(Ezekiel 38:19-22; Revelation 6:14; 9:17-19)
The symbolism of the battle of Armageddon begins in the book of Ezekiel: “In that day there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel … The mountains shall be thrown down … I will rain down on him, on his troops … great hailstones, fire, and brimstone.”1Ezek 38:19-22
From Ezekiel’s description, it seems that God is going to use the whole arsenal of nature. But as we go through the Book of Revelation, we find more and more evidence that these weapons of nature are just metaphors of weapons of mass destruction.
From Revelation 8:5 and 11:13, we understand that an earthquake is a war.
Revelation 6:14 tells us that “the sky was split apart like a scroll when rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.” Here, John gives us a very good description of the effect of a nuclear blast.
The hailstones that Ezekiel mentioned are described by John as “about a talent in weight [about 75 to 100 pounds].”2Rev 16:21 But are these really hailstones, or are they missiles that appear as large hailstones to John?
Finally, Ezekiel describes “fire and brimstone.”3Rev 9:17-19 This was explained in John’s vision of horses in Revelation 9. The riders had breastplates of fire and of hyacinth and of brimstone. The heads of the horses were like the heads of lions. Out of their mouths proceeded fire and brimstone. As early as the 17th century, Joseph Mede concluded that these could only pertain to guns, saying that there is no such description of this anywhere else in the Bible.
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