronze Age should in fact be dated to the late Bronze Age. Thus it would confirm the Biblical account exactly. The end of the Late Bronze Age being dated by conventional chronology at 1400 BC.

His argument involved four separate pieces of evidence which he claimed were either not known or ignored by Kenyon.

1) The Pottery. Wood suggests that Kenyon both misinterpreted the type of pottery not found and ignored the pottery that was found. This is not the place to go deeper into the argument but it has to be noted that the position of Wood were rebutted by the foremost living expert on Jericho, Piotr Bienkowski in a later edition of the Biblical Archaeological Review (16:5 1990). (I will put Wood's complete argument in the library when we have the relevant permissions).

2) The Scarabs. John Garstang had found a small series of scarabs in his excavation of the cemetery at Jericho. They covered the period from the XIIIth to the XVIIIth dynasty and then ended. A very small sample (only four scarabs) was from the XVIIIth dynasty and two were from Amenhotep III (conventional date c 1386-1349 BC ). Wood from this meager evidence surmises that the cemetery was in use until the end of the Late Bronze Age. Others have suggested that scarabs because of their value were often kept for long periods of time as keepsakes and those they are, for that reason alone, not very reliable markers or time.

3) A carbon 14 dating sample which was taken from the final destruction layer of the city and dated 1400 BC plus or minus 40 years. The location of the find has been disputed and it is very dangerous to accept just one carbon dating sample anywhere at any time.

4) The Stratigraphy. Perhaps Wood's strongest argument. I will quote him in full from his Biblical Archaeological Review paper.

" ....... Kenyon was able to identify many different occupational phases during the Bronze Age at Jericho. Middle Bronze III, the last sub-period of Middle Bronze, lasted from about 1650 to 1550 BCE. The beginning of the Middle Bronze III phase at Jericho can be fixed quite confidently at Kenyon's Phase 32. From Phase 32 to the end of the life of City IV, Kenyon identified 20 different architectural phases, with evidence that some of these phases lasted for long periods of time, over the course of the 20 phases there were three major and 12 minor destructions. A fortification tower was rebuilt four times and repaired once, followed by habitation units that were rebuilt seven times. If Kenyon were correct that City IV met its final destruction at the end of the Middle Bronze Period (c. 1550 BCE), then all these 20 phases would have to be squeezed into a mere 100 years (Middle Bronze III). It is hardly likely that all of this activity could have transpired in the approximately 100 years of the Middle Bronze III period."

Wood's conclusion is that the 20 phases must have taken a substantially longer period of time and therefore accepting Kenyon's date for the beginning of the series the logical conclusion is that it must have lasted until 1400 BC, his date for the conquest. Our conclusion however is much more logical. The Middle Bronze Age is the age of the Judges and that very satisfactorily answer the questions of both the time period and the constant changing of the site.

There is of course a larger question for both Livingston and Wood. If the problems between the archaeology and the Biblical account were restricted to just Ai and Jericho, then one would have to take great pause. The problem however is much wider. Practically none of the sites in Israel show that there were any cities of substance during the Late Bronze Age and worse those that did exist were not destroyed in the way the Biblical account describes. Hence both Livingston and Wood have an immense task in re-evaluating practically every archaeological site in the Holy Land. A task which we think is admirable in its objective but futile in the long run.

The second approach to tackling the problem of the disparity between the archaeological evidence and the Biblical account is to dispute the existing chronology but come up with a different solution to the one we have proposed.

Conclusion to the Date of Jericho - Michael Sanders

That approach is the one taken by Dr. John Bimson (Redating the Exodus and Conquest) and David Rohl (Pharaohs and Kings, A Biblical Quest). Their solution is to have the conquest take place at the end of the Middle Bronze Age as opposed to our proposal that it took place at the end of the Early Bronze Age.

There are three main objections to that solution.

1) Not all the archaeological sites in the Holy Land confirm the Biblical story when that solution is taken into account. For example Ai did not exist as a city in the Middle Bronze Age and there are problems with the way other cities were abandoned or destroyed that do not fit the Biblical account.

2) They have to conveniently forget parts of the Biblical account in order to have their solution fit. The fact that there were two burnings at Jericho has to be ignored if the final burning coinciding with the conquest was at the end of the Middle Bronze Age. Where for example was the burning of ALL the cities of Benjamin described in Judges 20: 34-47 ?

[Judges 20:48] And the men of Israel turned back against the Benjaminites, and smote them with the edge of the sword, men and beasts and all that they found. And all the towns which they found they set on fire.

3) Their solution to the conquest problem does not solve the absence of any archaeological evidence for the migration after the Exodus into Canaan during the Middle Bronze Age. Only during the interval between the Early Bronze Age and the Middle Bronze Age is there substantial archaeological evidence of such a migration.

2. The Lesser Davidic Catastrophe – 1025 BCE and

Jonathan captures the Philistine garrison near Geba

Jonathan, the prince of Israel, was the heir apparent to the throne. He was a skillful archer and a great warrior. Jonathan was also the best of friends to the enemy of the state, David, also a renowned warrior and an accomplished musician of the harp and stringed instruments.

The Nation of Israel under the kingship of Saul, the father of Jonathan was constantly in military engagements and battles with the Philistines. With David, who once stood in the court of King Saul and soothed his violent temper with the music of the harp, life was now not looking good, for this valiant warrior was now a mercenary in the Philistine army. What we see are possible two separate accounts, of friends, at war against each other of an earthquake and calamity, both in different circumstances and accepting this earthquake as a deliverance from God.

Jonathan and the Philistine Route

I Samuel 14:1, 4-5, 11-15 - “Now it happened one day the Jonathan the son of Saul said to the young man who bore his armor, ‘Come, let us go over to the Philistines’ garrison that is on the other side.’ But he did not tell his father.’….Between the passes, by which Jonathan south to go over to the Philistines; garrison, there was a sharp rock on one side and a sharp rock on the other side. And the name of one was Bozez, and the name of the other Seneh. The front of one faced northward opposite Michmash, and the other southward opposite Gibeah.

So both of them showed themselves to the garrison of the Philistines. And the Philistines said, ‘Look, the Hebrews are coming out of the holes where they have hidden. Then the men of the garrison called to Jonathan and his armor bearer, and said, ‘Come up to us, and we will show you something,’

Jonathan said to his armor bearer, ‘Come up after me, for the Lord has delivered them into the hand of Israel. And Jonathan climbed up on his hands and knees with his armor bearer after him, and they fell before Jonathan. And as he came after him his armor bearer killed them. That first slaughter which Jonathan and his armor bearer made was about twenty men within about half an acre of land.

And there was trembling in the camp, in the field, and among all the people. The garrison and the raiders also trembled; and the earth quaked, so that it was a very great trembling.”

Possibly at the same time, David, born about 1041 BCE, was about 21years old, a hunted villain by the king’s men of Saul, living for a time under Achish, the king of Gath (1 Sam 21:10-12, fleeing later to the cave of Adullam (1 Sam 22:1) Rejoicing over his deliverance from Saul, David composed a Psalms of deliverance by the Lord.

The Deliverance of David/ portrayal of Time of the End Deliverance

2 Sam 22:8-18, Psalms 18– “Then the earth shook and trembled (earthquakes); The foundations of heaven quaked (celestial quakes) and were shaken, because He was angry. Smoke went up from His nostrils (volcanic eruptions), and devouring fire from His mouth; coals were kindled by it.

He bowed the heavens (warping space and time) also, and came down with darkness under His feet. He rode upon a cherub (the flying vehicle in which four cherubim carried the throne of God), and flew; and He was seen upon the wings of the wind; He made darkness canopies around Him, dark waters and thick clouds of the skies from the brightness before Him coals of fire (coals always were burning under the throne of God) were kindled.

The Lord thundered from heaven, and the Most High uttered His voice; He sent out arrows (bolides) and scattered them (meteor showers); lightning bolts (celestial lightning), and He vanquished them. The channels of the sea were seen (oceanic rift systems), The foundations (continental tectonic plates) of the world were uncovered.

3. The Pestilence of King David – 972 BCE. (1016 BCE – Setterfield)

The timing was perfect. The last Passover of Mars had been 108 years earlier in the days of King David on October 25, 972 BCE. King David was at the end of his illustrious reign. According to the Adventist chronologer, Edwin R. Thiele, the “Solomon’s ascendancy was in 971 BCE, the year of David’s death.” (Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Erdmann Publishing Co., 1965, p. 2905)

Astronomer Setterfield takes exceptions to this date, stating that the dates of 971for the death of David assumes that the Assyrian chronology which has a gap of 51 years prior to 763 BC is correct, but does give longer co-regencies to the kings of the Divided monarchies than expected.

The kingdom of David though was in turmoil. They also, in the waning years of their revered yet weakened king were expecting the approach of Baal-Mars to again approach in the eastern sky. In an unpublished manuscript of Charles McDowell, “A History of Middle East Catastrophes, 1500-972 B.C.”, he wrote,

“In the closing days of David’s reign, a tense international situation developed. Baal/mars was again expected to closely approach the earth. According tot eh Patten-Hatch model of orbital movement, Mars approached the earth every two years, coming successively closer each time. At 1000 B.C., the planets may have been within 8,000,000 miles of each other. By 972 B.C. the distance was probably reduced to 150,000 miles.

Under these circumstances, no government could exercise real authority. Destruction from the close encounter of the planets could destroy cities, and armies, navies, perhaps decimate whole coastlines. Who would escape the destruction? Nations began to arm themselves for the looting and pillaging that they knew must certa8inly come from marauding bands of warriors on the land and on the sea. Civil authority would break down in many places. In the context the Philistines began a revolt. (1 Chronicles 21)” (Charles McDowell, A History of Middle east Catastrophes, 1500-972 B.C., Unpublished manuscript, cited by Hatch, Patton ob cit. Dr. McDowell is the chairman of the department of geography and history, Cuyahoga Community College, Parma, Ohio)

Just prior to this passover of Mars, King David seeking to prepare his people, undertook a census in the United Monarchy of Israel. Even the military commander Joab protested, refusing in the end to count the tribe of Levi and Benjamin.

1 Chronicles 21:3 - “But my lord the king, are they not all my lord’s servants? Why then does my lord require this thing? Why should he be a cause of guilt in Israel?

The census prevailed, and the number of ‘men who drew the sword’ in Israel was 1,100,000 men and in Judah 470,000 men. The Lord of hosts was displeased and sent the seer of David with this word, David would be punished, yet a choice would be given.

· Three years of famine

· Three months of war and be defeated by the sword of the enemy

· Three days, the sword of the Lord, the plague in the land, with the angel of the Lord, destroying throughout all the territory of Israel.” (1 Chronicles 14:12)

King David chose to put himself at the mercy of the Lord of hosts.

2 Samuel 24:15 – “So the Lord sent a plague upon Israel from the morning till the appointed time. From Dan to Beersheba seventy thousand men of the people died. And when the angel stretched out His hand over Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the destruction….And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”

In Hebrew ‘plague’ or ‘pestilence’ comes from the word, deber, from the root dabar, translated, murrain, pestilence or plague. According to Hatch, it was meteoritic, representing a Mars-asteroid dump on the earth, in which Mars in its two years Passover cycle was close to 120,000 miles from the earth during broad daylight in the early afternoon. (Hatch, Ibid, p. 170)

Let us consider the events at this time. In about 980 BCE, David felt compelled to build a sanctuary, a temple to the Lord. It was to be a monumental building, a wonder of the world. Knowing the construction time of ten to fifteen years for such a building, he wisely obeyed the words of Nathan the prophet of the Lord that Solomon, not he should build the temple. Also knowing the hand of the Lord guiding in this decision, this temple, half built would have been truly destroyed in this meteoritic shower of cosmic bolides.

The Tunguska Explosion as seen from Kirensk, 240 miles away.

The Nation of Israel was truly devastated by explosion of bolides destroying larger areas such as the 1908 Tunguska Explosion over Siberia, when a stone meteorite exploded in the atmosphere. About 110 miles from the explosion site, the object was seen in the cloudless, daytime sky as a brilliant, sunlike fireball; thunderous noises were heard.

The moment of explosion over Vanavera near the site

A meteoritic shower over the land would devastate smaller areas of habitation, setting fires to the plains and forests, triggering earthquakes which would collapse houses and city walls and the population would be devastated by fear with many cardio-pulmonary arrests.

Scholars have assumed that a depopulation of 70,000 men in an estimated population of about 4,000,000 at the time of David would have left about 200,000 deaths, or 5% of the population dying the year before David’s death. Compare this with the United States census of 287,758,639 in 2000 CE, such a catastrophe would leave 1,438,793 people dead in America.

4. Elijah’s Barbecue on Mount Carmel

Mount Carmel very early in history was a sacred hill to both the worshippers of Yahweh and Baal. About 1800 feet about the Mediterranean Sea, the vistas are beautiful and elevating. Since 1156 CE, the Order of the Carmelites have maintained a monastery on the mount.

It all began in the reign of King Ahab of Israel (874/3-853 BCE) and Jezebel, the Tyrenean princess, daughter of Ethabaal, king of Phoenicea and Tyre in 898 to 866 BCE. Her lineage went all the way back to the great King Hiram, the friend of Solomon, who supplied the architects and builders plus the cedars of Lebanon for the Temple of Solomon. This illustrious lineage went from:

Jezebel, daughter of

Ethabaal, king of Phoenicia (898-866 BCE), son of

Ashtaram, king of Phoenicia (908-898 BCE) son of

Methu-Ashtart, king of Phoenicia (920-908 BCE), son of

Abd-Ashtart, king of Phoenicia (928-920 BCE) son of ,

Baal-maanzer, king of Phoenicia (946-928 BCE), son of

Hiram, king of Phoenicia and Tyre (980-946 BCE), son of

Abi-baal, king of Tyre who died about 980 BCE.

During the reign of Ahab and Jezebel, the orthodox believers in Yahweh were severely persecuted by the priests of Baal and so Elijah, guided by the spirit of the Lord presented himself in the throne room of Ahab, sitting on his ivory throne. Jezebel, as the daughter of Ethabaal, king of Tyre, was not only the ranking queen, adopted according to the marriage peace pacts with their neighboring states, had now assumed the Phoenician custom of co-regent of the Nation of Israel, a position not allowed by women in the Hebrew commonwealth. Israel was in the process of evolving into a Phoenician state with the national religion of Baal as the state religion.

There on the mount, a vast convocation of the citizens of Israel watched a drama between the 450 priests of Baal and Elijah, the founder of the School of the Prophets. He yelled out to the people, “How long will you falter between two opinions. If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him” (1 Kings 18:21) The people remained silent, transfixed and in trembling awe.

Expectation was high. Two altars, two bulls cut in pieces laying on two bundles wood built as a wood pier, two trenches, yet no fire.

The goal: the priests of Baal would invoke the god of Baal-Mars. The planetary scene was also searched intently in the eastern sky. From the rising of the sun to the mid-day October sun, the priests of Baal plead and invoked with incantation and rituals. By noon, Elijah, began to mock them, “Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is meditating, or he is busy or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened.” (18:27) Then out came the lances and sabers and knives and the ritual of piercing and cutting the skin began in earnest with blood gushing and dripping upon the altar. The day was almost past, they began to prophecy, continuing the ritual until “the offering of the evening sacrifice. And there was no voice; no one answered, no one paid attention.” (18:29)

Then Elijah called the people to come close to the mount. He carefully avoided the altar of Baal and began to rebuild the legitimate altar to the Lord of hosts that was sitting on the mount. Yes, the people of the Lord had legitimate altar built to offer sacrifice to God on the high places. (1 Kings 2:2-4) Before the temple was built in Jerusalem, Solomon went to offer a thousand burnt offerings of the altar of the high place of Gibeon.

With twelve stones Elijah built an altar, two bundles of wood also built like a wooden

pier, the bull cut up and a trench big enough to hold two measures (seahs) of grain. To the twelve stones, he called “Israel”, jarring their memory that a united Israel was the pattern of government for the Lord of hosts, not Israel as a vassal of a foreign state, the Nation of Phoenicia.

Elijah then instructed the people to bring four water pots filled with water from the River Kishon which flowed from the northeast of the mount. The water was poured over the offering, four more were added and then an additional four pots were added. The dry parched earth, from three and one-half years of drought, soaked the water down to the bedrock of the Mount Carmel. The altar was grounded to the subterranean water level, making a receptacle for the cosmic energy of a vast energy flux or bolide.

I Kings 18:38-39 - “Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood and the stones and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench. Now when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, The Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God!”

The altar of the Lord, built on a high place, properly grounded with water soaking down to the subterranean bedrock, became properly grounded for the Lord of hosts. Was Baal-Mars the planetary warrior on proper course? If Mars had streaked overhead at that time would the people have worshipped the Lord of hosts or would they give Baal a belated credit.

Quickly under the instructions of Elijah, all four hundred and fifty priests, who had maintained an oppressive control over the population of Israel, were caught before they could escape and were slaughtered at the northern base of Mount Carmel along the River Kishon. What a blood bath!

It is simple to suggest that we have an interplanetary energy flux that was formed between two iron core laden planets swooping by each other about 150,000 to 200,000 miles away. The timing was right for another orbital pass. The electromagnetic fields were rapidly charging up with the approach of the planet Mars. But the rest of the story is not told yet.

The celebrating, yet compromised king Ahab, was instructed by Elijah to go eat and drink for the drought was now over. What a relief, the Baal priesthood with its sorcery and witchcraft controlling his government were now destroyed. The king celebrated and Elijah went up to the mount to pray. Pray, yes pray for rain. Six times, Elijah instructed his servant to look towards the western sky, till he finally saw a small cloud in the horizon.

Elijah descended from the mount and went to King Ahab, “Prepare your chariot.” As the black clouds approached, the blinding rain descended with violent winds racing around the chariot, Elijah stayed and guided King Ahab with his steed and chariot to the gates of Jezreel, about 14 miles away.

Jezebel was furious. Her network of satanic controlling priest were destroyed and vengeance was on her mind. Here was the polite and thoughtful prophet. He led the king home for 14 miles in a blinding rainstorm and there the welcoming party was a threat to destroy his life before dawn the next day.

All day on the mount, and after about twelve hours, a blinding bolide from the cosmic spheres rewards the prophet for his faith. He then with the people of Israel, personally slaughters 450 priests of Baal, leaving their corpses to lay by the River Kishon. Then he prays seven times back up on the mount, 1200 feet higher until the approach of rain and then guides the royal steed and chariot in a blinding storm to the gates of the palace at Jezreel.

Without a word of thanks, the concerned and polite prophet now has to flee for his life, making a fast and hasty passage by foot, fearing the palace guards might catch up with him until he reaches the city of Beersheba about 100 miles south in the Negev and outside the long arm of treachery of Jezebel.

Yet he did not stop there. Elijah left his servant and continued to travel, another days journey into the rocky and desolate wilderness of Beersheba and then lay down under a ten foot broom tree, the most shade one could find in the forbidden regions of the desert. Elated, ecstatic, relieved, adrenaline pumping during the violent storm, fear, and exhaustion were every emotion racking the body of the prophet who so valiantly stood up for the Lord of hosts. Against all odd, the cosmic voice of the Almighty in one mighty blast was the only witness of the mighty power of God. And now he wanted to die. Take my life, he prayed to the Lord. Did God answer? No, but when he awakened he was greeted by an inter-dimensional cosmic visitor.

1 Kings 19: 5 – “Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him and said to him “Arise and eat.” Then he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on coals and a jar of water. So he ate and drank and lay down again.

And the angel of the Lord came back the second time, and touched him and said, “Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you.” So he arose, and ate and drank; and he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights as far as Horeb, the mountain of God.

In the study on catastrophes done by Patton, Hatch and Steinhauer, in The Long Day of Joshua and Six other Catastrophes, it is noted events of calamities occurred in the spring or the fall of the year, namely March 25 and October 25. The fall holocausts also are noted to be in cycles of about 108 years per cycle, clearly matching an orbital cycle of a stellar body. These included:

The Deborah-Sisera Debacle October 25, 1188 BCE

The Samuelic Catastrophe October 25, 1080 BCE

The Greater Davidic Catastrophe October 25, 972 BCE

The Elijah Bolide October 25, 864 BCE

The Uzziah-Joel-Amos Earthquake October 25, 756 BCE

Even the little catastrophes in the Hebrew mind were judgments or warnings sent from God. Minor earthquakes occurred often by ancient standards and were not big events. Yet, let us remember in our modern era, any earthquake with any collateral damage is a big event. Here we see the Historian Isaiah comment on two of these historical events:

Isaiah 9:1 – “Nevertheless the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed, as when at first He lightly esteemed the land of Zebulon and the land of Naphtali, and afterward more heavily oppressed her, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, in Galilee of the gentiles.

The confrontation of Elijah with 490 priests of Baal (god of war-Mars) occurred on the Mount Carmel overlooking the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. To the prophet Isaiah, at this time the lands of Zebulon and Naphtali, which were near the mount on the eastern side were “lightly esteemed” or afflicted.

It was customary in the battles of the ancients to have their major battles on a day when the priests, astrologers and seers felt that they would be visited by a cosmic host. While the battle of the gods raged in the heavens, the ancients also battle them out on this planet earth. Which ever side lost in the battle was the one in which the gods or deities did not favor.

Yet the Hebrew philosophy was a little more profound. As the chosen ones of the Lord of hosts, the God of all gods, if they lost the battle, they were being punished by their own God who still remained supreme above all other gods. This was to be a time of reckoning, fasting and sorrow.

On this date of October 25, 864 BCE, there was not to be a military confrontation but a religious-theological confrontation. The question was, ‘Would the real God please stand up?’

Elijah declared that the Lord of hosts was pronouncing judgment upon the Nation of Israel for their apostasy in Baal worship of a drought for three and a half years from 867 to 864 BCE. By appointment, Elijah would confront the priests of Baal to a life or death spiritual and physical battle. Elijah was promptly dismissed from the king’s court and had to flee for his life to another land outside the reach of the search and destroy assassins of the king and queen. Along the coast of the Mediterranean in a small coastal town of Zaraphath, between Tyre and Sidon, Elijah hid at the backdoor of the father of Jezebel, the king of Tyre and Sidon.

Here on Mount Carmel, in the fall of 864 BCE, Elijah as the lone representative of the Lord of hosts had a face to face confrontation with 450 priests and sorcerers of Baal-Mars, whom they directed their incantations and even child sacrifices. This was the beginning of the rainy season and for three years a severe famine had oppressed the land. The curse of God through His servant, Elijah, reigned over the land and the reputation of the priests of Baal was at stake. On the other hand the memory of the meteoritic shower dump over the land of Israel one hundred eight years earlier in the era of David was still vividly in their historical memory.

Carmel, the Mount of God

Surrounding the base of Mount Carmel is the beautiful city called Haifa. It is the most important port city in the Land of Israel. In Hebrew, Haifa means, ‘beautiful shore’. At the time the Mishnah was being written, this city was founded with Greek and Jewish scholars living side by side, teaching each other Hebrew, Greek and Latin.

According to a Midrash, a tzaddik was walking along the shore of Haifa, he thought of an old tradition which told during the time of the messiah (Maschiach), God will build the Eastern Gateway of the Temple (Bais HaMikdash) out of a single pearl. This to him was impossible when suddenly the waters on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea started swirling and the waters parted allowing to him to see angels polishing a giant pearl. The tzadik realize that he was a witness to the gigantic pearl lying in the Haifa harbor that would one day become the Eastern Gate to the Temple of the Lord.

This land around Mount Carmel was initially given to the tribe of Zebulon. As Jacob (Yaakow Avinu) prophesied, "Zebulon (Zevilon) shall dwell by the shore of the sea, he shall be a harbor for ships" (Gen. 49:13) The banner or white flag of the tribe of Zebulon had a picture of ship.

Before Moses (Moshe Rabbaynu) died, he told the Tribe of Zebulon (Zevilon) that treasures would be hidden in their sand. (Deuteronomy 33:19) When the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisroel) was divided and Zebulon was given their inheritance, he discovered the coastline was beautiful white sand, but no treasure was found. They complained that the other tribes has beautiful meadows and vineyards of fruit, but all they had was sand. Not long afterwards is was discovered that sand could be turned into glass and a great glass industry was born. Even today there is a large glass manufacturing plant along the coast near Haifa. (Med. Rab Bamidbar) According to a Greek legend the secret of glassmaking was discovered on the shored of Haifa.

According to the Torah, the “tzitzits”, the fringes that are tied to the corners of the garments were made by a string dyed blue “t’sheless.” This blue dye was manufactured from the blood secretions of a snail found along the coast, called “chilazon.” (Med. Rab Shir 7:11) This rare snail was only found along the coast of Zebulon (Mem. 44a, Shab. 26a) another treasure found along the sands of Zebulon.

Another ancient legend tells of a dog that once brought home a ‘chilazon” in its mouth. Before depositing it in his master’s hand, he bit it and a bluish-purple color began flowing out of the dog’s mouth. The secret of ‘techeles” was discovered. Upon an ancient Phoenician coin is depicts an image of a dog and in front of its mouth is a snail-like mollusk.

Rising above Haifa overlooking the Mediterranean Sea is Mount Carmel most famed for its association with the Prophet Elijah (navi Eliyahu), “zachur latov” During a great drought in the Land of Israel, Eliyahu went to the top of the Mount and prayed for rain. A tiny cloud, the size of a man’s fist rose up over the sea, growing larger and larger filling the sky with dark and boding thunderclouds. (1 Kings 18:42-45)

On the side of that Mount along the sea is a cave that pilgrims come to pray. Many stories it is told of miraculous answers to ‘tefilos’ that were ‘davened’ in this cave.

Three hundred years later after the days of Eliyahy, the Head (Chiel) of Bethlehem rebuilt the city of Jericho. Just as the curse of Joshua (Yehoshua) had stated, all of his children died. (1 Kings 16:34)

When the prophets of Baal were preparing their sacrifice, the wicked Chiel hid inside their altar and if the prayers of the false prophets would go unanswered, the Chiel would secretly light the altar from the inside. Yet before he could, a poisonous snake slithered into the altar and bit him, before He was to deceive the people from believing the false god, Baal. (Med Rab. Shemos 15; 5, Yalkut Milochim 214)

Another legend tells of a day when Eliyahu was very hungry and saw a farmer with a patch of small melons growing at the base of the mountain. Eliyahu asked permission of the farmer to eat one of his melon in which the farmer told him, they were not melons but rocks. Suddenly, all the melon did turn into rocks.

At the base of Mount Carmel are small rocks that when tapped, produce a hollow sound like a melon being tapped. There are some who believe that these magic stone will prevent a woman’s miscarriage and that they are the magic stones, called “tekumah’ mentioned in the Gemorah (Shabbos 66b)

A flower growing on Mount Carmel is called the cyclamen, found in many flower shops around the world today. It is called ‘rakefes” in Hebrew. The flower looks like a small crown. Yet unlike other flower that proudly hold their flowers upwards to the sky, the rakefes bows its petals humbly to the ground. According to legends, the children of Haifa say that the rakefes are waiting for the Moshiach (messiah) to come and the crown of glory will be restored to Israel. Only then will it lift its petals proudly upward.

All along the coastline around Carmel beautiful scenery today with scenic nature trail that beckon the nature lovers.

5. Elijah after the Mount Carmel Burnout on Mount Horeb

1Kings 19:11-12 – “Then He said (to Elijah), ‘Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord,; And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind, and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake, and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.”

Horeb, the Mount of God

While Eliyahu may have lived in the cave on the ocean side of Mount Carmel, scripture states that “he went…as far as Horeb, the mountain of God…and he went out and stood in the entrance of the cave….” (1 Kings 19:18b, 13b) High upon this mount he heard the ‘still small voice of God’ after the Lord of hosts used the mighty earthquake to demonstrate the might of His presence.

Many have suggested that Mount Carmel was the same as Mount Sinai, or Mount Horeb, the mountain of God. Yes they both had caves. The sacred writ states that both Moses (Moshe) and Elijah (Eliyahu) both stayed in a cave.

On top of the above mount, Jabal al Lawz in Saudi Arabia, across from the Strait of Tiran on the Gulf of Aquba is a cave found and photographed by Robert Cornuke of BASE Institute exploring that mount. Is this the cave of Moshe and Eliyahu?

Yet many mounts have caves on top of them.

Mount Har Karkom in the Negev Desert

As demonstrated above while discussing Mount Sinai, Professor Anati has discovered another Sinai mount called Har Karkom in the Negev Desert. Raising to a height of 2,778 feet, deep in the Negev desert near the border of the Sinai Peninsula it also has a cave on its peak.

The Twelve Stones in the Plains near Mount Har Karkom

The mountain top includes a cave at the top, reminiscent when the God spoke to Moses and said,

Exodus 33:22 - “And it shall come to pass, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in a cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand while I pass by”

The Cleft of a Rock

But did not Elijah like Moses visit the Mount of the Lord. Both of them were in the cleft of a Rock. Both of them were given epiphanies and revelations of the Lord of hosts. Where was this mount? Was it Mount Horeb in Midian? Was it Mount Har Karkom? Did Moses and Elijah visit the same mount?

Is it not a coincidence that the two witnesses to Yeshua on the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah are probably the same ‘two witnesses’ that will testify to the saints at the time of the end and pronounce the judgments of the Lord upon the defiant population who will seek to assault the messiah of the Lord of hosts and destroy His people.

6. Earthquake during reign of Azariah (Uzziah)

(792-740 BC) in Jerusalem

Amos 1:1 – “The words of Amos, who was among the sheep breeders of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah (Azaraih – 2 Chronicles 26; Amos 1; Joel 3) king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, (792-53) king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.

This text is of special import, as the Prophet Zechariah, during the rebuilding of the Temple of Zerubbabel made this event a mini-drama in reference to the literal coming of Y’shua, the messiah at the end of time.

Zechariah 14:5 – “And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains…yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah.”

This earthquake, Zechariah was using as a model for the final earthquake prior to the second coming of Christ. It could not be compared to the earthquakes commonly experienced in the tectonic shakings on earth today.

Uzziah, was the longest reigning king of Judah and proud of it. Starting his reign at the age of sixteen, he ruled Judah for fifty-two years. As a testimony, his long reign of peace and prosperity was attributed because he ‘did what was right in the sight of the Lord (2 Chronicles 26:4) and sought God in the days of Zechariah, (the son of Jehoiada, the High Priest (2 Chronicles 24:20-21), who had understanding in the visions (‘fear’ in the Septuagint, Syriac, Targun and Arabic) of God; and as long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper.”

The dates of Uzziah’s reign in 2 Kings 15:20 vary from different scholars. These include:

New King James Version – 792-740 BCE Quake and leprosy in 752 BCE

Patton et all - 791-739 BCE Quake and leprosy in 750 BCE

Hickman CAH 1/86 806-755 BCE Quake and leprosy in 762 BCE

Setterfield 810-758 BCE Quake and leprosy in 770 BCE

His reign was and era of national growth and prosperity. He initially spent in reducing the power and hegemony of the Philistines, including breaking down the fortifications of Gath, Jabneh, and the wall of Ashdod. (Vs. 6) Since this era is tied in principle with the end of times by the prophet Zechariah, we might consider the similarities with the modern attempts of the Nation of Israel to break down the power of the Palestinians in this same region, the Gaza Strip. To counter the Philistine power, he built cities around Ashdod and among the Philistines (Vs. 6), like the Jewish settlements are being placed among the villages of the Palestinian today in the West Bank.

The strength of his political power was measured by Uzziah addressing the political concerns on the southern and eastern borders by curbing the power of the Philistines (2 Chronicles 26:6, 7; Joel 3:3, 4; Amos 1:6-8), the Arabians at Gur Baal, at Tell Ghurr, eight miles east of Beersheba on the Egyptian border, and the Bedouin tribe of the Meunites in Edom (1 Chronicles 4:39-41; 26:6-9)

Bolstered by a standing army of 307,500 ‘men of valor’ and 2,600 officers delegated to separate companies, which his armed forces were given the latest in military armaments of shields, spears, helmets, body armor, bows and slings. Yet Uzziah was also the first to record the use catapults (devices) as a defensive weapons on the corners and towers of Jerusalem. (2 Chronicles 26: 9, 11-15)

And then pride filled his heart, and Uzziah decided to usurp the power of the priest and went into the temple of the Lord to offer incense. Was this by design or because fear engulfed his mind as he watched in desperation as the planet Mars approach this planet on a destructive coarse. There he was confronted by Azariah, the high priest in company with eighty of the priests (Vs. 16-19) and there in defiance he stood before the altar of the Lord and suddenly he broke out in a dermatitis or psoriasis, called leprosy (Leviticus 13:1-14:32), a disease now known as Hansen’s Disease but unknown in biblical times.

Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews elaborated on this event.

Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews - “While Uzziah was in this state, and making preparations (for futurity,) he was corrupted in his mind by pride and became insolent….so he fell by the occasion of the good success of his affairs,…which the splendour of that prosperity he enjoyed, and the glorious actions he had done, led him into, while he was not able to govern himself well about them.

Accordingly, when a remarkable day had come, and a general festival was to be celebrated, he put on the holy garment, and went into the temple to offer incense to God upon the golden altar, which he was prohibited to do by Azariah the high priest, who had fourscore priests with him and who told him that ‘none besides the posterity of Aaron were permitted so to do.: And when they cried out, that he must go out of the temple, and not transgress against God, he was wroth at them and threatened to kill them, unless they would hold their peace.

In the meantime, a great earthquake shook the ground, and rent was made in the temple, and the bright rays of the sun shone through it, and fell upon the king’s face, insomuch that the leprosy seized upon him immediately;’ and before the city, at a place called Eroge; half the mountain broke off from the rest on the west , and rolled itself four furlongs, and stood still at the east mountain, till the roads, as well as the king’s gardens, were spoiled by the obstruction.” (Josephus, Flavius, Antiquities of the Jews, Book IX, Chapter X, 4)

The bright rays shining into the interior of the temple suggest that structural damage was done to the temple proper itself. In Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews, it quotes the rabbinic commentaries on this event, suggests that the ray of sunlight actually caused the leprosy. This is based in haggadic interpretation of the Hebrew word for ‘shone’ as it regards to the sun. (Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, Vol III, p. 303). Ginzberg also comments on the Celestial Fire, as a form of punishment of taking over the divine responsibilities of the priesthood.

Isaiah mentions a time in which

Isaiah 5:25 - “the anger of the Lord is aroused against His people; He has stretched out His hand against them and stricken them, and the hills trembled. Their carcasses were as refuse in the midst of the streets.

Right after this passage, Isaiah mentions another aftershock, or tectonic shifting in the subterranean plates under Jerusalem. When Uzziah was stricken by leprosy, he was removed from active rulership and his son, Jotham, ruled as a co-regent in his place, for about eleven years. (770-758 BCE by Setterfield; 750-739 BCE by Patton et al. p.134)

The tides of magma beneath the earth’s crust during such a catastrophe would cause distortion in the surface of the earth. It would be like a hilly wave going across the landscape. As such, many building would collapse and wall and tower would be destroyed. The Talmud records that Jotham, as the co-regent with his father Uzziah, spent considerable effort to repair the damaged walls and breaches within them. He also did considerable refurbishing to the damaged architecture of the temple. (Patten et al, p. 140)

The Prophecies of Amos the Prophet

It was Amos, the sheep-herder, using a catastrophic event while Uzziah was sole ruler and one the power political players in the middle east. About two years prior to this earthquake, according to Patton, Hatch and Steinhauer in The Long Day of Joshua and Six other Catastrophes, the planet Mars was moving closer and closer to the earth in a two-year resonance orbit with earth.

In the autumn of 758 BCE, under the spell of the fly-by of Mars, only a million miles away Amos predicted that the middle east would within two years feel the celestial wrath with fierce vengeance. This catastrophe would be so severe that he likened it to Sodom and Gomorrah (Amos 4:11), the Exodus Catastrophe in Egypt (Amos 8:8 and 9:5) and the fiery bolides which won the battle for Joshua against the Amorites and the earth’s crust when into a reverse skid or the rotation of the earth slowed to a stop in that dramatic long day (Amos 8:9). It was this catastrophic event that awakened Amos to his prophetic career, as the first of the writing minor prophets.

We might dismiss Amos as a simple herdsman, but the scope of his prophecies are regional to diverse populations of Damascus (1:5) and the city of Gaza (1:6) Zechariah ties into the Amos prophecies in chapters 9 and 10 and speaks of regional disasters in these regions just prior to the future ‘Day of the Lord’. Here we see ‘The Burden of the word of the Lord against the land of Hadrach (Lebanon) and Damascus (Syria)” (9:1) where it states Damascus will be the Lord’s ‘resting place’. But ‘Gaza also shall be very sorrowful; and …the king shall perish from Gaza” (9:5)

Though a simple person, Amos’ global view foresaw a holocaust affecting eight different nations in the Middle East: Ammon, Edom, Moab, Northern Israel, Philistia, Phoenicia (Tyre), Southern Judah and Syria.

Joel (“The Lord is God”); the son of Pethuel (1:1) on the other hand seems to limit his vision of calamity to Judah and Jerusalem. His intimate references to the priests in the Temple suggest that he was also a priest. The catastrophic imagery was still the same as Amos, even though most scholars think that he lived in the pre-exile era before Judah fell into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Was Joel to be dated to about 600 BCE, about 150 years after the book of Amos? Or since the allusions to the neighboring nations are the foes of Judah rather than Assyria, Babylon and the Media-Persian empire, suggest an earlier date with Amos before the international threats of the Assyrians and the dire threats of Sennacherib against Hezekiah in 701 BCE. We would suggest the later.

The prophet Nahum of Elkosh is speaking to the same population that Jonah was speaking, the people of Nineveh, yet it appears to be a different era, well after the fall of Israel to Assyria in 722 BCE. It is more difficult to determine a date for Nahum, but verse 3:8 talks about the fall of No Amon “City of the god Amun’, or the city of Thebes on the Nile delta which fell in 663 BCE to the Assyrians, who occupied Egypt’s capital from 663-654 BCE. This verse seems to be historical rather than prophetic, using not the imagery of an oracle but such words as “that was situated on the River (Nile) or ‘that had the waters around her’ or ‘whose rampart was the sea’. As such, this is predictive of the fall of Nineveh in 612 BCE, three years before the final fall of the Assyrian empire in 609 BCE to the Medes and the Babylonians. This is the era of King Hezekiah in Judah.

Joel and Amos were both prophets, one in Judah and the other in Israel, yet both warning their people, as watchmen of the towers warned the citizens of impending disasters, of the coming judgments of the Lord.

Jonah and Nahum were also prophets giving warning to the citizens of Nineveh. The first warning by Jonah was heeded and they were spared destruction, but they hardened their hearts and destruction soon befell their city also.

Let us look at both of these, the Joel and Amos prophecies, keeping in mind that Zechariah 14 places significant importance to Amos as being a part of the returning messiah.

The Catastrophes as part of God’s future Schedule

The Day of the Lord in Zechariah in chapter 14

Amos 5:18 – “Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! For what good is the day of the Lord to you? It will be darkness and not light.

Amos 5:20 – “Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light? Is it not very dark, with no brightness in it?

Joel 1:15 – “Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is at hand; It shall come as destruction from the Almighty.”

Nahum 1:3 – “The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked. The Lord has His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet.

Earthquakes and the Prophet Amos

Amos 3:15 – “I will destroy the winter house along with the summer house; the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall have an end.”

The different houses may have been different sections of the same palace. The southern sector of the Samaria palace is suggested as the winter house with fireplaces for warmth (Jeremiah 36:22). Ahab was famous for his Ivory Palace (1 Kings 22:39) and excavations in Samaria record numerous beautifully carved ivory plaques similar to those in Syria and Assyria.

Amos 6:11 – “For behold, the Lord gives a command: He will break the great house into bits, and the little house into pieces.

Joel 2:1 – “”Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; for the day of the Lord is coming, for it is at hand.”

Joel 2:10 – “The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble; the sun and the moon grow dark, and the stars diminish their brightness.”

Nahum 1:5 – “The mountains quake before Him, the hills melt (disappear), and the earth heaves at His presence, yes the world and all who dwell in it”

Volcanic Eruptions and the Prophet Amos

Amos 8:9 – “And I will darken the earth in broad daylight.”

Joel 2:30-31 – “And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.”

Nahum 1:5 – The mountains quake before Him, the hills melt (collapse in a volcanic crater)

Bolide (Celestial or Volcanic Debris) and Meteor Showers

And the Prophet Amos

Amos 2:2,5 – “I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the palaces of Kerioth; Moab shall die with tumult, with shouting and trumpet sound…..I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.”

Amos 1:4,7,10,12,14 – “But I will send a fire into the house of Hazael (Damascus)….but I will send a fire upon the wall of Gaza, which shall devour its palaces….But I will send a fire upon the wall of Tyre, which shall devour its palaces….But I will send a fire upon Teman (Edom), which shall devour the palaces of Bozrah….But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah (capital of Ammon/Jordan), and it shall devour its palaces.”

Amos 4:9, 10 – “I blasted you with blight and mildew.”

Joel 2:3 – “A fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns; the land is like the Garden of Eden before them. And behind them a desolate wilderness; surely nothing shall escape them.

Joel 2:5 – “With a noise like chariots over the mountaintops they leap, like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble, like a strong people set in battle array.

Nahum 1:6 – “Who can stand before His indignation? And who can endure the fierceness of His anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by Him.”

Nahum 2:3-4 – “The chariots come with flaming torches in the day of his preparation, and the spears are brandished. The chariots rage in the streets, they jostle one another in the broad roads; they seem like torches, they run like lightning.”

The latter verse adds a new dimension along with Joel 2:5, the chariot. Chariots and Cherubim are synonymous, called in Hebrew, rakab, (Strong’s 7392) meaning to ride in a vehicle or a chariot. Some scholars interpret this word to represent also bolides, but that may limit the meaning in that ‘holy ones’ or angelic warrior may be also involved in these celestial battles and catastrophes in the final day of the Lord.

Fires that devour the land (Prairie Fires) and the Prophet Amos

Amos 5:6 – “Seek the Lord and live, lest He break out like fire in the house of Joseph (the House of Israel or Ephraim), and devour it, with no one to quench it in Bethel.”

Compare with Obadiah 18:

The Possessions of the future Houses of Judah and Joseph

Obadiah 18 – ‘The house of Jacob shall possess their possession. The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame; but the house of Esau shall be stubble; they shall kindle them and devour them, and no survivor shall remain of the house of Esau,’ for the Lord has spoken.

The South shall possess the mountains of Esau,

And the lowlands shall possess Philistia (Gaza Strip)

They shall possess the field of Ephraim (West Bank) and the field of Samaria (Shomron).

Benjamin shall posses Gilead (Syria).

And the captives of this host of the children of Israel shall possess the land of the Canaanites as far as Zarephath (city of Phoenicia (Lebanon) 14 miles north of Tyre).

The captives of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad shall possess the cities of the South (Negev).

Then saviours (Two messiahs) shall come to Mount Zion to judge the mountain of Esau,

And the kingdom shall be the Lord’s. (Y’shua as King of kings and Lo