Revelation's Sixth Seal: Cosmic Cataclysm

Below is the 15th of multiple excerpts of commentary on the Book of Revelation from The Parousia, the late 19th-century masterpiece on the Second Coming by James Stuart Russell: 

"OPENING OF THE SIXTH SEAL [COSMIC CATACLYSM].

"Chap. vi. 12-17 [Rev. 6:12-17].---‘And I beheld when he [the Lamb] 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 (land [Greek: tes ges]), 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?’ [Last verse parallels Malachi 3:2: “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears?..."]

"We now come to the last act of this awful tragedy: the catastrophe which closes the second vision. It may excite surprise that the catastrophe occurs under the sixth seal, and not under the seventh, as we might have expected. But the seventh seal is made the link of connection between the second and the third visions, and is most artistically employed to introduce the next series of seven, viz. [that is,] the vision of the seven trumpets. ...

"No one can fail to observe that nearly every feature in this awful scene occurs in our Lord’s prophecy [in circa A.D. 30] on the Mount of Olives [as recorded in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21] with reference to the coming judgments on the city [of Jerusalem] and nation of Israel [in A.D. 70]. ... 

"It will be proper...to note the correspondence between the symbols in the vision and those in our Lord’s prophetic discourse [in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21]:--- 

"THE SIXTH SEAL: ‘And lo, there was a great earthquake.’ 

"THE PROPHECY ON OLIVET [MOUNT OF OLIVES]: ‘And there shall be earthquakes in divers places’ (Luke xxi.11 [Luke 21:11]; Matt. xxiv. 7 [Matt. 24:7]). [Also Mark 13:8]

SIXTH SEAL: ‘And the sun became black as sackcloth of hair.’ 

OLIVET: ‘Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened.’ [Matt. 24:29, Mark 13:24, parallel at Luke 21:25] 

SIXTH SEAL: ‘And the moon became as blood.’ 

OLIVET: ‘And the moon shall not give her light.’ [Matt. 24:29, Mark 13:24, parallel at Luke 21:25] 

SIXTH SEAL. ‘And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth.’ 

OLIVET. ‘And the stars shall fall from heaven’ [Matt. 24:29, Mark 13:25, parallel at Luke 21:25]

SIXTH SEAL: ‘And the heavens departed as a scroll when it is rolled together.’ 

OLIVET: ‘And the powers of the heavens shall be shaken’ (Matt. xxiv. [24:]29 [Matt. 24:29]) [Also Mark 13:25, Luke 21:26] 

SIXTH SEAL: ‘And the kings, etc., hid themselves, . . .and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us,’ etc. 

‘Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us: and to the hills, Cover us’ (Luke xxiii. 30 [Luke 23:30]). 

"The comparison of these parallel passages must satisfy every reasonable mind that they both refer to one and the same event [namely, the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in A.D. 70]. What that event is our Lord’s words decisively determine: ‘Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled’ (Matt. xxiv. 34 [Matt. 24:34]; also Mark 13:30, Luke 21:32]). ...

"No doubt it will appear an objection to this [historical] explanation that the destruction of Jerusalem, awful as it was, appears inadequate as the antitype [corresponding type] of the [cosmos-shaking] imagery of the sixth seal. The objection applies equally to our Lord’s prophecy [on the Mount of Olives in reference to 1st-century Israel] where His own authority determines the [fitting] application of the [cataclysmic] signs. Indeed it applies to all prophecy: for prophecy is poetry, and Oriental prophecy also, in which gorgeous symbolical imagery is the vesture [clothing] of thought. Besides, the objection is based upon an inadequate estimate of the real significance and importance of the destruction of Jerusalem. That event is not simply a tragical historical incident; it is not to be looked at as in the same category with the siege of Troy or the destruction of Tyre or of Carthage.  It was a grand providential epoch; the close of an aeon [i.e., the Old Covenant age]; the winding up of a great period in the divine government of the world. The material catastrophe [of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple] was but the outward and visible sign of a mighty crisis in the realm of the unseen and the spiritual.

"At the same time it is to observed that the historical facts underlying these symbols are sufficiently real and tangible. The consternation and terror here depicted as seizing on 'the kings of the land, the great men,' etc. are in perfect accord with the scenes in the last days of Jerusalem and described by [the 1st-century Jewish historian] Josephus.  Premising that by 'the kings of the land' ([Greek:] basileis tes ges) are meant the rulers of Judea, as we shall be able to show, we find the prophetic description wonderfully correspondent with the historical facts. The limestone hills of that country are literally honeycombed with caverns, which have been the dens of robbers and the shelter of fugitives from time immemorial. ...[I]t is a fact attested by Josephus that the last hiding-places of the infatuated [foolish] citizens of Jerusalem were the rocky caverns and subterranean passages into which they fled for refuge after the capture of the city:---

"'The last hope,' says Josephus, 'that buoyed up the tyrants [Jewish insurgents] and their brigand bands lay in the subterranean excavations, in which, should they take refuge, they expected that no search would be made for them, and purposed, after the final overthrow of the city, when the Romans should have withdrawn, to come forth and seek safety in flight. But this was after all a mere dream, for they were unable to hide themselves from the observation either of God, or of the Romans.'

"Still more striking, if possible, is the fact mentioned by Josephus, that Simon, one of the chiefs of the rebellion, secreted himself after the capture of the city in one of those subterranean hiding-places. ...

"Thus, with all the symbol and imagery we have at the same time such a basis of historical reality and literal fact as abundantly [needed] to verify the fulfillment of the prophetic vision."

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